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I should like to describe more particularly some of the trees of the wonderful forest through which we passed. In the lowlands near the shore were groves of cocoa-nut palms, of which I have already spoken. Near them was the curious pandanus or screw-pine. My uncle said he always called it a trunk with branches growing at both ends. There were two species of it. The one we saw had fragrant flowers.
His lessons may be read on the parterre, in the flowers of the purple magnolia, the deodar, the rhododendron. They may be found in the greenhouse, in the eccentric blossoms of the orchis, and curious form of the screw-pine in the garden, in many a valuable root and fruit, destined ere long to become favourites of the dessert-table.
But he was not dead, and was struggling to escape. He was evidently wounded very badly, and when the hunter saw his opportunity he fired again. The orang had grasped a screw-pine, and he held on, but he struggled no more. The captain had ordered the sampan to be brought alongside, and two men were at the paddles. Louis and Felix joined them, and they paddled towards the game.
In this bottle I have catechu powder scented with the pollen of screw-pine blossoms. These little tin boxes are all for different kinds of spices. I have not forgotten my playing cards and draught-board either. If you two are over-busy, I shall manage to make other friends there, who will give me a game. Do you remember this comb? It was one of the Swadeshi combs you brought for me..."
Above the cliffs there were grassy uplands with park-like clumps of the screw-pine, and candle-nut, and glades and dells of dazzling green, bright with cataracts, opened up among the dark dense forests which for some thousands of feet girdle Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, two vast volcanic mountains, whose snowcapped summits gleamed here and there above the clouds, at an altitude of nearly 14,000 feet.
He had caused a red rag to be tied to the top of a screw-pine while the sampan was looking for a channel through the lake, and Clingman had stopped the boat abreast of it. The captain took the helm himself; and he had carefully observed various marks, and obtained the bearings of the mountain, and other prominent objects which might assist him in taking the steamer through the shallow lake.
One day we walked up the Teesta to the Rumphiup river, a torrent from Mainom mountain to the west; the path led amongst thick jungle of Wallichia palm, prickly rattan canes, and the Pandanus, or screw-pine, called "Borr," which has a straight, often forked, palm-like trunk, and an immense crown of grassy saw-edged leaves four feet long: it bears clusters of uneatable fruit as large as a man's fist, and their similarity to the pine-apple has suggested the name of "Borr" for the latter fruit also, which has for many years been cultivated in Sikkim, and yields indifferent produce.
For some time the tangled pathway which we traversed wound up the steep side of a mountain spur, running almost down to the edge of the raised coral beach. Forcing our way through the screw-pine, which obstructed us, we were soon passing under the shade of some bamboos and banyans, when Denviers motioned to some trees a little way ahead, and suddenly exclaimed: "Look out, Harold!
From the bed of the Ratong, in which grow palms with screw-pine and plantain, it is only seven miles in a direct line to the perpetual ice. From the plains of India, or outer Himalaya, one may behold snowy peaks rise in the distance behind a foreground of tropical forest; here, on the contrary, all the intermediate phases of vegetation are seen at a glance.
Between Shillong and Jowai there are forests of oak, the country being beautifully wooded. Chestnuts and birches are also fairly common. The low hills on the northern and western sides of the district are clad with dense forests of bamboo, of which there are many varieties. The Pandanus or screw-pine is to be met with on the southern slopes.
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