Canopy

“ Beneath my leafy canopy on the edge of the beech woods where I now and then seek refuge from a hot wave, reclining on a cushion of dry leaves or sitting with my back against a cool, smooth exposure of the outcropping place rock, I am in a mood to give myself up to a day of little things. ”

“ Now when nature puts on her sable habiliments of night, the blue canopy was covered with stars, that glistened and shone in their glory, as they looked down upon us and seemed to witness our prosperity. ”

“ IF you journey down the Little Pigeon by canoe from the height o' land, you shall come at sunset—if you have had moderate luck with rapids and the like—to a huge pine standing by the bank of the river on a tempting little flat. It is towering, enormous, a giant of its kind, rough-barked and venerable. It is heavily topped, and standing beneath it you may look up at a dense canopy of dark green, with never a glint of sunshine or sky striking through. ”

“ Several times we cut off bends of the river by narrow canals, the branches of the trees, interwoven by numberless creepers, which hung down in festoons covered with brilliant blossoms, forming a dense canopy over our heads. ”

“ A forest is organized vertically like an apartment house or office building, with layers corresponding to stories. The canopy is the branches and foliage of tall trees that form a roof over the community. Below the canopy are the understory trees: young individuals of the canopy species; and small, shade-tolerant trees that will never become part of the canopy. Beneath the understory branches is the shrub layer, occupied by knee-high-to-man-high woody plants; beneath that is the herb layer, where most of the ferns, wildflowers, grasses, and smaller woody plants grow. ”

“ Further on, again, on the flat lands towards the east, the mighty trees rise to an immense height from the humid soil, without a flowering plant or shrub below their branches, forming a canopy almost impervious to the light of day. ”

“ Descending, you find that the surface is a vegetable canopy formed by stout and hardy creepers and climbers that spread from tree to tree, only the tops of the lofty eucalypts appearing above this mid-air canopy. ”

“ Even when its canopy is actually supported by the wall behind, it is apparently supported by two columns in front, perfectly formed with bases and capitals:— (the support of the Northern niche—if it have any—commonly takes the form of a buttress) :—when it appears as a detached pinnacle, it is supported on four columns, the canopy trefoliated with very obtuse cusps, richly charged with foliage in the foliating space, but undecorated at the cusp points, and terminating above in a smooth pyramid, void of all ornament, and never very acute. ”

“ The fourteenth century canopy is, at first at least, always in pure elevation, attempts at perspective not being found till close on the end of the century. Plate XXV. shows both of the forms which are most commonly found, that with a single big crocketted gable and arch spanning the opening, and that with three small ones. ”

“ Endless variety reigns, and on every side the puzzled observer sees different trees. Often the stems are so covered with orchids, aroids, and other parasitic and climbing plants that they can hardly be recognized, and their leaves and flowers are but a part of the fresh canopy some sixty feet or more above the ground. From a mountain ridge this forest looks [325] like a level plain, even as the top of a well-trimmed hedge; its surface is here and there broken by the giant mahogany, or seamed by the river and its affluents. ”

“ Stone was sometimes used for these canopies, but wood was more common. These wooden canopies and brackets are often very fine pieces of joinery and wood-carving. The canopy sometimes takes the form of a kind of big shell, the ornaments and pattern being finely moulded, and the cornice being deeply and boldly cut. These canopies were painted, and the tops covered with lead to protect them from the weather. ”

“ Sometimes its bed widened considerably, and we then kept in the centre of the stream. At other times the water flowed between high, precipitous rocks, under a thick canopy of mahogany and cedar trees, from whose branches long-trailing parasitical plants hung over our heads. ”

“ Upon cleared or open land thousands of saplings will cover much of the ground, but nearly all these will die off due to crowding, and leave as the climax only enough trees to close over the forest canopy. ”

“ There were times, even on a relatively calm day, when a gust would pass across the field and re-inflate the canopy before we got to it. A partially inflated canopy in a gentle breeze can drag a 120-pound dummy along the ground faster than ground handlers can run. ”

“ The absence of direct sunlight and interception of much rain under the forest canopy has other effects besides stopping the growth of herbs and shrubs which are common enough along the edges, or where openings are made by the fall of old trees. It prevents the germination and growth of nearly all the seeds falling from such trees, and in a really virgin forest of this sort, almost no seedlings will be found. ”

“ Those that were nearest the ground had already begun to suffer from the denser canopy above them but the great sturdy boughs that had shot upward so as to form a part of the crown, were able to retain their vantage ground, and continue as important members of the trees. ”

“ The northern trees are softwood dwarfs, needle-leaved, flowerless, and cone-bearing. The equatorial trees are often branchless for one hundred feet, but spread at the top into a broad overarching canopy which shuts out the sun perpetually. ”

“ Now and again there is a flash of color, where some cockatoo or parrot or brilliant butterfly appears only to vanish in the leafy maze, or here and there through a break in the canopy a furtive beam of sunlight penetrates to gild the greenness of the shade. One looks in vain for dead trees and old decaying logs for all is life in this luxuriant growth. ”

“ Spread over a vast extent of the low delta region near the coast is a growth of gigantic trees, from five to eight feet in diameter near the base and growing to a height of eighty or a hundred feet, having long, spreading boughs and broad, dark foliage. This growth of trees is sufficiently dense to constitute a great forest. The intertwining boughs and the dense leaves form an impenetrable canopy, spreading for miles in all directions. ”

“ Beyond the pool a gentle slope of earth ran up and up to meet the opposing wall. Fine grass covered the slope—grass that was spangled with flowers, with here and there patches of color, orange and purple and golden. Below, the canyon was shut in. There was no view. The walls leaned together abruptly and the canyon ended in a chaos of rocks, moss-covered and hidden by a green screen of vines and creepers and boughs of trees. Up the canyon rose far hills and peaks, the big foothills, pine-covered and remote. ”

“ The canoe we turned bottom up and left in the bushes, and so we set off through the forest.
At the end of fifteen minutes we began to mount a gentle ascent. The gentle ascent speedily became a sharp slope, the sharp slope an abrupt hill, and the latter finally an almost sheer face of rock and thin soil. We laid hold doggedly of little cedars; we dug our fingers into little crevices, and felt for the same with our toes; we perspired in streams and breathed in gasps; we held the strained muscles of our necks rigid, for the twisting of a pack meant here a dangerous fall ”

“ An unusual noise is heard; and round the bend glides a bark canoe with sound of human voices. Away go the brood together, the river behind them foaming like the wake of a tiny steamer as the swift-moving feet lift them almost out of water. Visions of ocean, the guns, falling birds, and the hard winter distract the poor mother. She flutters wildly about the brood, now leading, now bravely facing the monster; now pushing along some weak little loiterer, now floundering near the canoe as if wounded, to attract attention from the young. ”

“ And after a long time the rough rocks were decked out with soft mosses and trailing vines, and all the nooks were hung with clematis and columbine, and great elms lifted their huge tops high up into the sunlight, and down about their feet clustered the low cedars and balsams, and everywhere the violets and wind-flower and maiden-hair grew and bloomed, till the canyon became the Masters place for rest and peace and joy. ”

“ To do this required some skill in the management of the canoe, which was rather over-loaded for so light a vessel; and the trees grew so close and thick that they had some difficulty in pushing their way through them without injuring its frail sides. These trees or bushes were chiefly black elder, high-bush cranberries, dogwood, willows, and, as they proceeded further, and there was ground of a more solid nature, cedar, poplar, swamp oak, and soft maple, with silver birch and wild cherries. ”

“ About dusk my canoe, flying swiftly forward at its own sweet will, brought me into a bight, a bare, desolate-looking country with no vegetation save grass and sedge on the near marshes and stony hills rising up beyond, with others beyond them mounting step by step to a long line of ridges and peaks still covered in winter snow. ”

“ CHAPTER XIV COGITATIONS AND CANOEING ON THE AMAZON—BARNEY'S EXPLOIT WITH AN ALLIGATOR—STUBBORN FACTS—REMARKABLE MODE OF SLEEPING It is pleasant, when the sun is bright, and the trees are green, and when flowering shrubs and sweet-smelling tropical trees scent the balmy atmosphere at eventide, to lie extended at full length in a canoe, and drop easily, silently, yet quickly, down the current of a noble river, under the grateful shadow of overhanging foliage ”

“ Up waterways we pressed, across silent, silver lakes, hemmed in to the very brim with an untouched growth of pine and spruce; across portages, where streams thundered down precipitous canyons while we laboriously transported canoe and duffel through the timber, following faint paths that told plainly how rarely they had known human foot prints. ”

“ All the wood-work in the canoe is derived from the cédre blanche, for this wood is very elastic, does not split, has but light specific gravity, and is easily cut with a knife. The material for the cords and strings is also obtained from the same tree, though they also use the bark taken from the root of the epinetee blanche, a species of spruce. All this is prepared by the women, who are always busy in twisting ‘watals,’ owing to the large quantities used. ”

“ But when the swamps are deep in water, the swamper may paddle up to these trees, whose narrowed waists are now within the swing of his axe, and standing up in his canoe, by a marvel of balancing skill, cut and cut, until at length his watchful, up-glancing eye sees the forest giant bow his head. ”

“ In building canoes the natives of this part of the Pacific have no equal. The body of the canoe is generally made out of the trunk of a tree, the sides being built up from this body. The planks forming the sides are sewn together with the tough grass I have spoken of, and they are afterwards caulked and made watertight by means of a peculiar cement, which I understand is the kernel of a nut which grows extensively in the forests. ”

“ Occasionally we saw Indians on the river in canoes. Each canoe was wrought of a single log cut from a pine, cedar or fir tree, and excavated mostly by burning, but the finishing work was done with edge tools, originally of stone and bone perhaps, but now of iron and steel. The canoes I saw here on the upper river were shapely, and neatly finished, but quite plain in appearance and generally large enough for only two or three persons. ”

“ Easily and swiftly the canoes slide along with the little river, winding and doubling through the wide, wild field, travelling three miles to gain one. The rushes nod and glisten around us; the bending reeds whisper as we push between them, cutting across a point. ”

“ With a wooden wedge he raised it,
Stripped it from the trunk unbroken.
⁠"Give me of your boughs, O Cedar!
Of your strong and pliant branches,
My canoe to make more steady,
Make more strong and firm beneath me!" ”

“ Our canoes were small, drawing but a few inches of water, and were managed, as I have said, by two Dayaks, one standing at the stem, the other at the stern; with long bamboos in their hands, they impelled us forward at a great pace.
The scenery varied much; occasionally we passed beneath high hills, which rose smilingly above us, [136] clothed to the summit with vegetation; Bornean hills seldom frown, their clothing is too luxuriant, their aspect generally free from harsh outlines, even their precipices have some softening feature. ”

“ Huge maples, with bark resembling that of ancient oaks, formed an important part of the forest, and so did canoe birches of various ages, solitary white pines of immense height, and old-growth spruces, the last named becoming more and more numerous as our road gained higher 51 levels. ”

“ So men passing touch not his hoard, for some day they may be in the same fix, and a precedent is a bad thing.
Thus in parts of the wildest countries of northern Canada I have unexpectedly come upon a birch canoe in capsized suspension between two trees; or a whole bunch of snow-shoes depending fruit-like beneath the fans of a spruce; or a tangle of steel traps thrust into the crevice of a tree-root; or a supply of pork and flour, swathed like an Egyptian mummy, occupying stately a high bier. These things we have passed by reverently, as symbols of a people's trust in its kind. ”

“ At one beautiful resting place, the canoe slid up against a strip of shingle covered with delicate shells; we were delighted to be allowed to walk about, after sitting curled up in the bottom of the canoe for a long time, to gather crab, pecten and periwinkle shells, even extending our ramble to a lovely grove of dark young evergreens, standing in a grassy meadow. ”

“ I was presented at my request with several of their conch shells, and in exchange for a long knife secured a well-made net used for pig-hunting. On our walk to the beach we noticed a large war canoe, made of an immense log of very buoyant timber, with the sides regularly built up of large planks of the same wood. The stem and stern were rudely ornamented with carvings and painted with red, white and black pigment, the only three colours in use among them. On one side of the canoe a log was attached as an outrigger, enabling the craft to live in a pretty heavy sea. ”