Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/87

Rh the Captain to make back for the boat at once if they saw blacks, as he wanted no trouble. The sailor in the boat was to fire a gun as a signal if he saw any signs of the smoke of the China mail. The Captain, Mack, and I, with pickaxes and the like, set off to ascend Mount Cook, and Mack carried a huge basket on his back to hold the gleanings. He was so careful of and attentive to me that I said I wondered he didn't put me in the basket.

We soon began to ascend, and found ourselves in a gully running down one side of the mountain—the most exquisitely beautiful spot one could imagine. Down the mountain-side in this gully came a beautiful, clear, crystal-like stream, splashing down over great granite boulders, forming waterfalls, or here and there a deep, clear pool as cold as ice. Above our heads the trees rose to a height of at least a hundred feet and completely shut out the sky. Underneath this great dome it was all a strange mystic green gloom, save where here and there a shaft of sunlight struggled through, flecking the foliage with gold and making a slanting lane of golden rays. The effect was extraordinary—almost unreal in its beauty. Under neath the dome of tree-tops and bathed in this iridescent pale green gloom was an intricate matted jungle of tree ferns, palms, shrubs of every sort, ropes of hanging creepers, and countless beautiful flowering orchids—a perfect riot of beauty. The cable-like creepers matting all this together, it was difficult going, and also very easy to lose one another. My white clothes made me, as the Captain said, a splendid target for a spear.

We had to push and cut our way, climbing up and scrambling through all this. I gathered orchid after orchid, only to throw them away as