3. CHAPTER III.
THEY PASS THROUGH THE WOODS.
Refreshed by our stay in the grove, we rose, and
placed ourselves under the guidance of Mohi; who went on
in advance.
Winding our way among jungles, we came to a deep
hollow, planted with one gigantic palm-shaft, belted round
by saplings, springing from its roots. But, Laocoon-like,
sire and sons stood locked in the serpent folds of gnarled,
distorted banians; and the banian-bark, eating into their
vital wood, corrupted their veins of sap, till all those palmnuts
were poisoned chalices.
Near by stood clean-limbed, comely manchineels, with
lustrous leaves and golden fruit. You would have deemed
them Trees of Life; but underneath their branches grew
no blade of grass, no herb, nor moss; the bare earth was
scorched by heaven's own dews, filtrated through that fatal
foliage.
Farther on, there frowned a grove of blended banian
boughs, thick-ranked manchineels, and many a upas; their
summits gilded by the sun; but below, deep shadows,
darkening night-shade ferns, and mandrakes. Buried in
their midst, and dimly seen among large leaves, all halberd-shaped,
were piles of stone, supporting falling temples of
bamboo. Thereon frogs leaped in dampness, trailing round
their slime. Thick hung the rafters with lines of pendant
sloths; the upas trees dropped darkness round; so dense the
shade, nocturnal birds found there perpetual night; and,
throve on poisoned air. Owls hooted from dead boughs;
or, one by one, sailed by on silent pinions; cranes stalked
abroad, or brooded in the marshes; adders hissed; bats
smote the darkness; ravens croaked; and vampires, fixed on
slumbering lizards, fanned the sultry air.
