A DEEP GORGE 239 



time to observe anything around us, lest a tree root or a slippery 

 place should trip us up. At two-fifteen we came to an open 

 clearing, and thought our difficulties were over, but presently 

 we plunged into denser forest than ever, and up and down 

 rougher paths. Notwithstanding the danger of looking about, 

 it was impossible to avoid admiring the luxuriance of the 

 vegetation. Many of the trees were enormously high, and so 

 buttressed round their trunks that they were of great girth at 

 the ground. The tree-ferns seemed especially large, with an 

 unusual number of fronds ; and the creeper bamboo festooned 

 the large trees with its delicate pinnate leaves. 



It soon became evident that we were descending, and that 

 pretty rapidly. For a considerable distance we had a stream 

 on our left hand, which roared and foamed over a succession 

 of rapids, going to the south-east ; and every now and then we 

 caught glimpses of the opening in the woods made by the 

 stream, presenting lovely bits of forest scenery in real tropical 

 luxuriance. The sun shone out for a few minutes, but pre- 

 sently it clouded over, and heavy rain came on. The increasing 

 roar of waters told of an unusually large fall, and in a few 

 minutes we came down an opening where we could see the greater 

 part of it, a large body of water rushing down a smooth slope 

 of rock about a hundred feet deep, and at an angle of forty-five 

 degrees. Three or four times we had to cross the stream, on 

 rocks in and out of the water, with a powerful current sweeping 

 around and over them. We found after a while that we had 

 come down to the side of a deep gorge in the hills which rose 

 hundreds of feet on each side of it, and down which the stream 

 descended rapidly by a series of grand cascades to the lower 

 and more open country which we could see at intervals through 

 openings in the woods. 



At half-past four we emerged from the forest and came down 

 by a steep slippery path through bush and jungle. And now 

 there opened before us one of the grandest scenes that can be 

 imagined. The valley, down which we had come, opened out 

 into a tremendous hollow or bay, three or four miles across, and 

 more than twice as long, running into the higher level of the 

 country from which we had descended. The hills, or, rather, 

 edges of the upper plateau, rise steeply all round this great 

 bay, covered with wood to their summits, which are from two 



