Along the banks of the Aruwimi, a better idea of tropical vegetation may be obtained than in any part of Africa, outside of the eastern half of the Congo basin. The banks are for the most part low, though no one could guess what height they were, because of the lofty hedges of creeping plants, which cover every inch of ground from the water’s edge to as high as fifty feet above in some places, while immediately behind them rises the black-green forest to the towering height of from 150 to 200 feet above the river. The aspects of the banks vary considerably however. Abandoned sites of human dwellings possess their own peculiar wilderness appearance, the virgin forest its own, and as the soil varies so do its growths.
Lately abandoned clearings will show, besides inordinate density of vegetation, gorgeous flowering sections. Above these will probably rise a few trees with masses of thick, shining leaves, and a profusion of blood-red flowers, whose petals have been showered on the impervious mass of leguminous vines of creepers and shrubs below, and strongly contrast to their own light purple, yellow, or white flowerets. The amoma show snowy flower-goblets, edged with pink; a wild vine will have its light purple; a creeper, with pinnate leaves, though flowerless at the time, will have its foliage tinted auburn; a pepper bush with its red pods, or a wild mango, attracts attention by myriads of bead-like flowerets; or an acacia effuses overpowering fragrance from its snowy buds, or a mimosa with its sweet-smelling yellow blossoms. Different shades of green are presented by ferns, protruding leaves of sword grass, a young Elais palm, or the broad and useful leaf of the phrynium. A young fig-tree, with silver stem, and branching widely, mixes its leaves with those of the tender leaflets of the sensitive plant and the palmate calamus; below is a multitude of nettles, and nettle-leafed plants with stalks and leaves, making a mass of vegetation at once curious and delightful. Perhaps the base of all this intricate and inextricable confusion of plants and impervious hill of verdure and beauty, is a prostrate tree, long ago fallen, fast decaying, black with mould, spread thinly with humus, fungous parasites abounding, and every crack, cranny, and flaw in it nesting all kinds of insatiable insects, from the tiny termite to the black centipede or mammoth beetle.