CHAP. XVIl] 



EATTAN^ PALMS. 



269 



they are to reacb, many easily-recognised indications 

 eQable them to hit wpon it with certainty. 



The chief feature of this forest was the aWndance of 

 rattan palms, hanging from the trees, and tnrning and 

 twisting about on tlie ground, often in inextricable con- 

 fnsion. One wonders at first how they can get into such 

 queer shapes ; but it is evidently caused by the decay and 

 fall of the trees up which they have first climbed, after 

 which they grow along the ground till they meet with 

 another trunk up wliich to ascend. A tangled mass of 

 twisted living rattan, is therefore a sign that at some former 

 period a large tree has fallen there, though there may be not 

 the slightest vestige of it left. The rattim seems to have 

 unlimited powers of gi-owth, and a single plant may mount 

 up several trees in succession, and thus reach the enormous 

 length they are said soraetimes to attain. They much 

 improve the appeamnce of a forest as seen from the 

 coast ; for they vary the otherwise monotonous tree-tops 

 with feathery crowns of leaves rising cleiU' above them, 

 and each terminated by an erect Icuiy spike like a light- 

 ning-conductor. 



The other most interesting object in the forest was a 

 beautiful palm, whose perfectly smooth and eylmdricat 

 stem rises erect to more than a hundred feet high, with 

 a tliickness of only eight or ten inches; while the fan- 

 shaped leaves wliich conipose its crown, are almost com- 

 plete cireles of six or eight feet diameter, borne aloft on 

 long and slender petioles, and beautifully tCK>thed round 

 the edge by the exti'emities of tlie leaflets, which am 

 separated only for a few inches from the circunifereuca It 

 is probably the Livistona rotunditblia of hcfbanists» and is 

 the most complete and beautiful hm-leaf I have ever seen, 

 serving admirably for folding into water-buckets and 

 impromptu baskets, as well as for thatching and other 

 purposes. 



A few days afterwards I returned to ilenado on horse- 

 hack, sending my baggage round by sea ; and had just time 

 to pack up dl my collections to go by tlie next mail steamer 

 to Amboyna, I will now devote a few pages to an account 

 of the chief peculiarities of the Zoology of Celebes, and ita 

 relation to that of the surrounding countries. 



