In the primeval forest the undergrowth is not dense and travel is not so difficult. But as the natives are always moving their towns and abandoning old sites, a considerable portion of the forest is the growth of a few years; and here the undergrowth is so dense and matted that there is no possibility of passing through it except as one tunnels his way with the cutlass, and the jungle closes on both sides of the path like a wall. This is the usual character of the bush along the rivers. There are not many flowers in the forest. The most common is the orchid. But flowers are numerous in the clearings and more open places. In particular there is a lovely convolvulus of delicate lavender that climbs over all the lower growth of the clearing and blooms in such profusion as to give its colour to the landscape. The impression of the beauty or the ugliness of the forest depends largely upon whether one sees it in the wet or the dry season. In the dry season, travelling on a fairly good road, the idea of the cathedral with its solemn majesty was often present with me; I was impressed with its beauty and enjoyed the solitude. But in the wet season I loathed it. Who could enjoy, or even recognize, beauty while standing knee-deep in mud? Its stillness is not the stillness that speaks to the mind and heart. It is dull and dead. We had twenty-eight native carriers (whom we must call _porters_ when speaking to Englishmen) each with a load of about forty pounds. They often carry more than twice that weight over the present road to Efulen; seventy pounds is the standard load. But besides the better roads there is also this great difference that the natives were at that time new to the work of carrying heavy loads, to which they have since become accustomed. The present young men have grown up in the work. Besides our personal effects and food supplies we carried trade-goods, with which to buy food and building material from the natives, and to pay native workmen. There was no currency in that interior tribe. We paid out principally salt, beads, and brass rods, the latter used for ornaments for the legs and arms. After a year there was some demand for cloth—highly coloured prints—and other articles for which there was no use at first.