THE CREEPING PALM an 



One cannot cut jungle and escape bloodshed, for the 

 long tentacles of the lawyer catch you unawares sooner 

 or later, and then, for all are set with double rows 

 of re-curved points, do not endeavour to escape by strife 

 and resistance — it is no use pulling against those pricks — 

 but by subtlety and diplomacy. The more you pull, the 

 worse for your skin and clothes ; but with tact you may 

 become free, with naught but neat scratches and regular 

 rows of splinters. The points of the hooks to which you 

 have been attached anchor themselves deep in the skin, and 

 tear their way out and rip and rend your clothes, and your 

 condition of mind, body and estate, is all for the worse. 



But the uses of the lawyer cane are many and various. 

 Blacks employ it as ropes, as stays for canoes, and, split 

 into narrow threads and woven, for baskets and fish-traps ; 

 and white men find it handy for all sorts of purposes, from 

 boat-painters and fenders to stock-whip and maul-handles. 

 Suppose a tree that a black wishes to climb presents diffi- 

 culties low down, he will procure a length of lawyer cane, 

 partly biting and partly breaking it off, if he lacks a cutting 

 implement. Then he will make a loop, so bruising and 

 chewing the end that it becomes flexible and ties almost as 

 readily and quite as securely as rope. Ascending a neigh- 

 bouring tree, he will manoeuvre one end over a limb of that 

 which he wishes to climb, and slip it through the loop, and 

 run it up until it is fast. A cane 50 feet long, no thicker 

 than one's little finger, fastened to the upper branch of a 

 tree, has on trial borne the weight of three fairly-sized men. 

 Thus tested, the black has no hesitation or difficulty in 

 rapidly ascending, and in lowering down young birds, or 

 eggs (wrapped in leaves), or whatsoever his quest. 



Another cane-producing plant {Flagellarid), though 

 innocent of the means of grappling, succeeds in over- 

 topping tall trees and smothering them with a mass of 

 interwoven leafage. Each of its narrow leaves ends in a 

 spiral tendril, sensitive but tough, which entwines itself 

 about other leaves and twigs. Feeling their respective 

 ways, the tender tips of leaves of the one family touch and 



