198 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDEIiNESS. 



THE DROWNED FOREST. 



At the engine house a ten foot dam had been thrown across 

 the Hoorie Creek bed, and the apparently shght cause had 

 brought about wide reaching effects; this slight raising of the 

 water throwing back the creek in many directions. One 

 could hardly call it a lake as there was no wide body of water, 

 and yet it had a shore line of more than ten miles, reaching 

 out a long finger-like extension up every side valley. The 

 original creek was only a few feet wide and the jungle grew 

 down to the very bank. So now the trees were deep under 

 water. 



All which were below the new level were dead, standing 

 like an array of tall bare ghosts compared to the luxuriant 

 forest all about. When on a rise of ground, one could trace 

 the course of the lake by the lines of naked branches. And 

 when steering one's canoe between the leafless trunks, the 

 effect was most startling. The sunlight came through in a 

 way different from any tropical forest. Every leaf had 

 fallen, leaving the trees as bare as in a northern winter and 

 stripping the vines and bush-ropes, but the condition of the 

 parasites and air-plants was most interesting. All those 

 which were truly parasitic, living on the life-sap of their 

 hosts, were of course also dead, but the orchids and other 

 air-plants were flourishing — showing as large tufts or 

 sprays of light green here and there. In places the branches 

 had a beaded effect, so numerous and yet so isolated were 

 the epiphytes. 



We drifted silently along, by the impetus of a touch of the 

 paddle on a passing trunk. Orchids were in blossom, and 

 ferns, mosses and lichens ran riot in orange, brown and 

 ivory patches on the tree-trunks. Muricots and the fierce 

 perai were abundant here, and now and then some fish 

 broke water, throwing rings of light into the shadowy places. 



