138 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
of ripples becomes a positive relief to the eye. But as to 4 
relief in this study of purple and green, what can be finer. 
than a flock of egrets crossing the river ‘with their fanciful 
irregular flight! Their plumage of perfect white, which 
gains them the qualifying name of “ candidissima, ** their 
yellow beaks, and their graceful forms tell out so strongly 
against the sombre forest, that an effective picture iS 
formed at once. 
The banks here begin to be most markedly festooned - 
and trellised with a curious Calamus or climbing palm, the 
fronds of which are prolonged into a bare creeping stalk, 
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— BIAS 
THE NORTHERN END OF STANLEY POOL. | 
furnished with curiously reversed hooks, so that once the 
frond falls against a branch it attaches itself securely by 
means of these recurved thorns, and thus climbs higher 
and higher, often fringing the top of the forest with grace- 
ful heads of swaying fronds which with their waving whip- 
like terminations point straight skywards as if seeking for 
ereater heights to climb. The motto of this palm should 
certainly be « Excelsior,” and it might also be taken as a 
vegetable type of ambition. Beginning in the lowliest form 
* I find this is the name of the American species; it is, however, 
quite as applicable to the egrets of Africa, 
