scover the tree which supports them,
owing to the heaps of verdure under which it is concealed. One very
curious creeper, which always catches the eye, is the square-stemmed
vine[1], whose fleshy four-sided runners climb the highest trees, and
hang down in the most fantastic bunches. Its stem, like that of another
plant of the same genus (the _Vitis Indica_), when freshly cut, yields a
copious draught of pure tasteless fluid, and is eagerly sought after by
elephants.

[Footnote 1: Cissus edulis, _Dalz_.]

But it is the trees of older and loftier growth that exhibit the rank
luxuriance of these wonderful epiphytes in the most striking manner.
They are tormented by climbing plants of such extraordinary dimensions
that many of them exceed in diameter the girth of a man; and these
gigantic appendages are to be seen surmounting the tallest trees of the
forest, grasping their stems in firm convolutions, and then flinging
their monstrous tendrils over the larger limbs till they reach the top,
whence they descend to the ground in huge festoons, and, after including
another and another tree in their successive toils, they once more
ascend to the summit, and wind the whole into a maze of living network
as massy as if formed by the cable of a line-of-battle ship. When,
by-and-by, the trees on which this singular fabric has become suspended
give way under its weight, or sink by their own decay, the fallen trunk
speedily disappears, whilst the convolutions of climbers continue to
grow on, exhibiting one of the most marvellous and peculiar living
mounds of confusion that it is possible to fancy. Frequently one of
these creepers may be seen holding by one extremity the summit of a tall
tree, and grasping with the other an object at some distance near the
earth, between which it is strained as tight and straight as if hauled
over a block. In all probability the young tendril had been originally
fixed in this position by the wind, and retained in it till it had
gained its maturity, where it has the appearance of having been
artificially arranged as if to support a falling tree.

This peculiarity of tropical vegetation has been turned to profitable
account by the Ceylon woodmen, employed by the European planters in
felling forest trees, preparatory to the cultivation of coffee. In this
craft they are singularly expert, and far surpass the Malabar coolies,
who assist in the same operations. In steep and mountainous places where
the tre