was one of thankfulness for the deep shade. It is difficult to convey any idea of the luxuriant growth we were now amongst. Trees of all shapes and colours in profusion rose around us with a superabundant wealth of foliage so dense that it was impossible to find one’s way without a compass or a guide, and even the trail itself could only be traced by experts. Tall trees with parasitical creepers inextricably confused reaching upwards in long curving lines bewildered the eye. Fan-shaped palms, giant tree ferns and sword-like cactus that would make a small fortune for a florist at home grew all around. Strings of wire-like stems lay across the path, and it required no small skill and the utmost watchfulness to avoid being tripped up at every turn, and when we stumbled and put out our hands to keep from falling they met with prickly stems that stabbed like needles. Creepers twirled around and in and out, crossing and recrossing one another, defying all efforts to trace them to their source, bewildering as a ship’s rigging in a storm all broken and loose and entangled past hope of straightening out. Sedgy swamps, with long, sharp blades of leaves and fallen trees, often blocked the path, while the light grew dimmer and dimmer the further we penetrated into the forest fastnesses. At times we thought we must have left the trail, so overgrown and dense it had become, and even the guides who were supposed to know it were often puzzled, and frequently the machete had to be resorted to in removing the vegetation that had grown since the last traveller had passed that way. It is splendid exercise walking or pushing your way through a jungle, for the exertion the arms are called upon to put forth is nearly equal to that which the legs have to perform. Loops and festoons threatened to lasso and hang us at times, and whilst our eyes were engaged in watching for the dangers threatening us above our feet would be caught in some vegetable snare which the genii of the forest had spread for the intruder man. Orchids grew high up out of reach, and everywhere exquisite and grotesque forms presented themselves. Tiny humming-birds flitted past us, flashes of iridescent colour, and giant butterflies hovered over flowers as brilliant as themselves. Weird sounds from unseen monkeys, parrots, and toucans, high, piercing notes of birds, and the hum of innumerable insects confused the ears, as did the strange forms the eyes. We passed many trees of enormous girth, the lower portions of their trunks buttressed like Gothic cathedrals, and contrasting strangely with the tall, slender proportions of others, that seemed like long lengths of water-pipes set on end, through which a chimney-sweeper’s broom had been pushed, the brush protruding at the top. Often we came to streams, across which a few thin trees had been thrown to form a primitive bridge, and the passage of these with boots thick with slippery clay was