And now for an hour and a half we had to pass through dense forest by a narrow footpath, where no _filanjàna_ (palanquin) could be carried (at least with its owner seated on it). Up and down, down and up, stooping under fallen trees, or climbing over them, soon getting wet through with the dripping leaves on either hand, and the mud and water underfoot—we had little time to observe anything around us, lest a tree root or a slippery place should trip us up. At two-fifteen we came to an open clearing, and thought our difficulties were over, but presently we plunged into denser forest than ever, and up and down rougher paths. Notwithstanding the danger of looking about, it was impossible to avoid admiring the luxuriance of the vegetation. Many of the trees were enormously high, and so buttressed round their trunks that they were of great girth at the ground. The tree-ferns seemed especially large, with an unusual number of fronds; and the creeper bamboo festooned the large trees with its delicate pinnate leaves. [Sidenote: A DEEP GORGE] It soon became evident that we were descending, and that pretty rapidly. For a considerable distance we had a stream on our left hand, which roared and foamed over a succession of rapids, going to the south-east; and every now and then we caught glimpses of the opening in the woods made by the stream, presenting lovely bits of forest scenery in real tropical luxuriance. The sun shone out for a few minutes, but presently it clouded over, and heavy rain came on. The increasing roar of waters told of an unusually large fall, and in a few minutes we came down an opening where we could see the greater part of it, a large body of water rushing down a smooth slope of rock about a hundred feet deep, and at an angle of forty-five degrees. Three or four times we had to cross the stream, on rocks in and out of the water, with a powerful current sweeping around and over them. We found after a while that we had come down to the side of a deep gorge in the hills which rose hundreds of feet on each side of it, and down which the stream descended rapidly by a series of grand cascades to the lower and more open country which we could see at intervals through openings in the woods.