here high, entwined with climbing plants, as though
distaffs, reaching up to the first boughs of the trees and spreading
under them in delicate green lace. In the depths there was a great
variety of trees; date, raffia, fan-palm, sycamore, bread-fruit,
euphorbia, immense varieties of senna, acacia; trees with foliage dark
and glittering and light or red as blood grew side by side, trunk by
trunk, with entangled branches from which shot yellow and purple
flowers resembling candlesticks. In some groups the tree-tops could not
be seen as the climbing plants covered them from top to bottom, and
leaping from trunk to trunk formed the letters W and M and hung in form
of festoons, portieres, and whole curtains. Caoutchouc lianas just
strangled the trees with thousands of serpentine tendrils and
transformed them into pyramids, buried with white flowers like snow.
About the greater lianas the smaller entwined and the medley became so
thick that it formed a wall through which neither man nor animal could
penetrate. Only in places where the elephants, whose strength nothing
can resist, forced their way, were there beaten down in the thicket
deep and winding passageways, as it were.

The song of birds which so pleasantly enlivens the European forest
could not be heard at all; instead, on the tree-tops resounded the
strangest calls, similar to the sound of a saw, to the beating of a
drum, to the clatter of a stork, to the squeaking of old doors, to the
clapping of hands, to caterwauling, or even to the loud, excited talk
of men. From time to time soared above the trees flocks of parrots,
gray, green, white, or a small bevy of gaudily plumaged toucans in a
quiet, wavy flight. On the snowy background of the rubber climbing
plants glimmered like sylvan sprites, little monkey-mourners, entirely
black with the exception of white tails, a white girdle on the sides,
and white whiskers enveloping faces of the hue of coal.

The children gazed with admiration at this virgin forest which the eyes
of a white man perhaps had never beheld. Saba every little while
plunged into the thicket from which came his happy barks. The quinine,
breakfast, and sleep had revived little Nell. Her face was animated and
assumed bright colors, her eyes sparkled. Every moment she asked Stas
the names of various trees and birds and he answered as well as he
could. Finally she announced that she wanted to dismount from the horse
and pluck a bunch of flowers.

But