Among cannibals; an account of four years' travels in Australia and of camp life with the aborigines of Queensland; . 103 so dense that a person canhardly penetrate it withoutbeing so torn and prickedthat blood flows from thewounds. In the mountain scrubsthere grows a very luxuri-ant kind of palm {Calamusaustralis), whose stem, ofa fingers thickness, like theEast Indian Rotang-palm,creeps through the woodsfor hundreds of feet, twin-ing round trees in its path,and at times forming sodense a wattle that it isimpossible to get throughit. The stem and leavesare studded with the sharp-est thorns, w
Among cannibals; an account of four years' travels in Australia and of camp life with the aborigines of Queensland; . 103 so dense that a person canhardly penetrate it withoutbeing so torn and prickedthat blood flows from thewounds. In the mountain scrubsthere grows a very luxuri-ant kind of palm {Calamusaustralis), whose stem, ofa fingers thickness, like theEast Indian Rotang-palm,creeps through the woodsfor hundreds of feet, twin-ing round trees in its path,and at times forming sodense a wattle that it isimpossible to get throughit. The stem and leavesare studded with the sharp-est thorns, which continu-ally cling to you and drawblood, hence its not verypolite name of lawyer-palm. In the lower regions thecommon Australian palmand the fan-palm {Livis-tonia) are found. There isalso the beautiful banana-palm, with its bright green,and towards the summitmagnificent tree-ferns spreadtheir splendid leaves overthe rivers in the humidvales, blending with theendless mass of other treesand bushes. Rivers andstreams everywhere tumbledown the mountain sides,and frequently form beau-tiful waterfalls surrounded. PALM FOREST IN NORTHERN QUEENSLAND. I04 AMONG CANNIBALS chap. by luxuriant scrubs. Here, in the shadow of dense treeshiding the sun from sight, the water is cool and clear ascrystal. The real scrubs once left behind, and the summitreached, you come to a more open country, Leichhardtsbasaltic table-land. At first there are hills and dales withthe same kind of scrubs as below, but not so dense, for thelawyer-palm is here more rare. In these picturesque but very inaccessible scrubs thenatives live in large numbers undisturbed by the white man,for there is no gold or other treasure to tempt him to sub-ject himself to all the inconveniences connected with theeffort to penetrate into these regions. After having studied the neighbourhood of the stationfor some time, I soon discovered that I must abandonHerbert Vale as my night quarters and go farther up intothe wild woods of t
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, booksubjectethnology, booksubjectnaturalhistory
