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The houses, nests, were the better word were formed by a most naive adaptation of natural surroundings to natural needs. The curving fronds of the towering coco-palms and panjandrus had been interlaced; and nature did the rest, the gigantic leaves interweaving, blending, over-lapping, meeting in a passionate and successful desire to form a roof, proof alike against sun and rain.
Immense trees reared their mighty heads far above us, their broad fronds completely shutting off the slightest glimpse of the sky. It was easy to see why the Kaolians needed no navy; their cities, hidden in the midst of this towering forest, must be entirely invisible from above, nor could a landing be made by any but the smallest fliers, and then only with the greatest risk of accident.
There was no tom-tom serenade such as usually heralds the coming of night; no fires were lighted; the evening meal was forgotten. An ominous silence pervaded the barrio. Night came soft, fragrant night, with its thousand wonders. The inquisitive moon peeped over the palm fronds, peeped again, and decided to remain.
"Wake: the silver dusk returning Up the beach of darkness brims, And the ship of sunrise burning Strands upon the eastern rims." Thrown up by the ocean in the darkness like driftwood, Elikana and his companions lay on the grey shore. Against the dim light of the stars and beyond the beach of darkness they could see the fronds of the palms waving.
These pools were generally fringed with sea-weed, great greenish-brown fronds in one place, dark streaks of laver in another, and lower down the bottom would be all pink with the fine corallite, while all about the sea-anemones would dot every crack and hole, like round knobs of dark red jelly, where the water had left them high and dry, spread out like painted daisy flowers, where they were down in the pool.
"Anozer frond!" exclaimed the professor; "vy, Van der Kemp, zee country seems to be svarming vid your fronds." "I have travelled much in it and made many friends," returned the hermit. "The horse that I borrowed turned out to be a very poor one, and went lame soon after I set out. Business kept me longer than I expected, and it was getting dark before I started to return.
This was tried for in a similar place about a dozen yards farther along the river, but without result; and on stepping onwards the river wound along a dell amongst the great beech trees, with the sunlight flashing from the surface and turning to bronzed silver patch after patch of bracken that spread its broad fronds in glistening sheets five and six feet high.
The forest abounded with beautiful objects; among which the tree ferns, though not large, were, from their bright green foliage, and the elegant curvature of their fronds, most worthy of admiration. In the evening it rained very heavily, and although the thermometer stood at 65 degrees, I felt very cold.
Tree-ferns rose to incredible heights above his head, and now and again by the movements of their fronds he caught stray glimpses of unfamiliar stars. There were red stars, and blue ones, and once he caught sight of a clearly distinguishable double star, of which each component was visible to the naked eye.
The way their young fronds come up with a graceful curl, like the top of a bishop's staff, is a poem; but being at present fractious, I will observe that they are covered with horrid spines, as most young vegetables are in Africa.
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