With Brehm’s description of this minor forest, the reader should compare that which Stanley gives of “The Great Central African Forest” (chap. xxiii. of 2nd vol. of In Darkest Africa). He computes the size of the main mass at 321,057 square miles. A few sentences from his description may be quoted.
“Imagine the whole of France and the Iberian peninsula closely packed with trees varying from 20 to 180 feet high, whose crowns of foliage interlace and prevent any view of sky and sun, and each tree from a few inches to four feet in diameter. Then from tree to tree run cables from two inches to fifteen inches in diameter, up and down in loops and festoons and W’s and badly-formed M’s; fold them round the trees in great tight coils, until they have run up the entire height like endless anacondas; let them flower and leaf luxuriantly, and mix up above with the foliage of the trees to hide the sun, then from the highest branches let fall the ends of the cables reaching near to the ground by hundreds with frayed extremities, for these represent the air roots of the epiphytes; let slender cords hang down also in tassels with open threadwork at the ends. Work others through and through as confusedly as possible, and pendent from branch to branch—with absolute disregard of material, and at every fork and on every horizontal branch plant cabbage-like lichens of the largest kind, and broad spear-leaved plants—these would represent the elephant-eared plant—and orchids and clusters of vegetable marvels, and a drapery of delicate ferns which abound. Now cover tree, branch, twig, and creeper with a thick moss like a green fur.”
He goes on to describe the rush of life to fill up each gap—the struggle for existence—the crowding, crushing, and strangling—the death and disease.
“To complete the mental picture of this ruthless forest, the ground should be strewn thickly with half-formed humus of rotting twigs, leaves, branches; every few yards there should be a prostrate giant, a reeking compost of rotten fibres, and departed generations of insects, and colonies of ants, half veiled with masses of vines and shrouded by the leafage of a multitude of baby saplings, lengthy briars and calamus in many fathom lengths, and every mile or so there should be muddy streams, stagnant creeks, and shallow pools, green with duckweed, leaves of lotus and lilies, and a greasy green scum composed of millions of finite growths.”
[Note 29] p. 126.—Appearance of Decay in the Forests.
A closely similar picture is given by Mr. E. N. Buxton in recounting a journey in the Rocky Mountains. He says: “This bane of pack-trains is caused by forest fires, which have burnt out the life of the trees, leaving only gaunt stems and blackened ground, followed by tempests which have whirled these tottering giants in heaps to the ground. In places the stems lie parallel to one another, and piled to the height of many feet as though they had been laid in sheaves. Elsewhere, while some have stood the shock and are still erect, their neighbours lie prone at every conceivable angle to one another, and their branches pierce the air as weathered snags. This ghastly waste, whether brought about by natural causes, or the recklessness of man, will have to be paid for some day, for are we not within measurable distance of the inevitable world-wide timber-famine” (E. N. Buxton, Short Stalks, 1893).
See also Rodway’s In the Guiana Forest (London, 1895), and article “Death in the Forest” (Natural Science, Sept., 1892).
[Note 30] p. 129.—Taiga.
“A strip of Alpine region, 100-150 miles in breadth, consisting of separate mountain-chains whose peaks rise from 4800-6500 feet above sea-level, and beyond the limits of forest vegetation.” According to Radloff, the name taiga is also generally applied by the Kalmucks to wooded and rocky mountain-land.
[Note 31] p. 135.—Extermination of the Beaver.