[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]
36 WITH NATIVES IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC
sometimes a frightened fish splashes up. Every bend
we round shows us new and surprisingly charming
views: now we pass a giant tree, which towers up
king-like on its iron-hard trunk far above the rest of
the forest, trunk and limbs covered with a fine lace-
work of tender-leaved lianas; now we sweep along
a high bank, under a bower of overhanging branches.
The water caresses the tips of the twigs, and through
the leaves the sun pours golden into the cool darkness.
Again we glide into the light, and tangled shrubbery
seams the river bank, from which long green strands
of vines trail down and curl in the water like snakes.
Knobby roots rise out of the ground; they have
caught floating trunks, across which the water pours,
lifting and dropping the wet grasses that grow on the
rotten stems. Farther up the bushes are entirely
covered with vines and creepers, whose large, thick
leaves form a scaly coat of mail under which the half-
strangled trees seem to fight in vain for air and
freedom. In shallow places stiff bamboos sprout,
their long yellow leaves trembling nervously in an
imperceptible breeze; again we see trees hung with
creepers as if wearing torn flags; and once in a while
we catch sight of that most charming of tropical trees,
the tree—fern, with its lovely star-shaped crown, like a
beautiful, dainty work of art in the midst of the
uncultivated wilderness. As if in a dream we row
back down stream, and like dream—pictures all the
various green shapes of the forest sweep by and
disappear.
