The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-07

forest path often sees and hears thing, 10 remind him of this upper world apart. He hears the screams of parrots invisible overhead, hunting in the tree tops for fruits that he cannot see iron below. He hears a confusion of rush ing sounds like the arrival and depar.
 ture or trains at metropolitan station ana learns at length that it is made by the long, loosely plumed wings of horn
 pills, flying from tree to tree as they
 feed. Here and there the path is whit
 ened by petals fallen from somewhere
 above. It is useless to try to tell whict
 tree or vine in the tangle has borne
 them. Where a big tree has fallen carrying with it all it's dependent vines and connected smaller trees, rift is
 made. Here the eyes, adjusted to the | sup-sllVan twilight, are dazzled by a
 llood Of sunshine. On the limbs of the
 fallen tree are seen growing and blos-
 soming pendent orchids and other air | plants, specimens from the flora of the upper region. One seldom sees a bird g | nest in this country; the birds have their homes in the world above mans view.
 While man sees this upper world at a distance, or not at all, his nearest ami
 mai relations cannot only reach it, but
 are at home in 1t. One may hear the cries of monkeys above him, and the rustling of the branches as they scam- per away from tree-top to tree top, faster than he can follow on the ground.
 But to catch a glimpse of them is not so easy. One may, perhaps, be shown
 by native guide some leafy bed in the
 branches above and be told that chim- panzees have slept there.
 Nor are monkeys and lemurs the only arboreal animals. The forest is para disc for squirrels. of which there are eight or nine species. of all colors and sizes, down to the little pigmy squirrel
 the size of your thumb Besides, there is whole peculiar family of scale tail flying squirrels, with a sort of hob- nails on the under side of the tail, to help them climb or jump. The cats, from the leopard down, climb trees. The awkward coney manages in some way to ascend hollow or slanting trees, and his evening and morning cry is heard from the upper region, though he comes down to the lower to feed Even snakes are seen as often overhead as on the ground.
 Except where the path goes, the un- der world is not much more accessible than the upper, at least to the white man. who doesn't know how to twist in and out among thorny vines. The It, tie antelopes, the wild hog and the por- cupine can slip about in the universal thicket, and the elephant crashes through it, uprooting a saplng here and there, and leaving broad path behind him. But these animals are seldom seen or heard. In general there is lonely silence below the forest
 It is gloomy and dark on this lower deck of the tropical world. The sun shine, birds and flowers are mostly far overhead. But one sometimes meets delightful surprises, for there is beauty shrubs have way of putting forth blossoms right out of the trunk. There are flowers set right on the damp, black bark, as yellow as Dakota sun fiowersso flaming that they seem to light up the gloom. Again, at the right season, one may find clusters of blood red fruit, growing low down on the trunks of trees. But these bits of are only occasional. For the most part all is black, damp and decay ing.
 The loneliness of the forest Is oppres- sive. After half-day's tramp between two settlements there is no more well come sight than a garden clearing, hot 1,,y,, tnh hi ito+ far off. Then the two rows of smoky nuts with the yellow clay street between that form the village are gladdenng view, for they are the dwellings, of ones own kind.
 The sense of the omnipresence of the forest appears in the speech of the men who inhabit it. To go astray, or aside, In the Fang language, is to go into the forest' To throw 8 thing away is to throw it "a-forest.'' To arrive at place Is to "come out" or emerge" while to set forth from place is to enter" It is not necessary to add what is entered or come out from. As evident in the character of the people Is an inborn revulsion against the lone- iness of the forest. The ideal village, to them, is perfectly cleared of vegeta- ton. Shade trees have no attraction for them. To travel alone, and espec ally to sleep alone, in the forest is a hardship, not so much on account of any danger as on account of the lone iness A favorite name for a village means Noise People" The hubbub if talking and singing and drumming in ! he village street is dear to the heart of < ] Fang, for in it he forgets the great | black forest.
 Only the dwarf tribe, occasionally | net with in this country, seem to be entirely reconciled to the forest. Only | hey are content to live in booths of | caves, hunting the game of the forest iepths with an hereditary keeness that s almost instinct.--George L. Bates in he New York Independent !