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To dream you strip the bark off any tree, is a sign to a maiden of an approaching loss of a character; to a married woman, of a family bereavement; and to a man, of an accession of fortune. To dream of a leafless tree, is a sign of great sorrow; and of a branchless trunk, a sign of despair and suicide.

Gold rays slanted through the glades, enveloping and rounding off the tall smooth trunks that rose branchless to a height of thirty, even forty, feet; and the pink clouds, seen through the arching dome of green, were vague as the picture on some dim cathedral-roof. 'In places like these, I wonder you don't feel God's presence.

But the Dyaks love honey and value wax as an article of trade; they therefore erect their ingenious bamboo ladder which can be prolonged to any height on the smooth branchless stem of the Tappan and storm the stronghold of the bees with much profit to themselves, for bees'-wax will purchase from the traders the brass wire, rings, gold-edged kerchiefs and various ornaments with which they decorate themselves.

Since the winds of the north are less in duration and persistency than those from the south and east, the tendency of the spit in defiance of the yearly setback is to the north. Driftwood, logs, and huge trees with bare, branchless limbs become stranded, to dry and whiten in the sun and reinforce the sand, and in their decay, with ever contributed seaweed, to make mould for vegetation.

There were corners of it where the north-west wind sweeping over the bare down above it had made pathways of death and ruin; sinister places where the fallen or broken trunks of the great beech trees, as they had crashed down-hill upon and against each other, had assumed all sorts of grotesque and phantasmal attitudes, as in a trampled mêlée of giants; there were other parts where slender plumed trees, rising branchless to a great height above open spaces, took the shape from a distance of Italian stone palms, and gave a touch of southern or romantic grace to the English midland scene; while at their feet, the tops of the more crowded sections of the wood lay in close, billowy masses of leaf, the oaks vividly green, the beeches already aflame.

The sun pierced with a ray the small blue bubbles of the waves that, breaking, followed each other; branchless old willows mirrored their grey backs in the water; beyond, all around, the meadows seemed empty.

We found the areca trees planted in rows, and growing to the height of some forty feet, with straight, branchless trunks, terminated at the top with ten or twelve pinnated leaves, each of which is full five feet long. The fruit grows in clusters immediately below the tuft of leaves.

The trees shrunk in size, stood farther apart, and grew more individual, sending out knarled boughs on all sides of them, and asserting themselves as the tall slender branchless ones in the social restraint of the thicker wood dared not do.

Its girth we measured it carefully was forty-four feet, six feet from the ground, and as I laid my face against it and looked up, I seemed to be looking up a ship's side. It was perfectly cylindrical, branchless, and smooth, save, of course, the tiny prickles which beset the bark, for a height at which we could not guess, but which we luckily had an opportunity of measuring.

We crossed a solid natural bridge; we skirted fields of red and black lava, vivid as poppies; we gazed marveling on perfect volcano cones, long since extinct: finally we camped on a side hill under two tall branchless trees in about as bleak and exposed a position as one could imagine. Then all three, we jointed our rods and went forth to find out what the Golden Trout was like.