DESTRUCTION OF TREES. 465 



decomposing vegetable matter, beneath high shady 

 trees, among which myriads of a small chattering 

 bird about the size of a sparrow, sent up one con- 

 tinual din, that, in some situations, put talking to 

 each other as we passed, quite out of the question. 

 Many of the trees had been deprived of all their 

 lower branches by the elephant, which, on making a 

 meal, tears down with his trunk one of these large 

 limbs, and eats at his leisure the younger shoots 

 and leaves. Some of those I saw thus pulled down, 

 were from a height of at least twelve or fifteen feet 

 from the ground, and were frequently more than six 

 inches in diameter. A striking contrast between 

 two very different agents in thus bringing large 

 trees to the earth, was afforded by the juxtaposition 

 of the overturned trunks of others, among and 

 underneath whose roots, the many-turretted resi- 

 dence of the white ant had been constructed ; the 

 effect of which was, that very soon after these 

 insects had so located themselves, the slightest 

 breeze would occasion the downfal of the tree, and 

 trunks thus fallen, and those dragged down by the 

 elephant, lie side by side. Sometimes in this 

 manner, little savannahs or open spots of green 

 growing grass are formed, where the rays of the 

 sun are thus enabled to penetrate the otherwise 

 dense gloom of the few miles of forest that exists 

 along the western bank of the Hawash. 



Our road was one formed entirely by elephants 

 in their wanderings backwards and forwards from 



VOL. I. H II 



