The primeval forest, that is that old growth untouched by man, and left since the earliest time to thrive and die, one age after another, is easily distinguishable from that part which at some time or another afforded shelter for man. The trees are taller and straighter, and of more colossal girth. It has frequently glades presenting little difficulty for travel, the invariable obstructions being the arum, phrynia, and amoma. The ground is firmer and more compact, and the favourite camping ground for the pigmy nomads are located in such places. When the plants and small bushes are cut down, we have an airy, sylvan, and cool temple, delightful for a dwelling.
Then comes the forest which during a few generations has obliterated all evidences of former husbandry. A few of the trees, especially of the soft-wooded kind, have grown to equal height with the ancient patriarchs, but as soon as man abandoned the clearing, hosts of nameless trees, shrubs, and plants have riotously hastened to avail themselves of his absence, and the race for air and light is continued for many years; consequently the undergrowth by the larger quantity of sunshine becomes luxuriant, and there are few places penetrable in it without infinite labour. Among these a variety of palms will be found, especially the Elais and Raphia vinifera.
And after this comes the bush proper, the growth of a few years, which admits no ingress whatever within its shade. We are therefore obliged to tunnel through stifling masses of young vegetation, so matted and tangled together that one fancies it would be easier to travel over the top were it of equal and consistent thickness and level. Vigorous young trees are found imbedded in these solid and compact masses of vegetation, and these support the climbing plants, the vines, and creepers. Under these, after a pathway has been scooped out, the unshod feet are in danger from the thorns, and the sharp cut stalks, which are apt to pierce the feet and lacerate the legs.
This last was the character of the bush mostly near the river. Both banks presented numberless old clearings and abandoned sites; and as the stream was the only means of communication employed by the tribes, the only way of effecting any progress was by laborious cutting.
The clearings which had been abandoned within a year exhibited veritable wonders of vegetable life, of unsurpassed fecundity, and bewildering variety of species. The charred poles of the huts became the supports of climbers whose vivid green leaves soon shrouded the ugliness of desolation, and every upright and stump assumed the appearance of a miniature bower, or a massive piece of columned ruin. As the stumps were frequently twenty feet high, and were often seen in twins, the plants had gravitated across the space between, and after embracing had continued their growth along the length of one another, and had formed in this manner an umbrageous arch, and had twisted themselves in endless lengths around the supports until it became difficult to find what supported such masses of delicate vines. In some instances they had formed lofty twin towers with an arched gateway between, resembling a great ruin of an old castle, and the whole was gay with purple and white flowers. The silvered boles of ancient primeval giants long ago ringed by the axe and doomed to canker and decay, and the great gaunt far-spreading arms and branchlets had been clothed by vines a hundred-fold until they seemed like clouds of vivid green, which, under the influence of sudden gusts, streamed with countless tendrils, or swayed like immense curtains.
When marching along with the column, or encamped for the night, the murmur of voices was not congenial to nourishing any fine sentiments about the forest. We suffered too much hunger, and sustained such protracted misery; we were preyed upon too often in patience, and temper, and forbearance. Our clothes, suited well enough for open country, were no protection against the hostilities of the bush. But if once we absented ourselves from camp, and the voices of the men died away, and we forgot our miseries, and were not absorbed by the sense of the many inconveniences, an awe of the forest rushed upon the soul and filled the mind. The voice sounded with rolling echoes, as in a cathedral. One became conscious of its eerie strangeness, the absence of sunshine, its subdued light, and marvelled at the queer feeling of loneliness, while inquiringly looking around to be assured that this loneliness was no delusion. It was as if one stood amid the inhabitants of another world. We enjoyed life—the one vegetable, the other human. Standing there so massive and colossal, so silent and still, and yet with such solemn severity of majesty, it did seem curious that the two lives, so like in some sense, were yet so incommunicable. It would have suited the fitness of things, I thought, had a wrinkled old patriarch addressed me with the gravity and seriousness of a Methuselah, or an Achillean and powerful bombax, with his buttressed feet planted firm in the ground, had disdainfully demanded my business in that assembly of stately forest kings.
But what thoughts were kindled as we peeped out from an opening in the woods and looked across the darkening river which reflected the advancing tempest, and caught a view of the mighty army of trees—their heights as various as their kind, all rigid in the gloaming, awaiting in stern array the war with the storm. The coming wind has concentrated its terrors for destruction, the forked lightning is seen darting its spears of white flame across the front of infinite hosts of clouds. Out of their depths issues the thunderbolt, and the march of the winds is heard coming to the onset. Suddenly the trees, which have stood still—as in a painted canvas—awaiting the shock with secure tranquillity, are seen to bow their tops in unison, followed by universal swaying and straining as though a wild panic had seized them. They reel this way and that, but they are restrained from flight by sturdy stems and fixed roots, and the strong buttresses which maintain them upright. Pressed backward to a perilous length they recover from the first blow, and dart their heads in furious waves forward, and the glory of the war between the forest and the storm is at its height. Legion after legion of clouds ride over the wind-tost crests, there is a crashing and roaring, a loud soughing and moaning, shrill screaming of squalls, and groaning of countless woods. There are mighty sweeps from the great tree-kings, as though mighty strokes were being dealt; there is a world-wide rustling of foliage, as though in gleeful approval of the vast strength of their sires; there are flashes of pale green light, as the lesser battalions are roused up to the fight by the example of their brave ancients. Our own spirits are aroused by the grand conflict—the Berserker rage is contagious. In our souls we applaud the rush and levelling force of the wind, and for a second are ready to hail the victor; but the magnificent array of the forest champions, with streaming locks, the firmness with which the vast army of trees rise in unison with their leaders, the rapturous quiver of the bush below inspire a belief that they will win if they but persevere. The lightning darts here and there with splendour of light and scathing flame, the thunders explode with deafening crashes, reverberating with terrible sounds among the army of woods, the black clouds roll over and darken the prospect; and as cloud becomes involved within cloud, in the shifting pale light, we have a last view of the wild war, we are stunned by the fury of the tempest, and the royal rage of the forest, when down comes the deluge of tropic rain—which in a short time extinguishes the white heat wrath of the elements, and soothes to stillness the noble anger of the woods.
Along the banks of the Aruwimi, a better idea of tropical vegetation may be obtained than in any part of Africa, outside of the eastern half of the Congo basin. The banks are for the most part low, though no one could guess what height they were, because of the lofty hedges of creeping plants, which cover every inch of ground from the water’s edge to as high as fifty feet above in some places, while immediately behind them rises the black-green forest to the towering height of from 150 to 200 feet above the river. The aspects of the banks vary considerably however. Abandoned sites of human dwellings possess their own peculiar wilderness appearance, the virgin forest its own, and as the soil varies so do its growths.
Lately abandoned clearings will show, besides inordinate density of vegetation, gorgeous flowering sections. Above these will probably rise a few trees with masses of thick, shining leaves, and a profusion of blood-red flowers, whose petals have been showered on the impervious mass of leguminous vines of creepers and shrubs below, and strongly contrast to their own light purple, yellow, or white flowerets. The amoma show snowy flower-goblets, edged with pink; a wild vine will have its light purple; a creeper, with pinnate leaves, though flowerless at the time, will have its foliage tinted auburn; a pepper bush with its red pods, or a wild mango, attracts attention by myriads of bead-like flowerets; or an acacia effuses overpowering fragrance from its snowy buds, or a mimosa with its sweet-smelling yellow blossoms. Different shades of green are presented by ferns, protruding leaves of sword grass, a young Elais palm, or the broad and useful leaf of the phrynium. A young fig-tree, with silver stem, and branching widely, mixes its leaves with those of the tender leaflets of the sensitive plant and the palmate calamus; below is a multitude of nettles, and nettle-leafed plants with stalks and leaves, making a mass of vegetation at once curious and delightful. Perhaps the base of all this intricate and inextricable confusion of plants and impervious hill of verdure and beauty, is a prostrate tree, long ago fallen, fast decaying, black with mould, spread thinly with humus, fungous parasites abounding, and every crack, cranny, and flaw in it nesting all kinds of insatiable insects, from the tiny termite to the black centipede or mammoth beetle.
Further on we see something different. Numberless giant trees, pressing right up to the edge of the river bank, have caused some to grow horizontally to the length of fifty feet over the river. Under their shade a hundred canoes find shelter from a scorching sun. The wood is yellow and hard as iron. To cut one of these trees would require a score of American axes. It bears clusters of fruit which when unripe are russet, and afterwards resemble beautiful damsons. Others of the same species produce a fruit like ripe dates, but neither are edible.