Mardi: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

They Pass Through The Woods

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.

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