The Beautiful Tree-Ferns Themselves Were Loaded With Other
Ferns, Orchids, And Mosses; Every Fallen Tree Was Draped With Fresh
Green forms, every swampy bit was the home of mottled aroids, film
ferns, and foliage plants, mostly green and gold,
While in some places
there were ginger-worts with noble shining leaves fully six feet long.
In the green twilight of the depths of the forest the dew gemmed the
leaves till nearly 10 A.M., but in the openings the sun blazed with the
heat of a furnace. The silence and colorlessness of the heart of the
forest; and the color, vivacity, light, and movement in the openings,
and among the tree-tops, contrast most curiously. Legions of monkeys
inhabit the tree-tops, and seem to lead a completely aerial life. It is
said that they never come down to earth, but that they cross the
forests swinging themselves from tree to tree.
The Malays, if they can, build their kampongs near rivers, and during
the day we passed several of these. Several had mosques more or less
rude. Every village consists of such houses as I have described before,
grouped, but not by any means closely, under the shade of cocoa-palms,
jak, durion, bread-fruit, mango, nutmeg, and other fruit-trees.
Plantations of bananas are never far off. Many of these people have
"dug-outs" or other boats on the adjacent river, some have
bathing-sheds, and others padi plantations. These kampongs have much of
the poetry as well as inanity of tropical life about them.
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