Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1902-01-29
AFRlcA's WONDERFUL FOREST.
Its Animal Inhabitants and Oppressive Lone
Illness 10 Man.

apart, but extends everywhere with
out a break, except where it has been
cleared by man for his gardens and
villages, or cleft by river too wide
for it to meet and close over from
the two banks. This part of our
planet has a double surface--the real,
solid one underneath, and the leafy
one above. Men traverse the solid
surface as if by tunnels in subter-
ranean region. Paths run from vii
lage to village under the forest, like
those of meadow mice under grass.
Mankind is limited to the real
earth's surface, and can have only
distant knowledge of the world in
the treetops. That is mostly out of
bis sight. But the traveller marching
along the forest path often sees and
hears things to 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 from below. He
bears a confusion of rushing sounds
like the arrival and departure of
trains at metropolitan station, and
learns at length that it is made by
the long, loosely plumed wings of
hornbills, flying from tree to tree as
they feed. Here and there the path
is whitened by petals fallen from
somewhere above. 1t is useless to
try to tell which tree or vine in the
tangle has borne them. Where a
big tree has fallen, carrying with it
all the dependent vines and con-
nected smaller trees, a rift is made.
Here the eyes, adjusted to the sub
sylvan twilight, are dazzled by flood
of sunshine. On the limbs of the
fallen tree are seen growing and
blossoming pendant orchids and
other airplants, specimens from the
flora of the upper region. One sell
dom sees birds nest in this coun-
try -; the birds have their homes in
the world above mans view.
While man sees this upper world
at distance, or not at all, his near
est animal relations cannot reach it ;
but are at home in it. One may hear
the cries of monkeys above him, and
the rustlihg of the branches as they
scamper away from treetop to treetop
faster than he can follow on the
ground But to catch glimpse of
them Is not so easy. One may, per-
haps, be shown by native guide
some leafy bed in the branches above
and be told that chimpanzees have
slept there.
Nor are the monkeys and lemurs
the only arboreal animals. The for
est is a paradise 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 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
under world is not much more acces
sibie than the upper, at least to the
white man, who does not konw how
to twist in and out among thorny
vines. The little antelopes, the wild
hog and the porcupine can slip about
in the universal thicket, and the ele-
phant crashes through it, uprooting
a sapling here and there, and leaving
a broad path behind him. But these
animals are seldom seen or heard. In
general there is lonely silence below
the forest.
1t is gloomy and dark on this
lower deck of the tropical world.
, The sunshine, birds and flowers are
mostly far overhead. But one some
times meets delightful surprises, for
there is beauty even here. Several
kinds Of trees and 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 sunflowers - 80
flaming that they seem to light up
the gloom. Again, at the right sea-
son, one may find clusters of blood
red fruit, growing low down on the
trunks of trees. But these bits of
brightness are only occasional. For
the most part all is black, damp and
decaying.
The loneliness of the forest is op-
pressive. After a half-day's tramp
between Two settlements tnvra is no