II 
EQUATORIAL VEGETATION 
247 
tree rots entirely away and the creeper remains tangled on 
the ground. Sometimes branches only fall and carry a por- 
tion of the creeper tightly stretched to an adjoining tree ; at 
other times the whole tree is arrested by a neighbour, to 
which the creeper soon transfers itself in order to reach the 
upper light. When by the fall of a branch the creepers are 
left hanging in the air, they may be blown about by the 
wind and catch hold of trees growing up beneath them, and 
thus become festooned from one tree to another. When 
these accidents and changes have been again and again 
repeated the climber may have travelled very far from its 
parent stem, and may have mounted to the tree tops and 
descended again to the earth several times over. Only in 
this way does it seem possible to explain the wonderfully 
complex manner in which these climbing plants wander up 
and down the forest as if guided by the strangest caprices, or 
how they become so crossed and tangled together in the 
wildest confusion. 
The variety in the length, thickness, strength, and tough- 
ness of these climbers enables the natives of tropical countries 
to put them to various uses. Almost every kind of cordage 
is supplied by them. Some will stand in water without rot- 
ting, and are used for cables, for lines to which are attached 
fish-traps, and to bind and strengthen the wooden anchors 
used generally in the East. Boats and even large sailing 
vessels are built, whose planks are entirely fastened together 
by this kind of cordage skilfully applied to internal ribs. For 
the better kinds of houses, smooth and uniform varieties are 
chosen, so that the beams and rafters can be bound together 
with neatness, strength, and uniformity, as is especially observ- 
able among the indigenes of the Amazonian forests. When 
baskets of great strength are required special kinds of creepers 
are used ; and to serve almost every purpose for which we 
should need a rope or a chain, the tropical savage adopts some 
one of the numerous forest-ropes which long experience has 
shown to have qualities best adapted for it. Some are smooth 
and supple ; some are tough and will bear twisting or tying ; 
some will last longest in salt water, others in fresh ; one is 
uninjured by the heat and smoke of fires, while another is 
bitter or otherwise prejudicial to insect enemies. 
