168 AUGUST 



found it necessary to stand by all the morning and 

 advise, while they gently rescued the wounded 

 plant below, and bound up its broken limbs, 

 before any further damage was donq; for all the 

 world like a human disaster. The delicate Plumosa, 

 20 feet high, was flattened to the ground from its 

 tub. Poonia got hold of one leg, and thought in 

 that way to pull it out from the weight above. I 

 made him cut away all the branches from over it 

 first, and then raise the whole plant together, 

 carefully. By good luck it was only bent over, not 

 broken, and with the aid of splints and bandages 

 and wooden legs, we set him upright again. 



There is indeed enough gardening now for some 

 time, and I am down there all day rescuing my 

 ferns from the debris, and propping up their 

 wounded limbs. The thickest portions of the trunk 

 are in the roadway, and a month of chopping will 

 not get it clear as to enable the pieces to be carried 

 away, they must be chopped to a convenient size, 

 and that means a great deal of work. The circum- 

 ference of the trunk is 25 feet. The upper branches 

 fell right into the Chamber of Horrors, into a bed 

 of Dracaenas and Heddicums, and smashed my 



