Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/413

 at every turn we looked for some surprise, some difficulty to be encountered and overcome, some wild prank that this untamed river might try to play upon us. It lent a fresh zest to our journeying, put an additional throb of excitement into the scanning of each reach of running water, as the frequent twist- ings of our course displayed them to us one by one.

On either hand low hills ran steeply upward from the water's edge, smothered in vast clumps of bam- boos, the stents resembling some gigantic, irregular palisade crowned by bunch above bunch of feathery plumes, the highest making a broken, undulating line of fretwork against the colourless afternoon sky. Near the river brink huge ngerum trees leaned out- ward, clasping friendly hands above our heads, throwing a grateful shade, and staining the waters to a deeper olive tint with their sombre reflections. From root to branch tip they were festooned with innumerable parasites, great tree ferns, smooth or shaggy, with their roots in deep, rich mosses; orehids of many kinds with here and there a little point of colour marking where a rare blossom nestled; creepers and trailing vines, some cating into the marrow of the boughs to which they clung, some hanging from the branches like fine drapery, some twined about and about in an inextricable network, others drop- ping sheer to the stream below and swaying con- stantly as the current played with their tassels. It was a fairyland of forest through which the river was bearing us, and I lay back upon my raft, feast- ing lazy eyes upon the constantly shifting scene,