58 FOREST SCENERY. 



dive into deep and precipitous ravines with brawling 

 brooks, and to rise into narrow winding ridges, up 

 the crests of which we climbed by narrow slippery 

 foot-paths, and soon became entirely engulphed in 

 the magnificent untouched forests that clothed the 

 mountain's sides. Many of the trees rose to great 

 heights before they branched, when they spread 

 into widely arching boughs clustered with thick 

 foliage ; their stately trunks were wreathed with 

 large rope-like creepers that dropped from the boughs 

 in thick festoons of leaves, tapering below into long 

 trailing pendants gently swinging in the breeze. 

 These were high above our heads, while all below 

 was hidden by clusters of bamboo and groves of 

 mountain plantains, matted together and sometimes 

 swallowed up and buried by heaps of ferns and huge 

 broad-leaved succulent plants, and an infinite variety 

 of climbing weeds into solid piles and mounds of the 

 rankest vegetation. The elegant tree-ferns, more 

 tall and slender than those of Australia and Van 

 Diemen's Land, seemed to love the seclusion of 

 the deepest and most precipitous ravines. Some- 

 times, when the crest of a ridge expanded a little 

 and became more level, the road passed through 

 large groves, consisting entirely of bamboos, with 

 little or no under-growth. These, rising in great 

 clusters, as if from one root, spread outwards and 

 upwards in every direction, with gentle curves, and 

 crossing their tapering stems above our heads formed 

 lofty natural aisles, like cloisters with groined gothic 



