roof of interlacing boughs, which suggests a vast
aisle in some primeval forest. Stately columns and spreading roots
garlanded with stag-horn ferns, waving moss, white and purple orchids,
or broad-leaved creepers, falling in sheets and torrents of shining
foliage and knitting tree to tree, attest the irrepressible growth of
vegetation, which flings a many-coloured veil of blossom and leaf over
root, branch, and stem. A fairy lake glows with the pink and crimson
blossoms of the noble Victoria Regia, the huge leaves like green
tea-trays floating on the water, where a central fountain adds
prismatic radiance to the scenic effect of the splendid lilies.
Climbing palms and massive creepers, splashed with orange, scarlet, and
gold, tumble in masses from lofty branches, and the dazzling
Bougainvillea flings curtains of roseate purple over wall and gateway.
A dense thicket of frangipanni scents the air with the symbolic
blossoms, shining like stars from grey-green boughs of sharp-cut
leaves. A copse of splendid tree-ferns flanks the forest-like
plantation known as "The Thousand Palms," and beneath dusky avenues of
waringen (a variety of the banyan species, which strikes staff-like
boughs into the earth and springs up again in caverns of foliage),
herds of deer are wandering, snatching at drooping vines, or sheltering
from the fierce sun in depths of impenetrable shade. Tufts of
red-stemmed Banka palms cluster on the green islets of lake and river,
vista after vista opens up, each mysterious aisle appearing more lovely
than the last, and luring the wanderer to the climax formed by a
terraced knoll, commanding a superb view of Gedeh and Salak, the twin
summits of chiselled turquoise, gashed by the amethyst shadows of deep
ravines, with Gedeh's curl of volcanic smoke staining the lustrous
azure of the sky. Many-coloured tree carnations, gorgeous cannas and
calladiums, copses of snowy gardenia, and flowering shrubs of rainbow
hues, blaze with splendour, or exhale their wealth of perfume on the
languid air, thronged with the invisible souls of the floral multitude.
Graceful rattans shoot up in tall ladders of foliage-hidden cane,
climbing to the topmost fronds of the loftiest palm, and, unless
ruthlessly cut down, overthrowing the stately tree with their fatal
embrace. Sausage and candle trees, with strange parodies of prosaic
food and waxen tapers, climbing palms, sometimes extending for five
hundred feet, and gigantic blossoms like