Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


I did not confine my lodging to it, but often reposed in thick cane-brakes, to avoid the savages, who, I believe, often visited my camp, but fortunately for me, in my absence. In this situation I was constantly exposed to danger, and death. How unhappy such a situation for a man tormented with fear, which is vain if no danger comes, and if it does, only augments the pain.

The buffaloes were seen like herds of cattle, dispersed among the cane-brakes, or feeding on the grass, or ruminating in the shade. Their skins were of great utility, in furnishing them with moccasins, and many necessary articles indispensable to their comfortable subsistence at their station.

In some places, submerged forests and cane-brakes are still visible at a great depth, on the bottom of lakes, which were then formed.

We had some little difficulty in finding our way in the barge, for the mouth of the river of Pontiana lay so completely hid amongst low cane-brakes, mangroves, and other aquatic trees and shrubs, which grow thickly along the western shores of Borneo, that, until we came quite close, no inlet was perceptible.

As soon as the rider feels his horse sinking, the first movement, if an inexperienced traveller, is to throw himself from the saddle, and endeavour to wade or to swim to the cane-brakes, the roots of which give to the ground a certain degree of stability. In that case, his fate is probably sealed, as he is in immediate danger of the "cawana."

They remarked with astonishment the tall, straight trees, shading the exuberant soil, wholly clear from any other underbrush than the rich cane-brakes, the image of verdure and luxuriance, or tall grass and clover. Down the gentle slopes murmured clear limestone brooks.

I had scarcely been half-an-hour occupied in smoking my pipe, when all the dogs, in full cry, broke from the briars, and rushed into the cane-brakes, passing me at a distance of thirty yards.

The domes and towers of Florence and of Pisa were rising above the city walls, while the burghers who subscribed for their erection were staining the waves of Meloria and the cane-brakes of the Arbia with their blood.

This absurd habit is doubtless the chief reason why there are so few hounds worth their salt in the more serious kinds of hunting, where the quarry is the jaguar or big peccary. Thus far we had seen but one dog as good as the ordinary cougar hound or bear hound in such packs as those with which I had hunted in the Rockies and in the cane-brakes of the lower Mississippi.

I searched every nook among the trees, pushed through thickets and cane-brakes, and, whenever it flashed, examined the ground for tracks. At intervals I returned to the point of starting, to find that D'Hauteville had been equally unsuccessful. After nearly an hour spent in this fruitless search, I resolved to give it up.