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Among the most remarkable were the white-stemmed cecropia; the cow-tree, of still loftier growth; and the indiarubber tree, with its smooth grey bark, tall erect trunk, and thick glossy leaves: while intermixed with them appeared the assai palm, with its slender stem, its graceful head, and its delicate green plumes; and the mirite, one of the most beautiful of the palm tribe, having abundant clusters of glossy fruit, and enormous spreading, fanlike leaves, cut into ribbons.
"Hello, Lizzie!" he cried, his brown eyes dancing in his brown face in the friendliest manner. "Mother says I've got to see you home." Elizabeth's head went higher. She fixed her eyes on the line of white-stemmed birches that guarded the stream. Neither did she deign to notice "Trip," who frisked and barked about her. Charles Stuart came a step nearer and took hold of the long, heavy braid.
It was not till I pulled up within a quarter of a mile of my destination, that I heard a hoarse roar as if from the bowels of the earth, and found that I was standing on the edge of a glen about four hundred feet deep, through which a magnificent snow-fed river poured ceaselessly, here flashing bright among bars of rock, there lying in dark, deep reaches, under tall, white-stemmed trees.
A cluster of white-stemmed birches just ahead of them, caught whatever light was still left in the atmosphere, their feathery tops bending and swaying against the sky. 'How easily, with a mind attuned, one could people this whole path with ghosts! said Robert. 'Look at those stems, and that line of stream coming down to the right, and listen to the wind among the fern.
Rocky ridges were scattered around in the background and high on the right was a huge rounded pile of rock with a few white-stemmed birches clinging to it for all the world like thinning gray hairs on an almost-bald head. It was too dark to see the birches clearly, but the ex-chainman for the Rutland survey party knew they were there and how they looked; he had seen hundreds of such growths.
Two hours brought us our reward, when an opening in the scrub disclosed a deep-banked creek, fringed with white-stemmed gums, and, beyond, a fire and natives camped. They all ran, nor did we care, for water must be there. Glorious sight! a small and green-scummed puddle, nestling beneath the bank, enclosed by a bar of rock and the bed of shingle.
So turning in that direction over monstrous high ridges, crossing them obliquely, in five miles we cut a small watercourse, and following it up to its head found ourselves on the top of a range of barren sandstone hills, over which were dotted white-stemmed stunted gums a most desolate place.
A cluster of white-stemmed birches threw its shadow over the stone where the penitent mother was sitting, and the tall grass on both sides of the path nearly hid her from sight. Presently the church-folk began to appear, and Brita raised her head and drew her veil down over her face.
The upper portion of the valley through which the river passes varies in its nature from treeless, stony plains to rich alluvial flats, lightly timbered with a white-stemmed gum. The banks are steep and high, thickly clothed with the acacia, drooping eucalyptus, and tall reeds.
To these white-stemmed saplings, tall and taper-like, some of the nymphs, maidens from thirteen to seventeen, were playing fairy godmother, affixing to their slender trunks placards proclaiming the exaction of dire forfeits from any wanton human churl found guilty of mutilating a silver birch tree, stripping it even of an inch of tender skin, thus entailing upon it decay and death.