their journey without the
slightest molestation.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE TALLEST GRASS IN THE WORLD.

As our travellers proceeded up-stream, they were occasionally compelled
to pass through tracts covered with a species of jungle-grass, called
"Dab-grass," which not only reached above the heads of the tallest of
the party, but would have done so had they been giants! Goliath or the
Cyclops might have, either of them, stood on tiptoe in a field of this
grass, without being able to look over its tops.

The botanist was curious enough to measure some stalks of this gigantic
grass, and found them full fourteen feet in height, and as thick as a
man's finger near the roots! Of course no animal, except a giraffe,
could raise its head over the tops of such grass as this; but there are
no giraffes in this part of the world--these long-necked creatures being
confined to the Continent of Africa. Wild elephants, however, are found
here; and the largest of them can hide himself in the midst of this tall
sward, as easily as a mouse would in an English meadow.

But there are other animals that make their layer in the dab-grass. It
is a favourite haunt both of the tiger and Indian lion; and it was not
without feelings of fear that our botanical travellers threaded their
way amidst its tall cane-like culms.

You will be ready to admit, that the dab-grass is a tall grass. But it
is far from being the tallest in the world, or in the East Indies
either. What think you of a grass nearly five times as tall? And yet
in that same country such a grass exists. Yes--there is a species of
"panic-grass," the _Panicum arborescens_, which actually grows to the
height of fifty feet, with a culm not thicker than an ordinary
goose-quill! This singular species is, however, a climbing plant,
growing up amidst the trees of the forest, supported by their branches,
and almost reaching to their tops.

This panic-grass you will, no doubt, fancy _must be the tallest grass in
the world_. But no. Prepare yourself to hear that there is still
another kind, not only taller than this, but one that grows to the
prodigious height of a hundred feet!

You will guess what sort I am about to name. It could be no other than
the giant _bamboo. That is the tallest grass in the world_.

You know the bamboo as a "cane;" but for all that it is a true grass,
belonging to the natural order of _gramineae_, or grasses, the chief
difference between it, an