using walk; one feels quite dizzy with the constantly
passing stems and branches, and a white man would be lost in this
wilderness without the native, whose home it is. He sees everything,
every track of beast or bird, and finds signs on every tree and vine,
peculiarities of shape or grouping, which he recognizes with unerring
certainty. He describes the least suggestion of a trail, a footprint,
or a knife-cut, or a torn leaf. As the white man finds his way about
a city by means of street signs, so the savage reads his directions
in the forest from the trees and the ground. He knows every plant and
its uses, the best wood for fires; he knows when he may expect to find
water, and which liana makes the strongest rope. Yet even he seems
to feel something of the appalling loneliness of the primeval forest.

Our path leads steeply up and down, over loose coral blocks, between
ferns and mosses; lianas serve as ropes to help us climb over coral
rocks, and with our knives we hew a passage through thorny creepers
and thick bush. The road runs in zigzags, sometimes turning back
to go round fallen trunks and swampy places, so that we really walk
three or four times the distance to Hog Harbour. Our guide uses his
bush-knife steadily and to good purpose: he sees where the creepers
interlace and which branch is the chief hindrance, and in a few deft
cuts the tangle falls.

At last--it seems an eternity since we dived into the forest--we hear
from afar, through the green walls, a dull roaring, and as we go on,
we distinguish the thunder of the breakers like the beating of a great
pulse. Suddenly the thicket lightens, and we stand on the beach,
blinded by the splendour of light that pours on us, but breathing
freely in the fresh air that blows from the far horizon. We should like
to stretch out on the sand and enjoy the free space after the forest
gloom; but after a short rest we go on, for this is only half-way to
our destination, and we dive once more into the semi-darkness.

Towards evening we reach the plantation of the Messrs. Th. They are
Australians of good family, and their place is splendidly kept. I
was struck by the cleanliness of the whole establishment, the good
quarters of the native labourers, the quiet way in which work was
done, the pleasant relations between masters and hands, and last,
but not least, the healthy and happy appearance of the latter.

The brothers had just finished the construction of what was quite