Chap. XVIII. ABSENCE OF THORNS IN FOREST. 345 



wind up from left to right, on the other bank from right to left. 

 I imagined this was owing to the sun being at one season of 

 the year on their north, and at another on their south. But 

 on the Leeambye, I observed creepers winding up on opposite 

 sides of the same reed, and making a figure like the lacings of 

 a sandal. 



In passing through these narrow paths, I had an opportunity 

 of observing the peculiarities of my ox "Sinbad." He had a 

 softer back than the others, but a much more intractable temper. 

 His horns were bent downwards and hung loosely, so he could 

 do no harm with them ; but as we wended our way slowly along 

 the narrow path, he would suddenly dart aside. A string tied 

 to a stick put through the cartilage of the nose serves instead 

 of a bridle : if you jerk this back, it makes him run faster on ; 

 if you pull it to one side, he allows the nose and head to go, 

 but keeps the opposite eye directed to the forbidden spot, and 

 goes in spite of you. The only way he can be brought to a 

 stand is by a stroke with a wand across the nose. When Sinbad 

 ran in below a climber stretched over the path, so low that I 

 could not stoop under it, I w r as dragged off and came down on 

 the crown of my head ; and he never allowed an opportunity of 

 the kind to pass without trying to inflict a kick, as if I neither 

 had nor deserved his love. 



A remarkable peculiarity in the forests of this country is the 

 absence of thorns ; there are but two exceptions — one a tree 

 bearing a species of nux vomica, and a small shrub very like the 

 plant of the sarsaparilla, bearing in addition to its hooked thorns 

 bunches of yellow berries. The thornlessness of the vegetation 

 is especially noticeable to those who have been in the south, 

 where there is so great a variety of thorn-bearing plants and 

 trees. We have thorns of every size and shape ; thorns straight, 

 thin and long, short and thick, or hooked, and so strong as to be 

 able to cut even leather like a knife. Seed-vessels are scattered 

 everywhere by these appendages. One lies flat as a shilling, 

 with two thorns in its centre, ready to run into the foot of any 

 animal that treads upon it, and stick there for days together. 

 Another (the Uncarta procumbens, or grapple-plant) has so many 

 hooked thorns as to cling most tenaciously to any animal to 

 which it may become attached ; when it happens to lay hold of 



