hrough and on
fire. The flame rising from the shavings, when blown lightly upon,
quickly sets the elemi gum in a blaze, and in an instant there is a
fire sufficient to roast an ox.

He who had to manage the cooking cut two or three pieces of the large
bamboo, and put in each whatever he wished to cook--usually rice or
some part of the palm tree--he added some water, stopped the ends of
the bamboo with leaves, and laid it in the middle of the fire. This
bamboo was speedily burned on the outside, but the interior was
moistened by the water, and the food within was as well boiled as
in any earthen vessels. For plates we had the large palm leaves. Our
meals, as may be observed, were Spartan enough, even during the days
while our provision of rice and dried venison lasted. But when game
was found, and that a stag or a buffalo fell to our lot, we fed like
epicures. We drank pure water whenever a spring or a rivulet tempted
us, but if we were at a loss we cut long pieces of the liana, called
"the traveller's drink," from which flowed a clear and limpid draught,
preferable perhaps to any which we might have procured from a better
source.

It was evident I was not travelling like a nabob; and it would have
been impossible to take more baggage. How could any one, with large
provisions and a pompous retinue move in the midst of mountains
covered with forests literally along untouched by human feet, and
forced, in order to get through them, at every instant to swim across
torrents, and having no other guide than the sun, or the blowing of
the breeze. There was no choice but to travel in the Indian style,
as I did, or to remain at home.

The first night we spent in the open air passed quietly; our strength
was restored, and we were recruited for the journey. At an early hour
we were up, and, after a frugal breakfast, we resumed our march. For
more than two hours we climbed up a mountain covered with heavy timber,
the ascent was rough and fatiguing, at last we reached the top,
quite exhausted, where there was a vast flat, which it would take us
some days to traverse. It was there, on this flat, that I beheld the
most majestic, the finest virgin forest that existed in the world. It
consists of gigantic trees, grown up as straight as a rush, and to
a prodigious height. Their tops, where alone their branches grow,
are laced into one another, so as to form a vault impenetrable to
the rays of the sun. Under this vault, and among those