refreshed by our stay in the grove, we rose, and placed ourselves under the guidance of mohi; who went on in advance.

winding our way among jungles, we came to a deep hollow, planted with one gigantic palm-shaft, belted round by saplings, springing from its roots. but, laocoon-like, sire and sons stood locked in the serpent folds of gnarled, distorted banians; and the banian-bark, eating into their vital wood, corrupted their veins of sap, till all those palm- nuts were poisoned chalices.

near by stood clean-limbed, comely manchineels, with lustrous leaves and golden fruit. you would have deemed them trees of life; but underneath their branches grew no blade of grass, no herb, nor moss; the bare earth was scorched by heaven's own dews, filtrated through that fatal foliage.

farther on, there frowned a grove of blended banian boughs, thick- ranked manchineels, and many a upas; their summits gilded by the sun; but below, deep shadows, darkening night-shade ferns, and mandrakes. buried in their midst, and dimly seen among large leaves, all halberd- shaped, were piles of stone, supporting falling temples of bamboo. thereon frogs leaped in dampness, trailing round their slime. thick hung the rafters with lines of pendant sloths; the upas trees dropped darkness round; so dense the shade, nocturnal birds found there perpetual night; and, throve on poisoned air. owls hooted from dead boughs; or, one by one, sailed by on silent pinions; cranes stalked abroad, or brooded, in the marshes; adders hissed; bats smote the darkness; ravens croaked; and vampires, fixed on slumbering lizards, fanned the sultry air.