THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 
The Primeval Forests 
At Tauau I first realised my idea of a primeval 
forest. There were enormous trees, crowned with 
magnificent foHage, decked with fantastic parasites, 
and hung over with Hanas, which varied in thick- 
ness from slender threads to huge python-like masses, 
were now round, now flattened, now knotted, and 
now twisted with the regularity of a cable. Inter- 
mixed with the trees, and often equal to them in 
altitude, grew noble palms ; while other and far 
lovelier species of the same family, their ringed 
stems sometimes scarcely exceeding a finger's 
thickness, but bearing plume-like fronds and pen- 
dulous bunches of black or red berries, quite like 
those of their loftier allies, formed, along with 
shrubs and arbuscles of many types, a bushy under- 
growth, not usually very dense or difficult to pene- 
trate. The herbaceous vegetation was almost 
limited to a few ferns, Selaginellas, sedges, here 
and there a broad-leaved Scitaminea, and (but very 
rarely) a pretty grass (Pariana), whose broad leaves 
set on closely in two ranks quite resemble the 
pinnate frond of a palm, to which family there is 
a positive approach in the spikes of large poly- 
androus flowers. In some places one might walk 
for a considerable distance without seeing a single 
herb, or even rarely a fallen leaf, on the bare black 
ground. It is worthy to be noted that the loftiest 
forest is generally the easiest to traverse ; the 
lianas and parasites (which may be compared to 
the rigging and shrouds of a ship, whereof the 
masts and yards are represented by the trunks and 
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