“The trees do, but that’s all jungle.”
“Well, I see that,” said Murray, rather impatiently.
“But you don’t know what our jungle is, sir. You couldn’t get a dozen yards any way.”
“The trees are not so thick as that.”
“No, but the undergrowth is, and it’s all laced together, and bound with prickly canes, so that at every step you must have men to go before you with their parangs to chop and clear the way.”
“Is a parang a chopper?”
“They chop with it,” replied Frank. “It’s the sword thing the men carry to cut down the wild vines and canes with.”
“Do you mean to say we couldn’t get through there?” said Ned.
“Yes, of course I do. Like to try? I did when I first came. Why, in five minutes you’d be horribly scratched, and your clothes torn half off your back, and you so hot you couldn’t bear yourself.”
Cock-a-doodle-do!