96 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 
creatures had not made their escape and quick- 
ening the air-plants with a false rain, which in 
course of time would rot their very hearts. 
But the first few days were only the overture 
of changes in this shift of conditions. Tropic 
vegetation is so tenacious of life that it struggles 
and adapts itself with all the cunning of a Jap- 
anese wrestler. We cut saplings and thrust them 
into mud or the crevices of rocks at low tide far 
from shore, to mark our channel, and before long 
we have buoys of foliage banners waving from 
the bare poles above water. We erect a tall bam- 
boo flagpole on the bank, and before long our 
flag is almost hidden by the sprouting leaves, and 
the pulley so blocked that we have occasionally 
to lower and lop it. 
So the fallen tree, still gripping the nutritious 
bank with a moiety of roots, turned slowly in 
its fibrous stiffness and directed its life and sap 
and hopes upward. During the succeeding weeks 
I watched trunk and branches swell and bud out 
new trunks, new branches, guided, controlled, 
by gravity, light, and warmth; and just beyond 
the reach of the tides, leaves sprouted, flowers 
opened and fruit ripened. Weeks after the last 
slow invertebrate plodder had made his escape 
