Most of these gigantic trees, the size of whose stems exceeds any European forest growth, belong to the order of the _Sterculiæ_, _Boswelliæ_, _Papilionaceæ_, _Rosaceæ_, or _Cæsalpiniæ_; to the _Ficaceæ_, the _Artocarpeæ_, the _Euphorbiaceæ_, and the varied order of the _Rubiaceæ_. Amongst the trees of second and third rank are a few _Araliacea_, large-leaved figs, brilliant-flowered Spathodeas, Combretums, and Mussændas, as well as innumerable other rubiaceous or papilionaceous plants. There is no lack of thorny shrubberies; “and the _Oncoba_, the _Phyllanthus_, the _Celastrus_, and the _Acacia ataxacantha_, cluster after cluster, are met with in abundance.” “Thick creepers climbed from bough to bough, the _Modecca_ being the most prominent of all; but the _Cissus_, with its purple leaf, the _Coccinea_, the prickly _Smilax_, the _Helmiæ_, and the _Dioscoreæ_, had all their part to play. Made up of these, the whole underwood spread out its ample ramifications, its great twilight made more complete by the thickness of the substance of the leaves themselves.” [Illustration: A PATH THROUGH THE FOREST.] Down upon the very ground, again, there were masses, all but impenetrable, of plants (mainly _Zingeberaceæ_ or else Arums) growing large gorgeously painted leaves which contributed to fill up the gaps left in this mazy labyrinth of foliage. First of all there were the extensive jungles of the _Amomum_ and the _Costus_, rising full fifteen feet high, and of which the rigid stems (like those of stout reeds) either bar out the progress of a traveller altogether, or admit him, if he venture to force his way among them, only to fall into the sloughs of muddy slime from which they grow. “And then there was the marvellous world of ferns, destitute indeed of stems, but running in their foliage to some twelve feet high. Boundless in the variety of the feathery articulations of their fronds, some of them seemed to perform the graceful part of throwing a veil over the treasures of the wood; and others lent a charming contrast to the general uniformity of the leafy scene. High above these there rose the large, slim-stemmed _Rubiaceæ_ (_Coffeæ_), which by regularity of growth and symmetry of leaf appeared to imitate, and in a measure to supply the absence of, the arboraceous ferns. Of all the other ferns the most singular which I observed was that which I call the elephant’s ear. This I found up in trees at a height of more than fifty feet, in association with the _Angræcum_ orchis and the long gray beard of the hanging _Usnea_.”