368 FOREST SCENERY. 



their stony houses, while crabs, of every form, were found 

 concealed in corners, greedy, rapacious, and devouring. 



There is some very fine forest scenery in Celebes. I have 

 wandered several times in the uninhabited parts of the 

 coasts for whole days, with no other company than my 

 own thoughts, and the sights and sounds of nature. I have 

 already endeavoured to picture the forests of Borneo : 

 those of Celebes are very similar. The trunks and 

 branches of the trees here, as elsewhere in the Tropics, 

 are covered with Bauhinia, and other huge climbing 

 plants, which suspend themselves, like monstrous serpents, 

 from the trees, twisting their folds sometimes so tight as 

 to strangle and eventually destroy the plants they em- 

 brace ; on every side you notice that fragrant 



" parasites 



Starr'd with ten thousand blossoms, flow around 

 The grey trunks;" 



gigantic Lycopodiacece, or club mosses, are frequently 

 met with, rearing their elegant heads from among the 

 damp beds of decaying leaves ; the prostrate trunks are 

 covered with Opegrceplia, and other Lichenoid plants, 

 which spread their distempered-looking thatti over the 

 loose bark ; while on the shaded side, and often concealed 

 by the tree, minute and delicately formed Fungi of the 

 most extravagant forms, live their little hour, and are 

 succeeded by a crop equally as ephemeral. Bamboo 

 thickets are common in some parts, and the slender 

 branches, and light quivering leaves, produce those pecu- 

 liar changing shadows you often see in dense forests where 

 the sun partially shines through the foliage ; a fact which 

 did not escape the observant eye of the Bard of Avon ; 



