into
shape, form the foundation for their beautiful bowls and dishes of red
lacquer. Bows and yokes for the porters, sheaths of weapons and
umbrella frames, and a host of small articles of domestic furniture,
are of the same material, and a section cut from the giant bamboo
forms an excellent bucket, which is used all over the forests.

CHAPTER IX

THE FOREST

And now I want to tell you something about the forest, which, as we
have seen from the river, practically covers the country.

We all enjoy our English woods, but these, lovely though they are,
convey no idea whatever of the luxuriant and bewildering beauty of a
forest in the tropics.

How shall I give you an idea of it? It is so big, so magnificent, and
at times so solemn. Everywhere you are surrounded by trees of many
kinds and immense size, whose huge trunks, springing from a dense mass
of undergrowth, rise 200 feet or more into the air. All are bound
together by a tangled mass of creepers, which mingle their foliage
with that of the trees to form one huge canopy of leaves, in which
birds of bright plumage and beautiful song live out their happy lives.
Monkeys also make their home there, and strange insects and
butterflies of rare beauty flit among the flowers, or hover in the few
stray sunbeams which penetrate the gloom.

[Illustration: IN THE DEPTHS OF THE FOREST.]

It is all very impressive, very beautiful, and still, except for the
drone of insects or soft note of the songbird. Perhaps the silence may
be broken by a herd of wild elephants crashing heavily through the
canes, or the shrill cry of the squirrel startles the forest and warns
its fellows of the nearness of a snake.

Bewilderment and wonder grow upon anyone riding through the forest for
the first time, but after a few days one gradually becomes accustomed
to these luxuriant surroundings, and is able to appreciate the forest
in detail.

How beautiful the undergrowth is! Palms and bamboos wave gracefully
above a mass of flowering plants, among and over which climb
convolvuli of many kinds, tropaeolum, honeysuckle, and a variety of
other creepers, forming natural arbours, with whose blossoms mingle
those of the festoons hanging from the trees.

Teak, india-rubber, and cutch trees rise high above the undergrowth,
and in turn are dwarfed by such giants as the pyingado and the
cotton-tree. These grow to an enormous size. The pyingado, straight
and smooth, often rises 150 feet befo