Immense Must Be
The Length Of Some Of These Climbing Palms.
One tree I noticed that
day that had hanging from its summit, a good one hundred and fifty
feet above us, a long straight ropelike palm stem.
The character of the whole forest was very interesting. Sometimes
for hours we passed among thousands upon thousands of gray-white
columns of uniform height (about 100-150 feet); at the top of these
the boughs branched out and interlaced among each other, forming a
canopy or ceiling, which dimmed the light even of the equatorial sun
to such an extent that no undergrowth could thrive in the gloom.
The statement of the struggle for existence was published here in
plain figures, but it was not, as in our climate, a struggle against
climate mainly, but an internecine war from over population. Now
and again we passed among vast stems of buttressed trees, sometimes
enormous in girth; and from their far-away summits hung great bush-
ropes, some as straight as plumb lines, others coiled round, and
intertwined among each other, until one could fancy one was looking
on some mighty battle between armies of gigantic serpents, that had
been arrested at its height by some magic spell. All these bush-
ropes were as bare of foliage as a ship's wire rigging, but a good
many had thorns. I was very curious as to how they got up straight,
and investigation showed me that many of them were carried up with a
growing tree.
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