Chapter IV. 
The plateau is completely covered by a great forest of tree 
heaths. In this forest trunks and boughs are entirely smothered 
in a thick layer of mosses which hang like waving beards from 
every spray, cushion and englobe every knot, curl and swell 
KICHUCHU. 
around each twig, deform every outline and obliterate every 
feature, till the trees are a mere mass of grotesque contortions,, 
monstrous tumefactions of the discoloured, leprous growth. 
No leaf is to be seen save on the very top-most twigs, 
yet the forest is dark owing to the dense network of trunks 
and branches. The soil disappears altogether under innumer¬ 
able dead trunks, heaped one upon another in intricate piles, 
covered with mosses, viscous and slippery where exposed to 
the air ; black, naked, and yet neither mildewed nor rotten 
where they have lain for years and years in deep holes. No 
forest can be grimmer and stranger than this. The vegetation 
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