We traveled much more in the deep gloom of the forest than in open sunlight.

No passage existed on either side of the narrow path made by the axe.

Large climbing plants entwined themselves around the trunks and branches of gigantic trees like boa constrictors, and they often do constrict the trees by which they rise, and, killing them, stand erect themselves.

The bark of a fine tree found in abundance here, and called "motuia", is used by the Barotse for making fish-lines and nets, and the "molompi", so well adapted for paddles by its lightness and flexibility, was abundant.
There were other trees quite new to my companions; many of them ran up to a height of fifty feet of one thickness, and without branches.
In these forests we first encountered the artificial beehives so commonly met with all the way from this to Angola.

They consist of about five feet of the bark of a tree fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter.
Two incisions are made right round the tree at points five feet apart, then one longitudinal slit from one of these to the other; the workman next lifts up the bark on each side of this slit, and detaches it from the trunk, taking care not to break it, until the whole comes from the tree.