The undergrowth disappeared and the high trees grew thick and close.

The plantain, which furnishes an abundant supply of fruit to the natives and had sustained the Ashanti army during its stay south of the Prah, before abundant, extended no further.

Mansue stood, like other native villages, on rising ground, but the heavy rains which still fell every day and the deep swamps around rendered it a most unhealthy station.
Beyond Mansue the forest was thick and gloomy.

There was little undergrowth, but a perfect wilderness of climbers clustered round the trees, twisting in a thousand fantastic windings, and finally running down to the ground, where they took fresh root and formed props to the dead tree their embrace had killed.

Not a flower was to be seen, but ferns grew by the roadside in luxuriance.