oos held absolute sway, and
while forming a very tangible link between the roof and the outliers
of the jungle, yet no plant could obtain foothold beneath their shade.
They withheld light, and the mat of myriads of slender leaves killed
off every sprouting thing. This was of the utmost value to us,
providing shade, clear passage to every breeze, and an absolute dearth
of flies and mosquitoes. We found that the clumps needed clearing of
old stems, and for two days we indulged in the strangest of weedings.
The dead stems were as hard as stone outside, but the ax bit through
easily, and they were so light that we could easily carry enormous
ones, which made us feel like giants, though, when I thought of them
in their true botanical relationship, I dwarfed in imagination as
quickly as Alice, to a pigmy tottering under a blade of grass. It was
like a Brobdingnagian game of jack-straws, as the cutting or prying
loose of a single stem often brought several others crashing to earth
in unexpected places, keeping us running and dodging to avoid their
terrific impact. The fall of these great masts awakened a roaring
swish ending in a hollow rattling, wholly unlike the crash and dull
boom of a solid trunk. When we finished with each clump, it stood as a
perfect giant bouquet, looking, at a distance, like a tuft of green
feathery plumes, with the bungalow snuggled beneath as a toadstool is
overshadowed by ferns.

Scores of the homes of small folk were uncovered by our weeding
out--wasps, termites, ants, bees, wood-roaches, centipedes; and
occasionally a small snake or great solemn toad came out from the
debris at the roots, the latter blinking and swelling indignantly at
this sudden interruption of his siesta. In a strong wind the stems
bent and swayed, thrashing off every imperfect leaf and sweeping low
across the roof, with strange scrapings and bamboo mutterings. But
they hardly ever broke and fell. In the evening, however, and in the
night, after a terrific storm, a sharp, unexpected _rat-tat-tat-tat_,
exactly like a machine-gun, would smash in on the silence, and two or
three of the great grasses, which perhaps sheltered Dutchmen
generations ago, would snap and fall. But the Indians and Bovianders
who lived nearby, knew this was no wind, nor yet weakness of stem, but
Sinclair, who was abroad and who was cutting down the bamboos for his
own secret reasons. He was evil, and it was well to be indoors with
all windows closed; but