104 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. [PART I. 



highest trees, and hang down in the most fantastic bunches. 

 Its stem, like that of another plant of the same genus (the 

 Vitis Indica), when freshly cut, yields a copious draught 

 of pure tasteless fluid, and is eagerly sought after by ele- 

 phants* 



But it is the trees of older and loftier growth that 

 exhibit the rank luxuriance of these wonderful epiphytes 

 in the most remarkable manner. They are tormented by 

 climbing plants of such extraordinary dimensions that 

 many of them exceed in diameter the girth of a man ; 

 and these gigantic appendages are to be seen surmount- 

 ing the tallest trees of the forest, grasping their stems 

 in firm convolutions, and then flinging their monstrous 

 tendrils over the larger limbs till they reach the top, 

 whence they descend towards the ground in huge festoons, 

 and, after including another and another tree in their 

 successive toils, they once more ascend to the summit, 

 and wind the whole into a maze of living network as 

 massy as if formed by the cables of a line-of-battle ship. 

 When, by-and-by, the trees on which this singular fabric 

 has become suspended give way under its weight, or sink 

 by their own decay, the fallen trunk speedily disappears, 

 whilst the convolutions of climbers continue to grow 

 on, exhibiting one of the most marvellous living 

 mounds of confusion that it is possible to fancy. Fre- 

 quently one of these creepers may be seen holding 

 by one extremity the summit of a tall tree, and grasp- 

 ing with the other an object at some distance near 

 the earth, between which it is strained as tight and 

 straight as if hauled over a block. In all probability 

 the young tendril had been originally blown into this 

 position by the wind, and retained in it till it had gained 

 its maturity, after which it presents the appearance of 

 having been artificially arranged as if to support a 

 falling tree. 



This peculiarity of tropical vegetation has been 

 turned to profitable account by the Ceylon woodmen, 

 employed by the European planters in felling forests 



