United States or Germany ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The great elephant went patiently trudging on, mile after mile, with the heat so intense that Archie Maine had to fight hard to keep off a growing drowsiness, and he now welcomed the fact that the portion of the jungle through which they were being carried kept on sending down trailing strands of the rotan cane and other creepers which threatened to lasso him and drag him from his seat.
Just as they must have served you knocked every bit of sense out of me. There warn't much in, as old Tipsy says, but I didn't know no more till I found myself here, feeling sick as a dog, and not able to move, for I was lying awkward-like on my back, with some of them thin rotan canes tied round my arms and legs so tight that it was only at times I knowed I had any arms and legs at all."
For his hand encountered a good-sized stone secured in its place by a thin rotan bound over it, and passed through the thatch and under one of the battens.
Whilst soft, it is usually poured into joints of small bamboo, and shipped in that state. According to this account, which I received from my friend Mr. Philip Braham, who had an opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of the process, the resinous quality of the drug belongs only to the dammar, and not to the rotan.
"Take another look before we are shut in amongst the trees. It's lovely! It's the beautifullest morning I ever did see." "You can't be sure, Pete. These elephant-paths through the jungle are all alike. There's the same half-dark, dense heat, the tangled walls on either side, the overhanging trees and loops of prickly rotan suspended overhead ready to catch you.
"Why, it's just like going downstairs," thought the lad; and then, as if to prove it was not so easy, one of the stones, upon which he was bearing with his foot, slipped from its rotan tie and began to rustle loudly down before him. Then there was a sharp hiss, which made the lad cling tightly and begin to feel a return of the paralysing shudder which had unnerved him a few minutes before.
He was thus employed when Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane, of England, reached the same port and on the same errand. He had with him three vessels: the flagship Plantagenet, 74 guns; the frigate Rotan, 38 guns, and the brig Carnation, 18 guns. This powerful squadron was manned by 2,000 men, and was on the way to New Orleans with the purpose of occupying the city.
Dragons-blood, Sanguis draconis, or jaranang, is a drug obtained from a large species of rattan, called rotan jaranang, growing abundantly in the countries of Palembang and Jambi, where it is manufactured and exported, in the first instance to Batavia, and from thence to China, where it is held in much estimation; but whether it be precisely the drug of our shops, so named, I cannot take upon me to determine.
The broad verandah, with its punkahs, was made gay with beautiful creepers, climbing the pillars of palm and bamboo, and festooning the edges, some of these being jasmines of great size and beauty; while rough rotan baskets hung at intervals, full of moss and dead wood, on which flourished the wonderful orchids and pitcher-plants that were the delight of the ladies of the residency.
He crossed to the other side of the building so as to be farthest from the tree where he had last seen the sentry, and, as quietly as he could, he began to climb the back wall of the great stable; and, as he had anticipated, this did not prove difficult, the crossbars and uprights, interlaced with cane and palm-strip, furnishing plenty of foot and hand hold, so that, without making much rustling, he drew himself up and up till his head came in contact with one of the sloping bamboo rafters, to which battens of the same cane were lashed with thin rotan; and, as he expected, upon these battens lay a dense thatch of so-called attap that is to say, large mats of palm-leaves were laid one over the other till a thick cover, which would throw off the most intense of the tropic rains, roofed the building in.
Word Of The Day