162 On the Indian Archipelago. 
Europe, our fancies ever pictured of the wildness and beauty of 
primeval nature. ‘Trees of gigantic forms and exuberant foliage 
rise on every side; each species shooting up its trunk to its 
utmost measure of development, and striving, as it seems, to es- 
cape from the dense crowd. Others, as if no room were left for 4 
them to grow in the ordinary way, emulate the shapes and mo-— 
tions of serpents, enwrap their less pliant neighbors in their folds, 
twine their branches into one connected canopy, or hang down, 
here loose and swaying in the air, or in festoons from tree to tree, 
and there stiff and rooted like the yards which support the mast 
of aship. No sooner has decay diminished the green array of a 
branch, than its place is supplied by epiphytes, chiefly fragrant 
Orchidacez, of singular and beautiful forms. While the eye in 
vain seeks to familiarize itself with the exuberance and diversity 
of the forest vegetation, the ear drinks in the sounds of life 
which break the silence and deepen the solitude. Of these, 
while the interrupted notes of birds, loud or low, rapid or long- 
drawn, cheerful or plaintive, and ranging over a greater or less 
musical compass, are the most pleasing, the most constant are 
ose of insects, which sometimes rise into a shrill and deafening 
clangor; and the most impressive, and those which bring out all | 
the wildness and loneliness of the scene, are the prolonged com- 
plaining cries of the ankas, which rise, loud and more loud, till 
the twilight air is filled with the clear, powerful and melancholy 
sounds. As we penetrate deeper into the forest, its animals, few 
at any one place, are soon seen to be, in reality, numerous and 
varied. Green and harmless snakes hang like tender branches. 
Others of deeper and mingled colors, but less innocuous, lie coil- 
ed up, or, disturbed by the human intruder, assume an angry and 
dangerous look, but glide out of sight. Insects in their shapes 
sizes and colors, spring from branch to branch, or, in long trains, 
—— steal up the trunks. Deer, and amongst them the grace- 
ful palandoh, no bigger than a hare and celebrated in Malayan 
poetry, on our approach fly startled from the pools which they 
and the wild hog most frequent. Lively squirrels, of: different 
Species, are everywhere met with. Amongst a great variety of 
endless variety of fragile and richly colored shells not only lie 
empty on the sandy beaches, but are tenanted by Pagurian crabs, — 
which, in clusters, batten on every morsel of fat seaweed that 
has been left by the retiring waves. The coasts are fringed with > 
a 
