It was like walking between solid walls of vegetation, matted and tangled and bright with half-ripened blackberries.

The walls were too high to see over except as occasionally we could catch glimpses of tree-tops somewhere ahead.

We wound in and out along the tortuous path, and it was also torture-ous, for the thorn bushes scratched our hands and faces and even sent their stickers through the cloth into our knees.
The effect on the barelegged porters was doubtless much worse.
After a couple of hours of marching in those canons of vegetation we entered the lower edge of the forest and left the underbrush behind.

We soon struck a fairly fresh elephant trail and for an hour wound in and out among the trees, stumbling over "monkey ropes" and gingerly avoiding old elephant pits.

There were dozens of these, and if it had not been for the fact that our old guide carefully piloted us past them I'm certain more than one of us would have plunged down on to the sharpened stakes at the bottom.