96 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



creatures had not made their escape and quick- 

 ening the air-plants with a false rain, which in 

 course of time would rot their very hearts. 



But the first few days were only the overture 

 of changes in this shift of conditions. Tropic 

 vegetation is so tenacious of life that it struggles 

 and adapts itself with all the cunning of a Jap- 

 anese wrestler. We cut saplings and thrust them 

 into mud or the crevices of rocks at low tide far 

 from shore, to mark our channel, and before long 

 v/e have buoys of foliage banners waving from 

 the bare poles above water. We erect a tall bam- 

 boo flagpole on the bank, and before long our 

 flag is almost hidden by the sprouting leaves, and 

 the pulley so blocked that we have occasionally 

 to lower and lop it. 



So the fallen tree, still gripping the nutritious 

 bank with a moiety of roots, turned slowly in 

 its fibrous stiffness and directed its life and sap 

 and hopes upward. During the succeeding weeks 

 I watched trunk and branches swell and bud out 

 new trunks, new branches, guided, controlled, 

 by gravity, light, and warmth; and just beyond 

 the reach of the tides, leaves sprouted, flowers 

 opened and fruit ripened. Weeks after the last 

 slow invertebrate plodder had made his escape 



