FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND ACRES 171 
we proceeded, other natives attached themselves to 
us as guides, so that by the time we were out half an 
hour there were four or five savages in the van. 
No words can convey to the imagination the 
density of that first strip of bush. It was like walk¬ 
ing between solid walls of vegetation, matted and 
tangled and bright with half-ripened blackberries. 
The walls were too high to see over except as occa¬ 
sionally we could catch glimpses of tree-tops some¬ 
where ahead. We wound in and out along the 
tortuous path, and it was also torture-ous, for the 
thorn bushes scratched our hands and faces and 
even sent their stickers through the cloth into our 
knees. The effect on the barelegged porters was 
doubtless much worse. 
After a couple of hours of marching in those 
canons of vegetation we entered the lower edge of 
the forest and left the underbrush behind. We 
soon struck a fairly fresh elephant trail and for an 
hour wound in and out among the trees, stumbling 
over “monkey ropes” and gingerly avoiding old 
elephant pits. There were dozens of these, and if 
it had not been for the fact that our old guide care¬ 
fully piloted us past them I’m certain more than 
one of us would have plunged down on to the sharp¬ 
ened stakes at the bottom. Some of the traps were 
so cleverly concealed that only a Wanderobo could 
detect them. In places the forest was like the 
stately aisles of a great shadowy cathedral, with 
giant cedars and camphor-wood trees rising in tow¬ 
ering columns high above where the graceful fes- 
