jungle. There was little sign of bird or 
animal life, and a troop of long-haired 
black and white monkeys bounded away 
among the tree tops. Here and there 
brilliant flowers lightened the gloom. We 
ducked under vines and climbed over 
fallen timber. Poisonous nettles stung our 
hands. We were drenched by the wet 
boughs which we brushed aside. Mosses 
and ferns grew rank and close. The trees 
were of strange kinds. There were huge 
trees with little leaves, and small trees with 
big leaves. There were trees with bare, 
fleshy limbs, that writhed out through the 
neighboring branches, bearing sparse clus¬ 
ters of large frondage. In places the forest 
was low, the trees thirty or forty feet high, 
the bushes that choked the ground between, 
661 
