s 
THE PRESENT CONDITION OS* 
to grow in the ordinary way, emulate the shapes and motions 
of serpents, enwrap their less pliant neighbours in their folds, 
twine their branches into one connected canopy, or hang down, 
here, loose and swaying in the air, or in festoons from tree to 
tree, and there, stiff and rooted like the shrouds which support 
the mast of a ship. No sooner has decay diminished the green array 
©f a branch, than its place is supplied by epiphites, chiefly fragrant 
orchidaceae, of singular and beautiful forms. While the eye in vain 
seeks to familiarize itself with the exuberance and diversity of the 
forest vegetation, the ear drinks in the sounds of life which 
break the silence and deepen the solitude. Of these, while the 
interrupted notes of birds, loud or low, rapid or long-drawn, 
cheerful or plaintive, and ranging over a greater or less musi¬ 
cal compass are the most pleasing; the most constant are those 
of insects, which sometimes rise into a shrill and deafening 
clangour; and the most impressive, and those which bring 
out all the wildness and loneliness of the scene > are the pro¬ 
longed complaining cries of the unkas, which rise, loud and 
more loud, till the twilight air is filled with the clear, powerful, 
and melancholy sounds. As we penetrate deeper into the forest, 
its animals, few at any one price, are soon seen to be, in 
reality, numerous and varied. Green and harmless snakes hang 
like tender branches. Others of deeper and mingled colours, but 
less innocuous, lie coiled up, or, disturbed by the human intru¬ 
der, assume an angry and dangerous look, but glide out of sight. 
Insects in their shapes and hues imitate leaves, twigs and flowers. 
Monkeys, of many sizes and colours, spring from branch to branch, 
or, in long trains, rapidly steal up the trunks. Deer, and amongst 
them the graceful palandoh, no bigger than a hare, and celebrated in 
Malayan poetry, on our approach fiv startled from the pools 
which they and the wild hog most frequent. Lively squirrels, of 
different species, are everywhere met with. Amongst a great 
variety of other remarkable animals which range the forest, we 
may, according to our locality, encounter herds of elephants, the 
rhinoceros, tigers of several sorts, the tapir, the babirhsa, the 
orangutan, the sloth; and, of the winged tribes, the gorgeously 
beautiful birds of paradise, the loris, the peacock, and the argus 
pheasant. The mangrove rivers and creeks arc haunted by huge 
