|
|
|
More "Undergrowth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... interposed by mountain-spurs, frequent swift-flowing rivers, and dense undergrowth in the forests, there is considerable intercourse between the small villages, each of which contains from two to twenty or more houses. The people take long journeys on horse and on foot over the trails to assemble at ceremonial ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... you," he muttered. "If you are deliberately trying to make men mad to get you you are succeeding infuriatingly well. If I catch you to-night it will be your fault if I tell you what I think of you. I'll tell you now, for I suppose you are hiding somewhere in this undergrowth till I give it up and you can get away home. You shall listen to me if you are here, for ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... alert, had marked a small figure scuttling along in the undergrowth of the coppice, and he was in hot pursuit. In two minutes he was ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... journey was resumed as usual, and we entered the forest. Here the trees grow very closely together; in some places they are so thickly set that the rear-guard of the escort cannot see the advance-guard in the march. There is a slight undergrowth of scrub. We saw some of the choicest of the ERICA tribe in full bloom, like a beautiful crimson waxen bell-blossom, and once whilst walking (which I frequently did to relieve the monotony of being perched on the ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... guarded him, a small bird had sung in their ears and awakened them. By this, the sky was growing white with the morning, but nothing yet clear to the sight: and while they pressed forward under the naked boughs, their horses' hoofs crackling the frosted undergrowth, Sir Dinar was aware of a bird's wing ruffling ahead, and let fly a bolt without warning his companions; who had forgotten what morning it was, and drew rein for a moment. But pressing forward again, they came upon a gerfalcon lying, with long lunes tangled about his ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... watched she saw a thick, leafy bush move up to the rock. Rhoda caught her breath, glanced at the unconscious Kut-le, then back at the bush. It moved slowly back among the trees and after a moment Rhoda saw the undergrowth far beyond move as with a passing breeze. She glanced at the nodding Alchise and the squaws, then smiled and ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Silence fell between them while he plodded ahead. They started up the mountainside, and the way became increasingly difficult. There was a dense undergrowth through which he was compelled to shove his feet. There were rocks which she could not see, down which he was constantly slipping. Her directions barely kept him from bumping into the trees that grew closer and closer together. Occasionally she pushed a branch aside ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... Rich flax and grass made the valley look promising, but on the hill the ground was stony and barren, and shabbily clothed with patches of dry and brown grass, surrounded by a square foot or so of hard ground; between the tussocks, however, there was a frequent though scanty undergrowth which might furnish support for sheep, though ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... no difficulty in keeping afloat, and eventually reached the land in safety. The scene of my next miraculous rescue from drowning was a river. In diving into the water off a boat, I got my legs entangled in a thick undergrowth of weeds. Frantically struggling to get free and realising only too acutely the seriousness of my position, for my lungs were on the verge of bursting, I fervently solicited the succour of my guardian spirit, and had no sooner done so, than I fancied I felt soft hands press ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... the princess stepped into the drive and found her thirty yards away. The Terror slipped noiselessly away through the undergrowth. ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... had instinctively refused the coarse food proffered him, and this was brought anew to their notice when they paused to eat their scanty rations in a deep, secluded dell. A stream ran foaming, crystal clear, amidst great rocks hemming it in on every side, save where a jungle of undergrowth made close to the verge. A sudden sound from these bosky recesses set every nerve of the fugitives a-quiver. Only the tinkle of a cow-bell, keen and clear in the chill rare air! There was the exchange of a sheepish grin as the tones were ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... was about to give the signal to advance when a most unexpected interruption occurred. They heard the snapping of twigs behind them, accompanied by a slight rustling among the leaves, such as might be made by some heavy body working its way cautiously through the thick undergrowth. The astonished troopers hugged the ground closely, holding their breath in suspense; and in a second more, without a single footstep being audible, the bushes parted and the form of an Indian warrior could be dimly seen ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... me, I tried to speculate upon the plan of the savages. Their own numbers could not be great, and yet they must have known from our trace how few we were. Scanning the ground, I noted that the forest was fairly clean of undergrowth on both sides of us. Below, the stream ran straight, but there were growths of cane and briers. Looking up, I saw Weldon faced about. It was the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in reality as a blind. Climbing by one or two projecting points, the negro, closely followed by Nigel, reached a narrow ledge and walked along it a short distance. On coming to the end of the ledge he jumped down into a mass of undergrowth, where the track again became visible—winding among great masses of weatherworn lava. Here the ascent became very steep, and Moses put on what sporting men call a spurt, which took him far ahead of Nigel, despite the best efforts of the latter to keep up. Still our hero scorned to run or call out ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... the life line held in the hands of the anxious Tom, recalled Paul to his work. The three pulls meant, "Where are you? Is everything right?" He then signaled for the bucket to be lowered. Taking his pry he broke off some exquisite specimens of the undergrowth coral, which he loaded in and sent up. He then explored on the side of the coral forest until he came to a small portion of the bottom, covered with sand and surrounded with rocks. Under the growth of marine vegetation, he passed his hand, and pulled from the rock a living shell. Paul had ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... this garden thoroughly," I whispered to Jack, and then I switched on my torch and showed a light around. A tangle of weeds and undergrowth was revealed—a tangle so great that to penetrate it without the use of a bill-hook ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... was coolness and delicate shade. It resembled a large copse, about two acres in extent. In the heart of the tangle of small trees and undergrowth was a partially cleared space—perhaps the roots of the giant tree growing in the centre had killed off the smaller fry all around it. By the side of the tree sparkled a little, bubbling fountain, whose water was iron-red. The precipices on all sides, overhung with thorns, ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... oak-trees, she hesitated a moment, and finally left the road, entered the grove, and sat down on a rock at only a little distance from the road, yet out of sight of it. She was quite effectually screened by the trees and some undergrowth. Here and there the oaks showed shades of russet-and-gold and deep crimson; the leaves had not fallen. In the sunlit spaces between the trees grew clumps of blue asters. She saw a squirrel sitting quite motionless on ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... moments, looking about. A dark, cloud-barred sky hung over the prairie, which was fast fading into dimness; the wood looked desolate and forbidding in the dying light. He did not think any one could have seen him and his companion enter it. Then he and the man floundered through the undergrowth until they reached the sloo, where they hid themselves among the grass at some distance from the case, which had ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... time, civilized nations are penalizing talent and genius, the bearers of the torch of civilization, to coddle and perpetuate the choking human undergrowth, which, as all authorities tell us, is escaping control and threatens to overrun the whole garden of humanity. Yet men continue to drug themselves with the opiate of optimism, or sink back upon the cushions of Christian resignation, their intellectual powers ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... grass, tropical undergrowth, under barbed-wire fences and over wire entanglements, regardless 20 of casualties, up the hill to the right this gallant advance was made. As we appeared on the crest we found the Spaniards retreating only to take up a new position farther on, spitefully firing as they retired and only ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... nor the religions growing out of the books were extant. Furthermore, strictly speaking, it is not with any or all of these three religions that the Christian missionary comes first, oftenest or longest in contact. In ancient, in mediaeval, and in modern times the student notices a great undergrowth of superstition clinging parasitically to all religions, though formally recognized by none. Whether we call it fetichism, shamanism, nature worship or heathenism in its myriad forms, it is there in awful reality. It is as omnipresent, as persistent, as hard to kill as the scrub bamboo which both ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... there is a difference. The familiar trees and bushes and flowers of the Orient do not spring here from bare earth. Even where cultivated land, wrested from the mountain sides, is laboriously terraced, stones do not predominate. Earth and rock are hidden by a thick undergrowth of grass and creepers that defies the sun, and draws from the nearby mountain snow a perennial supply of water. Olive and plane, almond and walnut, orange and lemon, cedar and cork, palm and umbrella-pine, grape-vine and flower-bush have not the monopoly of ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... breathing that mountain air which makes a constant theme of the hunter's praise, and which now made us feel as if we had all been drinking some exhilarating gas. The depths of this unexplored forest were a place to delight the heart of a botanist. There was a rich undergrowth of plants, and numerous gay-colored flowers in brilliant bloom. We reached the outlet at length, where some freshly-barked willows that lay in the water showed that beaver had ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... honeysuckle twined round the low undergrowth of bushes, and tall foxgloves reared their purple spikes in every small, open glade. The girls gathered ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... into the undergrowth on the opposite side of the clearing, vanishing as suddenly and noiselessly as he ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... family were at dinner, and the noble family was considerably disturbed, and at the same time very much interested, by the occurrence. But on the Tuesday morning there was the additional fact established that a bludgeon loaded with lead had been found among the thick grass and undergrowth of shrubs in a spot to which it might easily have been thrown by any one attempting to pitch it over the wall. The news flew about the town like wildfire, and it was now considered certain that the real murderer would ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... western bank of the river of the outlet, since the bridge over it had been destroyed. Rogers, with the provincial regiments of Fitch and Lyman, led the way, at some distance before the rest. The forest was extremely dense and heavy, and so obstructed with undergrowth that it was impossible to see more than a few yards in any direction, while the ground was encumbered with fallen trees in every stage of decay. The ranks were broken, and the men struggled on as they could in dampness and ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... either side were much higher. The growth on the mountain sides was principally evergreen; Douglas fir, the bull-pine and yellow pine. There was a species of juniper, somewhat different from the Utah juniper, with which we were familiar at the Grand Canyon. Bushes and undergrowth were dense above the steep canyon walls, which were bare. Willows, alder-thickets, and a few cottonwood trees ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... of that thing was speed. He must fall upon the Arabs unawares, like a bolt from the blue. They forgot that he who led that expedition was speaking to them now; they were with him in the obscure depths of the undergrowth, surging against gigantic barriers of fallen tree-trunks, twenty, thirty feet high; they were marching behind him, like him at grips with nature in a six-weeks' struggle of life and death; and when finally he burst into the clearing on the river's bank the ripple went backwards across the ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... States had paid so often and so well—was seen between the mightiest sentinel trees; but in the midst had sprung up a fresh growth, often nearly one hundred feet high, surrounded by huge stumps, and heavy undergrowth of the renewing forest, varied with hopeless mudholes and swamps, and only at intervals of about twenty miles was ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... car as it rolled by, guns dragging still upon their flanks the torn cloak of camouflage—small squat guns which stared idly into the air, or with wider mouths still, like petrified dogs for ever baying at the moon—long slim guns which lay along the grass and pushing undergrowth—and one gun which had dipped forward and, fallen upon its knees, howled silenced imprecations at the devil in the centre ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... five weeks old before he commenced to go out foraging on his own account. He never ventured far, but contented himself with timorous excursions along the banks of the watercourse, crouching amid the undergrowth, and ready, at the first scent of danger, to glide with flattened body back to cover. Sometimes he accompanied his mother on her visits to distant portions of the colony, but the old vole more often left her octet behind, and then he would lie ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... being hung with climbers, are also decked with orchids and with foliaceous lichens and mosses. The wild banana with its crown of glistening leaves is everywhere conspicuous. Bamboos shoot up through the undergrowth to a hundred feet or more in height. The fallen trees are richly clothed with ferns typical of the hottest and dampest climates. And dendrobiums and other orchids fasten on ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... places. They climb into these aerial situations after the lizards, which go there after the insects, which go there after the flowers, which go there after the sunshine, struggling upwards through the thick undergrowth. You must have a quick eye and ready hand to grasp them by the tail ere they have time to lash themselves round some stem where, once anchored, they will allow themselves to be pulled in pieces rather than yield to your efforts. If you fail to seize them, they trickle earthward through the tangle ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... fifty yards to his left, stretched away to his right for over a thousand feet. Along the road which ran almost parallel with the wall was the remnant of what had once been a great woods; yearly the county authorities determined to cut away its thick undergrowth—and yearly left it alone. On the left the road was bare for some distance along the bluff; then, bending, it again sought the shelter of the trees and meandered along until it lost itself in the main street of Sihasset, a village large enough to support three ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... as I was walking through the woods, I came to a clearing on a hillside, and as I climbed the slope I was startled by loud, profane and boisterous voices which seemed to proceed from a thick cover of undergrowth about two hundred yards in advance ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Torres gave himself up to the chase. He ran at top speed, entangling himself in the high undergrowth, among those thick brambles and interlacing creepers, across which the guariba passed like a steeplechaser. Big roots hidden beneath the grass lay often in the way. He stumbled over them and again started in pursuit. At length, to his ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... riders following the path which led through the woods. The boar led them a chase which lasted until five in the afternoon, turning upon his tracks, evidently unwilling to leave the forest with its thick undergrowth. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... reach. Men crept along slippery ledges above the water and moved over dangerously slanting slopes, half hidden among the trees; a few were in the river. Three or four of the dogs were swimming; the others, spread out in twos and threes, trotted in and out among the undergrowth. ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... undergrowth of a given section, drain the swamps and mow down all the weeds and tall grass, and the next particularly hard winter starves ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... forest seemed to be half smothered with large thickets of bamboo, and consequently the larger trees were rather far apart. There was also a climbing variety of bamboo, which scrambled up to the tops of the largest trees. The undergrowth in places was most luxuriant and consisted of different species of palms, rattans, tree-ferns, pandanus, giant ginger, pipers, pothos, begonias, bananas, caladiums, ferns, selaginellas and lycopodiums, and many variegated plants. Growing on ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... almost circular in shape. Upon every hand rose the mighty giants of the untouched forest, with the matted undergrowth banked so closely between the huge trunks that the only opening into the little, level arena was through the upper ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... gallop to a canter, and finally to a walk. When nearly two miles of this sort of country had been covered, the two men reined in and dismounted. Next they unloaded the stones from the saddle-bags and hid them carefully in the undergrowth. Cumshaw then proceeded to cut his thick blanket into strips, each of about eighteen inches square. There were eight of these strips in all—four he kept himself and the others ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... which could be seen far away in the distance. Hour after hour passed until at last evening came, and even then we were only entering upon the fringe of the great forest which rose before us, and seemed to shut out the sky as we wandered into the thickness of the undergrowth and gazed up at the lofty tops of the trees which bent each other's branches as they interlaced ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the little zigzag way which cut across the wood, and then, desiring to sit down for awhile, she struck off to the right, towards a spot where she saw that the brambles and the undergrowth had ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... willow, the narrow and broad leafed willow. the sweet willow has not been common to the Missouri below this or the entrance of Maria's river; here attains to the same size and in appearance much the same as in the Atlantic States. the undergrowth consists of rosebushes, goosberry and current bushes, honeysuckle small, and the red wood, the inner bark of which the engages are fond of smoking mixed ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... his canoe far into the undergrowth, and then stopped it in shelter so close that, keen as his own eyes were, he could scarcely see the main stream of the river. The water where he came to rest was not more than a foot deep, but he remained ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... paralleled after long rides and climbs in the heart of the Sierras. The gorges and canons of Colorado are surpassed; mountains that tower above Pike's Peak rise in steep incline from the still level of the sea; and the shores are clad in forests and undergrowth dense and impassable as the tangle of a ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... halted in the road near the gate, and on both sides of it was a thick undergrowth of small trees and bushes; and in the shade of this foliage it had become quite dark. Christy had not taken three steps before four men sprang out of the thicket in front of him, all of them armed with muskets, and wearing a uniform of gray. Two placed themselves in front of Christy; ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... place the name of the Friendly village. We breakfasted here; and after purchasing twelve dogs, four sacks of fish, and a few dried berries, proceeded on our journey. The hills as we passed were high, with steep, rocky sides, with pine and white oak, and an undergrowth of shrubs scattered ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... guard over a pile of apples. He soon convinced himself that this man was indifferent to his movements, and, watching his opportunity, when the man's back was turned, he slipped beyond the orchard, into a dense swamp, covered with a thick undergrowth of saplings and bushes. Here there was a huge prostrate log twenty feet in length, curtained with a dense tangle ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... were around him, whipped by icy blasts— Gigantic chestnuts, without leaf or bird, And, like himself, grown old in that same place. Through the dark network of their undergrowth, Pallid his aspect; and the earth was brown. Starless and moonless, a rough winter's night Was letting down her lappets o'er the mist. This—nothing more: old Faun, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... and there, washed down to deep indentations; above the whole a stretch of burnt, broken timber that goes by the name of "fire-scald," and is a relic of the fury of the fire which was "set out" in the woods with the mission to burn only the leaves and undergrowth, and which, in its undisciplined strength, transcended its instructions, as it were, and destroyed great trees. And this is all. But once more, at a coigne of vantage on the opposite side of the gorge, and the experience can be utilized in differentiating the elements that ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... woods, but where the woods had been left they were of immemorial age. They were not very dense, and the timber was not very heavy; the trees stood more like trees in a park than trees in a forest; there was little or no undergrowth, except here and there a pawpaw thicket; and there were sometimes grassy spaces between them, where the may-apples pitched their pretty tents in the spring. Perhaps, at no very great distance of time, it had been a prairie country, with those wide savannahs of waving grass that ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... suggested something for which I still cherish his memory. He pointed out that bulbs look very formal mostly, unless planted in great quantities, as may be done with the cheap sorts—tulips and such. An undergrowth of low brightly-coloured annuals would correct this disadvantage. I caught the hint, and I profit by it to this more enlightened day. Spring bulbs are still a specialite of my gardening. I buy them fresh every autumn—but of Messrs. Protheroe ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... Media post to Aegypt, there fast bound. Now to th' ascent of that steep savage Hill Satan had journied on, pensive and slow; But further way found none, so thick entwin'd, As one continu'd brake, the undergrowth Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplext All path of Man or Beast that past that way: One Gate there onely was, and that look'd East On th' other side: which when th' arch-fellon saw Due entrance he disdaind, and in contempt, 180 At one slight ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... much love had been lost between him and dogs. As there were no fences to the roads, we walked on the grass, which was only about an inch deep. Sheep had been pastured on it from time immemorial, and the constant biting of the surface had encouraged the side, or undergrowth, which made our walking easy and pleasant; for it was like walking on a heavy Turkey carpet though much more springy. The absence of trees and bushes enabled us to distinguish the presence of ancient ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... provisioned, and we set off about an hour and-half late, but no one minds such a trifle in these parts. At first the line was fairly straight and smooth, but then the country became wonderfully wild, with rocky hills covered with stumpy trees and undergrowth of brilliant colouring, and wooded lakes without end. In and out we wound, sometimes over most light and primitive bridges, and over high embankments, often running along the margin of the lakes, consisting of loose sand, which frequently rolled down the sides as we went ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... attract natives; for we were convinced by the light we had seen shining in the jungle that the island was inhabited. So we set off cautiously into the woods, and slowly tramped some distance through an undergrowth that scratched our hands and faces and tore our clothes. On the banks of a small stream we picked some yellow berries, which Blodgett ate with relish, but which the rest of us found unpalatable. We all drank water from the hollows of trees,—we dared ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... had wandered some distance from the balance of the tribe. He was making his way slowly along an elephant path when he discovered that it was blocked with undergrowth. Now Taug, come into maturity, was an evil-natured brute of an exceeding short temper. When something thwarted him, his sole idea was to overcome it by brute strength and ferocity, and so now when he found his way blocked, he tore angrily ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... plants, grasses, flowers, rose bushes, vines, and palms, are correctly drawn; and the luxuriant valley in which the Christian soldiers and the knights are riding, with its rocky walls covered by undergrowth jutting stiffly forward, is very like the ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... days I have been living in camp on a mountain lake in the Adirondacks. All about me are mountains and unlumbered forest. The tree lies where it falls; the undergrowth chokes the trails; and on the hottest day it is cool in the green, sun-chequered wilderness. Deer start in the thickets or steal down to drink in the lake. The only sounds are the wood-pecker's scream, the song of the hermit-thrush, the thrumming and drumming of bull-frogs in the water. ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... no noise, and through the undergrowth I peered upon as odd a sight as ever pleased a lover of the bizarre. A blaze of torches lighted a cleared space among the tall palm columns, and in the flickering red glow a score of naked, tattooed figures crouched about a shining mat of sugar-cane. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... thirty minutes I was directed to form line of battle in a partially open field facing toward the blockhouses and strong intrenchments to the north occupied by the enemy. Much difficulty was found on account of the dense undergrowth, crossed in several directions by wire fences. As a part of the cavalry division under General Sumner, the regiment was formed in two lines, the First Squadron under Major S.T. Norvell, consisting of Troops A, B, E and I, leading; the second line, ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... from my blankets and stepped out under the broad dome of the sky, while all about me in their shadowy tents the people slept. I wandered toward a glen, down which the water from a little spring hurried to the brook. As I sat among the fresh undergrowth, I watched the stars grow dim and the thin line of smoke rise from the tents, telling that the mother had risen to blow the embers to a blaze and to put another stick or two upon ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... more mind, and which would be supreme were it not for awkwardness and intellectual gene. Every day our companies, our railways, our debentures, and our shares, tend more and more to multiply these SURROUNDINGS of the aristocracy, and in time they will hide it. And while this undergrowth has come up, the aristocracy have come down. They have less means of standing out than they used to have. Their power is in their theatrical exhibition, in their state. But society is every day becoming less stately. As our great satirist has observed, "The last Duke of ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... I've got him!" came the sudden and startling yell from the bushes, accompanied by a series of resounding whacks and a great threshing about in the thick undergrowth. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... well that he suddenly began to run, leaping over all obstacles and darting between the trees, careless whether he were seen or heard. A few bounds carried him across the Avenue de St. Cloud into the plantations stretching to the Allee de la Reine Marguerite. There the undergrowth was very dense; in the whole Bois there are no more closely set thickets. In summer they become one vast entanglement of verdure, amidst which, had it been the leafy season, Salvat might well have managed to secrete himself. For a moment he did find ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... run more than half a mile, and their pursuers were gaining on them at every stride—as they could tell by the sound of their voices—when Will Osten, who led, fell headlong into a deep hole that had been concealed by rank undergrowth. Old Peter, who was close at his heels, fell after him, and Larry, who followed Peter to encourage and spur him on, also tumbled in. Muggins alone was able to ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... ravine rose many broken knolls covered with a thick undergrowth of young chesnut hollies, wild laurels, and the like; and through these, a winding road might be discovered, penetrating the passes of the hills, and crossing the glen at a half mile's distance below on a single-arched brick bridge, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... of the water, unstirred by the slightest ripple, gleamed like a mirror of burnished steel, winding in and out, in its serpentine course, between masses of dense shadow—until it was lost to sight in the distance, behind a sudden bend, and a dark projecting clump of willows and undergrowth. ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... monkeys sang sorrowfully to each other as they hunted for dry roosts in the fern-wreathed trees, and the last puff of the day-wind brought from the unseen villages the scent of damp wood-smoke, hot cakes, dripping undergrowth, and rotting pine-cones. That is the true smell of the Himalayas, and if once it creeps into the blood of a man, that man will at the last, forgetting all else, return to the hills to die. The clouds closed and the smell went away ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... in a steep rocky ridge with which the country at that place was intersected for a considerable distance. The ridge itself, and the pass by which it was divided, were thickly covered with trees and dense undergrowth. ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... Yale, a distance of about ninety miles, along which the wire will be carried. There has heretofore been no communication between these points except by water. The river is bordered on both sides by high mountains and dense forests of heavy timber, with an almost impenetrable undergrowth. Notwithstanding these difficulties, Mr. Conway, one of the telegraph engineers, made an exploration of the entire route, during the latter part of last winter, on snow-shoes, being at one time three days in the woods ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... looked about us. The deck was a tangle of planks on edge, of planks on end, of splinters, of ruined woodwork. The masts rose from that chaos like big trees above a matted undergrowth. The interstices of that mass of wreckage were full of something whitish, sluggish, stirring—of something that was like a greasy fog. The smoke of the invisible fire was coming up again, was trailing, like a poisonous ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... flashing in the sunlight. He turned his horse through the passage, and reined up in a granite amphitheatre. The floor seemed about half a mile in diameter; it was broken into hillocks, and strewn with patches of a dense undergrowth, while here and there a big tree grew. The walls, which converged slightly towards an open top, were robed from summit to base with wild flowers, so that the whole circumference of the cone was one blaze ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... growth of Walden's Ridge is almost entirely oak and chestnut. Hickory, perhaps, comes next in frequency, and pine after. There is but little undergrowth, and where the forests have never been molested there are but few small trees. This is due to the annual fires which occur every autumn, or some time in winter, almost without exception, and overrun the whole ridge. It does not rage like ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... off, pursuing his way through the thick undergrowth and trees. It was longer than he thought. But all was still quiet, so the thought of being "spotted" in the open did not ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... catlike and tense. His black eyes roved everywhere, catching the movements of twigs and branches where small birds hopped, questing ever onward through the changing vistas of trees and brush, and returning always to the clumps of undergrowth on either side. And as he watched, so did he listen, though he rode on in silence, save for the boom of heavy guns from far to the west. This had been sounding monotonously in his ears for hours, ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... grow the tall foxgloves, bending a purple head in the heat of noon; here the great bells of the convolvulus hang thick from lofty hedges, massing their pink and white against dark green leafage; here amid shadowed undergrowth trail the long fronds of lustrous hartstongue; wherever the eye falls, profusion of summer's glory. Here, in many a nook carpeted with softest turf, canopied with tangle of leaf and bloom, solitude is safe from all ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... but I had never gone inside. The remains of a turf wall surrounded the cottage, but the low garden that this wall enclosed was overrun with ragwort and nettles and hemlock. My terrier was fond of investigating the garden, because among the thick undergrowth he invariably found either rabbits or water-rats, or a stoat. On this bright morning I was much surprised to find the whole of the enclosure cleared. Outside of the boundary was a great heap of ashes, from which clouds of dust drifted hither and thither. A light smoke arose from the chimney, ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... pushing the body down after it fell. That seems to argue vindictiveness—and a logic which I can hardly attribute to the idiot. Still, who can tell what went on in the distorted mind of that poor creature? He is reported to have rescued the dead body of a rabbit from the undergrowth on one occasion, and to have blubbered when he could not bring ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... also not a little blocked and confused by the lumbermen and the course of Nature. For when the lumbermen go into the woods, they cut roads in every direction, leading nowhither, and the unwary wanderer is thereby led aside from the right way, and entangled in the undergrowth. And as for Nature, she is entirely opposed to continuance of paths through her forest. She covers them with fallen leaves, and hides them with thick bushes. She drops great trees across them, and blots then out with windfalls. But the blazed line—a succession of broad axe-marks on the ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... tucking up her habit with easy grace as she went. The occupant of the covert raised his head carefully and looked after the pair, the sound of their voices growing faint as they pushed their way through the undergrowth which intercepted their progress. ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... made solid walls. The foliage of the beech trees was merely touched with yellow here and there, while the oaks showed no sign of fading color, and beneath all the lower branches there were splendid deep shadows wherever the undergrowth of holly did not fill up the green wall. This was the true wild woodland, remnant of the ancient forest, the place of virgin timber, dense thickets, and natural openings, that tourists always praised beyond anything else. The stream ran babbling through it, with pretty little pools, cascades, ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... by the Indian custom of annually burning the leaves and grass in autumn, which prevents the growth of any young trees. Time thus will form prairies; for, some of the old trees annually perishing, and there being no undergrowth to supply their place, they become thinner every year; and, as they diminish, they shade the grass less, which therefore grows more luxuriantly; and, where a strong wind carries a fire through dried grass and leaves, which cover the earth ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... irrigating-works fall into decay; and they took still more active measures to deprive the land of its necessary water, by their indiscriminate destruction of the forests on the hills that surround the plains. When the trees were cut down, the undergrowth soon perished, and the soil which had served to check the descending waters in their course was soon swept away. During the four rainy months, each heavy shower sends down a flood along the torrent-bed which flows into a river, and so into the ocean, or, as in ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... wilderness, lifted their trunks like so many pillars, green with mosses and ivies, and swung their majestic arms, tufted with mistletoe, far over head, supporting a canopy,—a series of domes and arches without end,—that had for ages overshadowed the soil. Their roots, often concealed by a billowy undergrowth of shrubs and bushes, oftener by brakes of the gigantic and evergreen cane, forming fences as singular as they were, for the most part, impenetrable, were yet at times visible, where open glades stretched through the woods, broken only by ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... with a dense forest. On the summits this consists of comparatively stunted trees, of which every part is thickly coated with moss. In all other parts the forest consists of great trees rising to a height of 150 feet, and even 200 feet, and of a dense undergrowth of younger and smaller trees, and of a great variety of creepers, palms, and ferns. Trees of many species (nearly 500) yield excellent timber, ranging from the hardest ironwood or BILIAN, and other hard woods (many of them so close-grained ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... found ourselves at the top of the cliff and confronted by a dense undergrowth of jungle, consisting for the most part of an inextricable tangle of tough creepers, interspersed with shrubs and trees of various kinds, many of which seemed to be fruit bearers. Among these we recognised the plantain, banana, custard-apple, loquat, granadilla, ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... disappointed, for, on returning in the evening from their tour of exploration, they came on a partially cleared place in the thicket beside the golden cave, which had evidently been used as a garden. In the midst of a mass of luxuriant undergrowth, which almost smothered them, vegetables of various kinds were found growing—among others ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... their path lost itself in a network of other little paths spread out as if on purpose to confuse them. Rudolf and Ann hurried along as fast as they could go, but it was hard work to make their way through the tangled undergrowth where the twisted roots set traps for their feet—and caught them, too, sometimes—while overhead the tall trees met and mingled their branches. From these hung down great masses of trailing vines and spreading ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... the screening fronds of a young areca palm, and came to an abrupt halt, his eyes fixed on an object in the midst of the tropical undergrowth. ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... lighter part of the work, a suggestion of merry- making was there also. These roads were often changed, being at no time much more than paths marked by the blazing of trees and the clearing away of timber and undergrowth. There were no bridges save over the narrower streams, fording being the custom, till ferries were established at various points. Roads and town boundaries were alike undetermined and shifting. "Preambulators," ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... Shattered trees and old barbed wire in a solution of mud was the chief effect produced by the parts nearest the trenches, but further back "Plugstreet Wood" was quite a pretty place to walk about in. Birds singing all around, and rabbits darting about the tangled undergrowth. Long paths had been cut through the wood leading to the various parts of the trenches in front. A very quaint place, take it all in all, and one which has left a curious and not unpleasing impression ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... victory off Cape Trafalgar. Here, at home, on the edge of the Cleeve woods, the air hung heavy and soundless, its silence emphasised rather than broken now and again by the kuk-kuk of a pheasant in the undergrowth. Above the plantations, along the stubbled uplands, long inert banks of vapour hid the sky-line; and out of these Walter a Cleeve came limping across the ridge, his ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... them out of Sandy's hands, and, with a quick swing, forces the pintos down the steep side of the ravine, which is almost sheer ice with a thin coat of snow. It is a daring course to take, for the ravine, though not deep, is full of undergrowth, and is partially closed up by a brush heap at the further end. But with a yell, Baptiste hurls his four horses down the slope, and into the undergrowth. "Allons, mes enfants! Courage! vite, vite!" cries their driver, and nobly do the pintos respond. Regardless of bushes and brush heaps, they ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... sea-ward side, stood gnarled and twisted trees; Scotch firs in abundance, here and there a Weymouth pine, and occasionally a knotted dwarf oak with a tendency to run inland. The garden was, however, rich enough in shrubs and undergrowth, and to the landward side was a gleam of still water, being all that remained of a ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... enough now, fair lady," he said as he tossed its crested head into the undergrowth, "thanks ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... scanner back up the valley and over to one of the ridges bordering it. High on the crest of the ridge, the undergrowth was less luxuriant than ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... penetrate. Through the green gloom I advanced bravely, my heart beating with all the pleasure of one who was exploring some unknown land. I saw no living thing by the way, save two grey rabbits that scuttered across my path and vanished in the undergrowth on the other side. Pretty frisky creatures! how I should like to have caught them, and fed them, and made pets of them as ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... Anthea; 'they're lurking amid the undergrowth, for anything you know. I do think ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... needs must be met by catchment systems with storage facilities (the Japanese Government has built one desalination plant and plans to build one other); beachhead erosion because of the use of sand for building materials; excessive clearance of forest undergrowth for use as fuel; damage to coral reefs from the spread of the Crown of Thorns starfish; Tuvalu is concerned about global increases in greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on rising sea levels, which threaten the country's underground water table; in 2000, the government ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... under the record of innumerable fidgety details the real meanings of things. Mr. Stobart, with a gift of his own for taking large views, sees this clearly, and goes about to remedy it; he does not wander with you through the dark of the undergrowth, labeling bush after bush; but leads you from eminence to eminence, generalizing, and giving you to understand the broad lie of the land: he makes you see the forest in spite of the trees. As this ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... see the undergrowth on the hills, and it does not seem very unfamiliar; it is considerate the way in which Nature leads you from one scene to another without any change sudden enough to shock you; in the most out-of-the-way corners of the world I believe, you may find features that ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... was faced to the front in line as soon as it had cleared the road, and the Second Brigade was ordered to pass in rear of the first and face to the front when clear of the First Brigade. This movement was very difficult, owing to the heavy undergrowth, and the regiments became more or less tangled up, but eventually the formation was accomplished, and the Division stood in an irregular line along the San Juan River, the Second Brigade on the right. We were subjected to a heavy fire from the forces on ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... unpopular sides on hot questions; action toward license after games, spasmodic excitement culminating in excessive strain for body and mind, with alternations of reaction; "beefiness"; overdevelopment of the physical side of life, and, in some cases, premature features of senility in later life, undergrowth of the accessory motor parts and powers, and erethic diathesis that makes steady and continued mental toil seem monotonous, dull, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... was a vast, empty garden, neglected and dead. The hedge that surrounded it was only a tangled mass of undergrowth, and the paths were buried and choked by weeds. The desolate house beyond it loomed up whitely in the shadow. It was damp and cold in the garden, but she went in, mutely obeying the blind force that ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... house, separated by a wide stretch of lawn, was a small wood and, lured by its grateful shade, he turned aside into this wood and began pushing his way through the dense undergrowth, which presently thinned to form a small clearing, roofed and shut in by leaves and full of a tender green light. Here he paused, and espying a fallen tree hard by, sat himself down and began to fill his pipe. And now, remembering ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... traversed by streams of pure, sweet water, and fields surrounded by hedges, stretched far to the northward. The dark green leaves of the magnolia were to be seen here and there among trees of larger growth, and the shining, ever-green laurel forming a dense undergrowth, gave the woods a lively and spring-like appearance. On the open plain might any day be seen a regiment of Lancers, wheeling and charging in their brilliant evolutions, their long lances with bright red pennons adding greatly to the beauty of the display, and, as we at that time ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... toward her breast as her bill will allow her to do, but the feathers are not pulled, and on examination of several specimens, I found these well and regularly planted, and cleaned from their original down, as a forest of trees is cleared of its undergrowth. In this state the female is still well clothed, and little or no difference can be seen in the plumage, ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... cover to some extent, because there is a stronger light average throughout the year and because the stand is not so dense. In the typical Douglas fir forests of Oregon and Washington, discussed in this booklet, it never does so. While hemlock, cedar and white fir undergrowth may be abundant, Douglas fir seedlings are seldom seen except in burns, slashings, roads, or open spots in the woods. And the fir trees composing the dominant stand are of nearly the ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... hospitality and hot coffee of its inmates. At one P.M. the sun shone again, and we started (this time to the north) along the border of the mesa. Vegetation is here more exuberant than in the valley of Pecos. Not only do tall pines grow everywhere, but there is a thick undergrowth of encina; the Yucca is large and green, mountain sage covers the soil, and grassy levels are dotted with flowers. Animal life, also, is more vigorous and more varied. Whereas in the valley crows and turkey-buzzards alone enliven the air, and there are scarcely any beetles; ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... therefore, Moti Guj strode out of his pickets, for a thought had come to him that Deesa might be lying drunk somewhere in the dark forest with none to look after him. So all that night he chased through the undergrowth, blowing and trumpeting and shaking his ears. He went down to the river and blared across the shallows where Deesa used to wash him, but there was no answer. He could not find Deesa, but he disturbed all the other elephants in the lines, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... examining the piece, he remembered the shots which he had taken for spent balls, and bethought him to look around the woods in the direction from which they had come. Raising his eyes above the undergrowth, he beheld a ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... thick Scottish copse dripping with rain; imagine this to be mere undergrowth nourished under the impenetrable shade of ancient trees ranging from 100 to 180 feet high; briars and thorns abundant; lazy creeks meandering through the depths of the jungle, and sometimes a deep affluent of a great river. ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... Son, and with a vengeance sent 170 From Media post to Aegypt, there fast bound. Now to th' ascent of that steep savage Hill Satan had journied on, pensive and slow; But further way found none, so thick entwin'd, As one continu'd brake, the undergrowth Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplext All path of Man or Beast that past that way: One Gate there onely was, and that look'd East On th' other side: which when th' arch-fellon saw Due entrance he disdaind, and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... our guide, and from the trenches we went down the slope, through the woods, on foot. A spur of the hill went forward, and as we neared the edge of the forest Tracy signalled to go quietly. Stooping carefully in the undergrowth, we noiselessly advanced to a fence corner where a sentinel stood behind a tree. Halting a few paces away, Tracy motioned to us to avoid moving the bushes, but to approach the fence and look between the rails. Doing so, we found the fence at the border ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... which we call the Race-Plain in those parts, and had nourished, when he first took up his rest below it, little but nettles, mulleins, and scrub of elder. A few fair trees—ash, thorn, spindle, service—struggled with the undergrowth which should live. He was for the trees, needing their shade; cleared the ground, terraced it with infinite pains, and utilised the water of a mist pool which he had made on the high land by a system of canals of remarkable neatness and ingenuity. Tree-trunks, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... of all that. She was sure that it did not take her more than twelve or fifteen minutes (for she had gone that way a hundred times) to get back to the gate, to walk up the little wood, to cut through it by a track in the undergrowth, and turn round the further and western end of it. Thence she could either take the long path that slanted across the field to the Farm bridge or keep to the upper ground along a trail in the grass skirting the wood, and so reach home ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... a whimper from the pack. There was not a sound save the eager rustling of the dogs through the sedge and undergrowth. The ground was familiar to Flora, and I watched her with pride as with powerful strides she circled around. Suddenly she paused and flung her head in the air, making a beautiful picture where she stood poised, as if listening. My heart ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... through, but it would be a work of considerable time, for with their masts they would have to clear away the branches to a considerable height. Down near the water the branches by which we pushed ourselves along were those of the undergrowth, with many rattans and other creepers varying from the thickness of one's thumb to that of one's wrist, and these would take a great deal of chopping before one of their war boats could be pushed through, but higher ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... was examining the piece, he remembered the shots which he had taken for spent balls, and bethought him to look around the woods in the direction from which they had come. Raising his eyes above the undergrowth, ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... plenty of undergrowth down in that hollow. Take my knife and cut away some of it. There's a piece of an old stump, too, that ought to burn well if ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... may appear to burst through from an undergrowth of statistics into the clear field of truism. False beliefs are more practical than theoretical, more a matter of practical conduct than of passive experience, more a change of reagent than a reaction to change. The man on the street or even many a leading neurologist would perhaps accept this ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... a sportsman seated much at his ease on the outskirts of the Foret de l'Isle-Adam; he had just finished a Havana cigar, which he had smoked while he waited for his companion, who had evidently been straying about for some time among the forest undergrowth. Four panting dogs by the speaker's side likewise watched the progress of the personage for whose benefit the remarks were made. To make their sarcastic import fully clear, it should be added that the second ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... growing rank in the damp ravine at the bottom of the little valley, ran to within a hundred feet of the out-building. Dense undergrowth choked the ground to a height of eight or ten feet around the boles of the close set trees. If they could gain the seclusion of that tangled jungle there was little likelihood of their being discovered, provided they were not seen as they passed across the ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... way ahead. "Hoh! what you stoppin' down there for? Of course you won't find any until you get up nearer the top. Come on!" and he disappeared in a thick clump of undergrowth. ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... he moved on, he could hear sounds of quiet and stealthy movement, and at last, standing before him, as he peeped through a small opening in the thick undergrowth, he could see a Boy Scout, standing stiff and straight, and working his signal flags. He had to stand on a high spot and in a clearing to do this, as otherwise, of course, his flags could not have been seen at any distance. ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland
... 1915 it was a beautiful place, where one might fancy that the many British dead rested more easily beneath oaks and among familiar flowers than in most of the cemeteries of this dreary land. The wood was about 1-1/2 miles long, with a maximum depth of 1,400 yards, and its undergrowth, where not cut away, was densely intertwined with alder, hazel, ash, and blackthorn, with water standing in large pools on parts of its boggy surface. In one corner was the picturesque Fosse Labarre, a wide horseshoe moat enclosing a little garden, now a machine-gun ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... into the grisly. Through the matted undergrowth of years, over the high-spiked barriers of the deer-park, the Highflyer had seen not only the familiar Grey Lady in robes of rustling silk (through which you could discern the gravel and weeds on the path), but little green demons with chalk-white heads and long ears. ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... by where' he must pass, a clump of undergrowth and a few stunted trees grew round the base of a hillock and broken rocks. The cattle were reposing close up by this shelter. Nat's horse, as he drew near to the brush, was ambling along at that peculiar gait, half walk, half trot, essentially the pace of a "cow-horse." ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... the rotten floor. The boys were all glad when the prow touched the little dock at the lone pueblo where Uncle Sam's flag snapped in a breeze which was coming over the trees, bringing with it a musty smell of decaying undergrowth. ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... upon the dry leaves, depending upon hearing chiefly, to warn them of the possible coming of an enemy. The undergrowth was so dense about the cup that no one fifteen yards away could see them, and they were able to hear even a creeping warrior, before he could come that near. Hence they reposed without alarm, and, bold forest runners that they were, eternally on guard, they took ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Council of the Gods—upheld the Evening Star. The monkeys sang sorrowfully to each other as they hunted for dry roosts in the fern-wreathed trees, and the last puff of the day-wind brought from the unseen villages the scent of damp wood-smoke, hot cakes, dripping undergrowth, and rotting pine-cones. That is the true smell of the Himalayas, and if once it creeps into the blood of a man, that man will at the last, forgetting all else, return to the hills to die. The clouds ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... heard a 'sh-'sh of the leaves, and there was the Stalo pushing his way through the undergrowth to see what chance he had of a dinner. At the first glimpse of Patto's head in the well he laughed ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... tangle of vegetation overhead, were low in the sky. Insects—and sometimes larger beings—leaped and slithered unseen before my advance. But I did not heed them. Eyes may have peered at me as I stumbled through the blackness of the undergrowth; but if they did, ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... The undergrowth was thick in this part; I couldn’t see before my nose, and must burst my way through by main force and ply the knife as I went, slicing the cords of the lianas and slashing down whole trees at a blow. I call them trees for the ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and if a hot, damp air, motionless, and heavy with the sleeping breath of countless growths could make it so, a conservatory it was. Every slightest turn had to be alertly chosen, and the tangle of branches and vines made going by the stars nearly impossible. The undergrowth crowded us into single file. We scarcely exchanged another word until our horses came abreast in the creek and stopped to drink. Conditions beyond were much the same until near the end of our detour, when my horse swerved abruptly and the buzz of a rattlesnake ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... disheveled aspect might escape the servants Marcia took her down a side staircase of the vast house, and piloted her through some garden paths. Then the girl herself, returning, opened a gate into a wood, where an undergrowth of wild roses was just breaking into flower, and was soon pacing a mossy path out of sight and sound ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... miles distant, masked by its frowning front, lay a gayly colored, red-roofed city, besieged by encircling regiments, a broad bay holding a squadron of great war-ships, and gliding cat-like through its choked undergrowth and crouched among the fronds of its motionless palms were the ragged patriots of the Cuban army, silent, watchful, waiting. But the great range gave no sign. It frowned in ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... canopy of magnificent ash and plane trees, into a brake between the hills. It was an almost impenetrable thicket, spangled with tall autumnal flowers. The eupatoriums, with their purple crowns, stood like young trees, with an undergrowth of aster and blue spikes of lobelia, tangled in a golden mesh of dodder. A strong, mature odor, mixed alike of leaves and flowers, and very different from the faint, elusive sweetness of spring, filled the air. The creek, with a few faded leaves dropped upon its bosom, ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... swung to find the third. That man moved through thick undergrowth, and Calhoun set it on fire in a neat pattern of spreading flames. Evidently, these men had had no training in battle tactics with blast-rifles. The third man also had to get away. He did. But something from him arched through ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... Jenkins, made a flank movement, and by a desperate assault, took the redoubt on the left, with six pieces of artillery. When Rhodes' North Carolina Brigade got sufficiently through the tangle and undergrowth and near the opening as to see their way clear, they raised a yell, and with a mad rush, they took the fort with a bound. They were now within the strong fortress on the left and masters of the situation. Colonel Jenkins was ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... delightful morning the pleasure of breathing that mountain air which makes a constant theme of the hunter's praise, and which now made us feel as if we had all been drinking some exhilarating gas. The depths of this unexplored forest were a place to delight the heart of a botanist. There was a rich undergrowth of plants, and numerous gay-colored flowers in brilliant bloom. We reached the outlet at length, where some freshly-barked willows that lay in the water showed that beaver had ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... up the back lane at dusk and began to explore the woods. It grew dark and we thought of turning back. Then it began to grow light again. A full moon was climbing up through the maples, inviting further explorations. We pushed through a dense undergrowth and presently were in a grove of great white pines. There was a faint sound of running water, and suddenly we came upon an astonishing brook—wide, swift, and musical. We had not suspected the existence of such a brook within a dozen leagues. It was ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... trees with furry trunks moved presently into range of the glasses, thick undergrowth beneath. Dasinger picked his way through the thickets with some caution. The indications so far had been that local animals had as much good reason to avoid the vicinity of Hovig's machine as human ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz
... for a touch of such sweet madness now, when all young nature was strung to a delicious contest, and the blood spun through the veins full of life! Our boat lay motionless on the sea, and the setting sun caught the undergrowth of red-brown hair that shot through Barbara's dark locks. My own state was, I must confess, less fair to ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... anyhow, so long as it took him far enough from the spot where masked men had loosed the handcuffs from his wrists and stray shots had come ringing after him. In his path there were lakelets, which he swam, and streams, which he forded. Over the low hills he scrambled through an undergrowth so dense that even the snake or the squirrel might have avoided it, to find some easier way. Now and then, as he dragged himself up the more barren ascents, the loose soil gave way beneath his steps in ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... vegetation closed around Badshah and submerged him, as he turned off a footpath and plunged into the dense undergrowth. The trees were mostly straight-stemmed giants of teak, branchless for some distance from the ground. Each strove to thrust its head above the others through the leafy canopy overhead, fighting for its share of the life-giving sunlight. In the green gloom ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... village is another extraordinarily beautiful thing. The road, while still almost in the street, passes across a little embankment; and on the left hand you look down into a pit, like a quarry, full of ash-trees, and with a thick undergrowth of bushes and tall plants. From a dozen little excavations leap and bicker crystal rivulets of water, hurrying down stony channels, uniting in a pool, and then moving off, a full-fed stream, among quiet water-meadows. It is one of the sources of the Cam. The water is deliciously ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of the church was packed with a vast throng of people, all standing, closely crowded together, like the undergrowth in a forest. The rood-screen was open, or broken down, I could not tell which. The choir was bare, like a clearing in the woods, and filled ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... sad havoc in the garden should be thinned down, he took it home with him and tried it that evening. Just about sunset he repaired to his favourite spot, a clump of three trees growing close together, behind which he could easily conceal himself. A wood, full of thick undergrowth, well nigh impenetrable, ran in front and made an angle to the right, so that there were two sides from which the rabbits might come out. The air was perfectly still, not a leaf was stirring, and ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... could send it flying disabled for far enough. But the little, keen, perky-looking creature knows that this will not be its fate, and comes loping along upon its leisurely hunt, pausing now and then to look sharply around for danger, and then gliding in and out among the undergrowth, leaping over prostrate pieces of branch, and passing on in front just as the rabbit did a few minutes before, and then disappearing among the ferns; its keen-scented nostrils telling it plainly enough the direction in which the rabbit has gone, though the screams ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... deep into the cushions, with a shiver, "a graceful, cruel, merciless beast." She remembered a tiger she had shot the previous winter in India. After hours of weary, cramped waiting in the machan the beautiful creature had slipped noiselessly through the undergrowth and emerged into the clearing. He had advanced midway towards the tree where she was perched and had stopped to listen, and the long, free stride, the haughty poise of the thrown-back head, the cruel curl of the lips and the glint in the ferocious eyes flashing in the moonlight, were identical ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... almost impenetrable, with the town captured by the Spaniards. The ruins here were discovered accidentally; and to approach them it was necessary, as at Palenque, to cut paths through the dense tropical undergrowth of the forest. ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... before massed and jumbled ruins of cliff wall. There were tangled thickets of wild plum-trees and other thorny growths that made passage extremely laborsome. He found innumerable tracks of wildcats and foxes. Rustlings in the thick undergrowth told him of stealthy movements of these animals. At length his further advance appeared futile, for the reason that the stream disappeared in a split at the base of immense rocks over which he could not climb. To his relief he concluded that though ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... are usually timbered, destitute of undergrowth, and are beautiful. The soil is rather gravelly. The "openings" contain scattering timber in groves and patches, and resemble those tracts called barrens farther south. There is generally timber enough for farming purposes, if used with economy, while it costs but little labor to ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... little "word" between these two was not yet made flesh. But the dawn-wind caught up that "hush" and carried it to the trees and undergrowth about them, and then ran thousand-footed before them to whisper it to the ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... or thirty minutes I was directed to form line of battle in a partially open field facing toward the blockhouses and strong intrenchments to the north occupied by the enemy. Much difficulty was found on account of the dense undergrowth, crossed in several directions by wire fences. As a part of the cavalry division under General Sumner, the regiment was formed in two lines, the First Squadron under Major S.T. Norvell, consisting of Troops A, B, E and I, leading; the second line, ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... last, summoning all my resolution, I scrambled weakly to my feet and endeavoured to follow, but after some while, wondered to see it so dark and found I was among trees that closed about me ever denser. Yet I struggled on, pushing my way haphazard through the undergrowth, being yet much shaken by my fall, until I came out into a narrow way lit by the moon; but scarcely was I here than I paused to lean against a tree, overcome by a sick faintness. And thus leaned I some while to recover my strength, and in my ears ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... passing through it, rides as fast as the thick standing trunks, and tangle of undergrowth will allow. The darkness also obstructs him; for it is night. Withal he advances rapidly, though cautiously; at intervals glancing back, at longer ones, delaying to listen, with chin upon ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... catchment systems with storage facilities (the Japanese Government has built one desalination plant and plans to build one other); beachhead erosion because of the use of sand for building materials; excessive clearance of forest undergrowth for use as fuel; damage to coral reefs from the spread of the Crown of Thorns starfish; Tuvalu is very concerned about global increases in greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on rising sea levels, which threaten the country's underground water ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... summits this consists of comparatively stunted trees, of which every part is thickly coated with moss. In all other parts the forest consists of great trees rising to a height of 150 feet, and even 200 feet, and of a dense undergrowth of younger and smaller trees, and of a great variety of creepers, palms, and ferns. Trees of many species (nearly 500) yield excellent timber, ranging from the hardest ironwood or BILIAN, and other hard woods (many of them so ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... the ghostly, moonlit woods, Jabe followed obediently at the Boy's heels. Silently as shadows they moved, silently as the lynx or the moose or the weasel goes through the softly parting undergrowth. The Boy led far away from the brook, and over the crest of the ridge, to avoid alarming the vigilant sentries. As they approached the head of the canal, their caution redoubled, and they went very slowly, bending low and avoiding every patch of moonlight. The light ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... which Nature arrays herself in the autumn never showed to better advantage; but in all directions we see the prairies on fire. Farmers burn them over as the easiest mode of getting rid of the rank weeds and undergrowth; but it seems a dangerous practice. They plough a strip twenty to thirty feet in width around their houses, barns, hay-stacks, etc., and depend upon the flames not overleaping ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... tight-closed lips as she scrambled along over boulders and through the thick scrub. Brambles, wait-a-bit vines, and berry bushes scratched and stung her, and switched across her face, leaving bleeding and livid marks on her tender skin. But she pushed on and on in the fitful moonlight through the dense undergrowth, making a straight line for ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... trees were larger in this locality than elsewhere, as a great portion of the country was flooded by the river dnring the rainy season, and much rich soil had been deposited; this, with excessive moisture, had produced a forest of fine timber, with an undergrowth of thick nabbuk. We fixed upon a charming spot for a camp, beneath a large tree that bore a peculiar fruit, suspended from the branches by a strong but single fibre, like a cord; each fruit was about eighteen ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... ancient magicians, to gather magic berry and bud before sunrise, but at least to see these treasures of the lake in their morning hour, we camped last night on a little island, which one tall tree almost covers with its branches, while a dense undergrowth of young chestnuts and birches fills all the intervening space, touching the water all around the circular, shelving shore. Yesterday was hot, but the night was cool, and we kindled a gypsy fire of twigs, less for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... arrived with a boiled ham and a few trifles, and stopped in a dense undergrowth on a small bluff overlooking the meeting-place. It was starlight, and very still. The mighty river lay like an ocean at rest. Tom listened a moment, but no sound disturbed the quiet. Then he gave a low, distinct whistle. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... feeling that this time something really was coming through the bushes. I lifted my head as far as I could, and listened. For a little while nothing happened, and then, straight in front of me, I saw lights. And there was a sound of trampling in the undergrowth. ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... interspersed with fields of luxuriant corn, were left behind, the red clay of the road was exchanged for a gritty sand, and the road itself dwindled to a mere pathway through a clearing. The locality looked like a plagiarism from the Ohio backwoods. On both sides of our path spread the graceful undergrowth, waving in an ocean of green, and hiding the stumps with which the plain was covered, while far away, to right and left, the prospect was bounded by forest walls, and gloomy bulwarks and parapets of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... came near his old home, Cecilio saw his master Emilio shooting at a very handsome bird on the top of a bamboo-tree. The bird fell down, and the man ran to pick it up. As Emilio was making his way up to the bird through the thorny bamboo undergrowth, Cecilio sat down to wait for him, and, having nothing else to do, began to play his guitar. The master at once began to dance among the bamboo-trees, and he received many wounds because of the sharp spines. Now, in reality, ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... (Lychnis diurna).—Robins, as children call it, with the bright pink in every hedge and the undergrowth in every copse. ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... more and more infrequent until for some time now no sign of human habitation had been visible. The jungle undergrowth was scantier and the spaces between the boles of the forest trees more open. Virginia Maxon was almost frantic with despair as the utter helplessness of her position grew upon her. Each stroke of those slender paddles was driving her farther and farther from friends, or the possibility ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... trees and old barbed wire in a solution of mud was the chief effect produced by the parts nearest the trenches, but further back "Plugstreet Wood" was quite a pretty place to walk about in. Birds singing all around, and rabbits darting about the tangled undergrowth. Long paths had been cut through the wood leading to the various parts of the trenches in front. A very quaint place, take it all in all, and one which has left a curious and not unpleasing impression ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... said Anthea; 'they're lurking amid the undergrowth, for anything you know. I do think you're most ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... first undergrowth, small trees, as in England; afterwards applied to larger timber growth and forest trees. Its earlier sense survives in ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... just as Adrian rose to his feet, standing beneath the shadow of the big oak upon which the birds had fallen, that coming from the road, which was separated from him by a little belt of undergrowth, he heard the sound of men's voices growling and threatening, and with them a woman's cry for help. At any other time he would have hesitated and reconnoitred, or, perhaps, have retreated at once, for he knew well the dangers of mixing himself up ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... memories, we took the carriage road to Pisa, over which Shelley's friends had hurried to and fro through those last days. It passes an immense forest of stone-pines—aisles and avenues; undergrowth of ilex, laurustinus, gorse, and myrtle; the crowded cyclamens, the solemn silence of the trees; the winds hushed in their velvet roof and stationary ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... artificial heat), abounded in graceful palms. Mr. Bowerbank found in the London clay of the island of Sheppey alone the fruits of no fewer than thirteen different species of this picturesque family, which lends so peculiar a feature to the landscapes in which it occurs; and ascertained that the undergrowth beneath was composed, in large proportion, of creeping plants of the gourd and melon order. From the middle or Miocene flora of the Tertiary division,—of which we seem to possess in Britain only the small but interesting fragment detected by his Grace the Duke of Argyll ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... and sand runs a long way in shore under cocoa-nut groves, but there is no very dense undergrowth. The wind when easterly blows freely along and is drawn rather upon the shore there. Two miles to windward of Mboli is the good harbour of Sara, where the ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a moment the round, gray back darted above the bushes, and then plunging into deeper undergrowth, bounded on and on. But the slim, knotty brown legs plunged on and on too, till at last a swift, cruel stone felled the unlucky little woodlander, for Steve ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... progressed not more than twenty paces into the dense undergrowth when the gleaming wall of the Tritu Anu was entirely hidden from view. The artificial sunlight seeped through the mass of vegetation overhead, a ghostly green twilight that made death masks of their faces. But of the lights ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... finish the sentence, for Clon, as if he well understood his impatience, turned back from the bridge, and, entering the wood to the left, began to ascend the bank of the stream. We had not gone a hundred yards before the ground grew rough, and the undergrowth thick; and yet through all ran a kind of path which enabled us to advance, dark as it was now growing. Very soon the bank on which we moved began to rise above the water, and grew steep and rugged. ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... treacherous with loosened stones and mud. The horses, mounting a hill, picked their way carefully; and Lee Randon gazed over his shoulder into the valley below. He saw it through a screen of bare wet maple branches—a dripping brown meadow lightly wreathed in blue mist, sedgy undergrowth along water and the further ranges of hills merged in shifting clouds. A shaft of sunlight, pale and without warmth, illuminated with its emphasis an undistinguished and barren spot. On the meadows sloping to the south there were indefinite spaces of green. Claire was heedless ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... its stead were rocks, bare and glittering, on which the lizards basked, or ran in safety, because they were at home, but which I could only pass by a flank movement. To struggle up a steep hill, over slipping shale-like stones, or through an undergrowth of holly and brambles, then to scramble down and to climb again, repeating the exercise every few hundred yards, may have a hygienic charm for those who are tormented by the dread of obesity, but to other mortals it is too suggestive of a ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... or waistcoat and, as he poised a horseshoe for his first cast at the stake, Mr. Trimm saw, pinned flat against the broad strap of his suspenders, a shiny, silvery-looking disk. Having pitched the shoe, the smith moved over into the shade, so that he almost touched the clump of undergrowth that half buried Mr. Trimm's protecting boulder. The near-sighted eyes of the fugitive banker could make out then what the flat, silvery disk was, and Mr. Trimm cowered low in his covert behind the rock, holding his hands down between ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... was growing dark indeed. He was obliged to guide her through the closeness of the undergrowth. They threaded their way along the narrow path and the shadows seemed to close in behind them. Before they reached the end which would have led them out into the open he put his hand on her ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Tangled, we are entangled. Whose fault was it, dear? tangled up as the grass patterns are tangled up in this coarse cloth, or as the little Mushi that lives on and chirrups in dried sea-weed. We do not know where are to-day our tears in the undergrowth of this eternal wilderness. We neither wake nor sleep, and passing our nights in a sorrow which is in the end a vision, what are these scenes of spring to us? This thinking in sleep of someone who has no thought of you, is it more than a dream? and yet surely it is the natural way of love. In our ...
— Certain Noble Plays of Japan • Ezra Pound
... the foot of the wood; and they did not go on to the highway, for Miss Francie suggested that the sylvan path was the more interesting. And so they passed in among the trees, making their way through the straggling undergrowth, while the soft March wind blew moist and sweet all around them, and the blackbirds and thrushes filled the world with their silver melody, and in the more distant woods the ringdoves crooned. Maurice Mangan followed her—in silence. Perhaps he was thinking of Lionel; perhaps he ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... which are nesting can easily be caught by placing one noose in the nest and others round the edge or mouth, making fast the end wires to any contiguous branch or twigs. Moorhens or water-rails, which swim or run through the constantly frequented tracks which they have made in dense undergrowth or rushes in bogs, may be captured by attaching these nooses to a string stretched across—indeed, a writer in the Field, of July 8, ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... The light and shimmer of that patch contrasted sharply with the heavy pink cloud which lay massed above a young birch-tree visible on the horizon before us, while, a little further to the right, the parti-coloured roofs of the Kuntsevo mansion could be seen projecting above a belt of trees and undergrowth—one side of them reflecting the glittering rays of the sun, and the other side harmonising with the more louring portion of the heavens. Below us, and to the left, showed the still blue of a pond where it lay surrounded with pale-green ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... delightfully cool and shady by contrast with the bare open country we had to walk over to reach them. The vegetation was most luxuriant, comprising enormous forest trees, as well as a variety of ferns, caladiums, and other undergrowth, and abundance of climbing rattan palms. Insects were exceedingly abundant and very interesting, and every day furnished scores ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... sun will lure in scores from their lurking-places; or hoary woods, upon whose straggling upper boughs, all hung with gray mosses like disheveled hair, the bald-headed eagle stoops from the sky, and among whose undergrowth of varnished evergreens the mocking-birds, even at this season, keep a resounding jubilee. All this looks wild enough; and as the peculiar orange light of the southern sunset falls upon the scene, I almost expect to see the canoes of the red man shoot from the banks, which were ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... voice of misery. The youth followed him closely, his eyes wide open with fear, as they neared the dreaded jungle. In its dark shadows who could say what dangers lurked? They pressed on, however, through trails of prickly foliage, clinging undergrowth, and fallen timber, which lay like so many traps for unwary feet. The cry had sunk to a moan, but the dog's whine was shriller and more urgent as they neared the end ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... screening fronds of a young areca palm, and came to an abrupt halt, his eyes fixed on an object in the midst of the tropical undergrowth. ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... Adele's arms on to my shoulders and thence into the flood, and, beating its raving owner by a matter of inches in a rush for the errant footgear, splashed his triumphant way to the bank and, amid a hurricane of execration, bore his waterlogged trophy into the undergrowth; then I bowed my head upon the steering-wheel and, throwing decency to the winds, ran before the tempest of ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... and twisting here and there as German voices warned them of the proximity of enemy parties, and sometimes stealing past a group of men from whom they were separated by only a few feet of thick undergrowth. ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... became more contracted and rapid, with occasional islands and frequent sand-banks. These islands are furnished with a number of ponds, and at certain seasons abound with swans, geese, brandts, cranes, gulls, plover, and other wild-fowl. The shores, too, are low and closely wooded, with such an undergrowth of vines and rushes as ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... way through the undergrowth, and when he was certain that the creepers had completely veiled him from the eyes of watchers on the yacht he picked up a small flat stone from the ground, drew a yachting knife from his belt and crouching on his ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... writer is to chase the will-o'-the-wisp of theory over the morass of uncertainty; the task of investigating his comedies is altogether simpler and more straightforward. After groping our way through the undergrowth of minor literature, we come out upon the great highway of Elizabethan art—the drama. Let us first see how Lyly himself came ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... was the sound of breaking twigs, as if some monstrous creature was forcing its way through the undergrowth to the right, and I heard another rush behind me as I stood there behind Gunson, too much paralysed to run, as I saw him drop on one knee and raise ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... traverse, and Magua had undertaken to lead them a short way through the forest. The girls hesitated as they reached the point where they left the military road and had to take to a narrow and blind path amidst the dense trees and undergrowth. The terrifying aspect of the guide and the loneliness of the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... dropped lower in the western sky. A velvet twilight seemed to rise out of the heart of the valley. Slowly the glowing light vanished behind a bluff of woodland. In a few minutes the trees and undergrowth were lit up as though a mighty conflagration were devouring them. Then the fire died down, ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... blue and neutral gray, flecked with dusky lines of bluffs, interspersed with gleaming strips of water, but nowhere in the wide landscape was there a sign of human habitation. Small birches and poplars, with an undergrowth of nut bushes, clothed the sides of the ravine, but some distance ahead it broadened out and the stream that flowed through it turned the hollow into a muskeg. There harsh grass and reeds grew three or four feet high, ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... keeping one eye out ahead as he moved along. Of course he anticipated coming upon the concealed shack at any moment now. When he saw an unusually large cluster of high bushes and undergrowth he felt positive that he must be almost in touch with ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... no path to follow, it was slow work, and the trees seemed to become thicker and thicker as we advanced. Under other circumstances, we might have stopped to admire the wonderful variety of shrubs and creepers which formed the undergrowth; as it was, we had to keep our eyes constantly about us, for at any moment we might have to encounter a huge boa or anaconda, or we might tread upon some venomous serpent, or a tree-snake might dart down upon us from the boughs above. Monkeys, as before, chattered and grinned ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... pair of men's boots with which to walk in the water, and was garbed in a most dilapidated old dress, which I had borrowed from one of the servants for the purpose. A pair of gloves made of basil, and a big hat, much torn in struggling through the undergrowth, completed my make-up. My hair was most unbecomingly screwed up, the short ends sticking out like ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... ivies, and swung their majestic arms, tufted with mistletoe, far over head, supporting a canopy,—a series of domes and arches without end,—that had for ages overshadowed the soil. Their roots, often concealed by a billowy undergrowth of shrubs and bushes, oftener by brakes of the gigantic and evergreen cane, forming fences as singular as they were, for the most part, impenetrable, were yet at times visible, where open glades stretched through ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... middle of those sunny and windy flats, he came upon a sort of cleft almost narrow enough to be called a crack in the land. It was just large enough to be the water-course for a small stream which vanished at intervals under green tunnels of undergrowth, as if in a dwarfish forest. Indeed, he had an odd feeling as if he were a giant looking over the valley of the pygmies. When he dropped into the hollow, however, the impression was lost; the rocky banks, though hardly above the ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... dark-red, with streaks of green, over a narrow but terrific chasm on the left: we are almost on a level with the crater, but must make a long circuit to reach it, through a wilderness of stunted timber and bush. The creoles call this undergrowth razi: it is really only a prolongation of the low jungle which carpets the high forests below, with this difference, that there are fewer creepers and much more fern.... Suddenly we reach a black gap in ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... plenty—crocketts, king parrots, leatherheads, "butcher" and "bell" birds, and the beautiful bronze-wing pigeon—while deep within the silent gullies you constantly hear the little black scrub wallabies leaping through the undergrowth and fallen leaves, to hide in still darker ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... companions, two of them being the faithful Susi and Chuma. In the dark thickets of the tropical forests he wounded his feet, dragged himself over fallen trunks and decaying rubbish, and waded across swollen rivers; and among the crowns of the lofty trees and in the dense undergrowth lurked malaria, an invisible miasma. He fell ill again and had to rest a long time in his miserable hut, where he lay on his bed of grass reading his tattered Bible, or listening to the native's tales of combats with men and apes, for ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... from Birnier's camp, through forest so dense that even the progress of a native clambering from trunk to trunk and over undergrowth ten feet deep was slow and tortuous, was the temporary village of Zalu Zako; some six or seven hundred huts of branches and creepers straggling over a wide area of ground which had been roughly cleared from undergrowth by a ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... on the flank and rear of pursuers who had now severed themselves from the protecting structure of their ranks. Even the difficulties of the ground favoured the mobile tactics of the assailants; for the horses of the Numidians, accustomed to the hill forests, could thread their way through the undergrowth at points which offered an effective check to the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... last August (1882) I noticed that a large percentage of the undergrowth of the sugar maple (Acer saccharinum) in Lewis County, Northeastern New York, seemed to be dying The leaves drooped and withered, and finally shriveled and dried, but ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... contemplating was forbidden, and could bring them no luck; and he, like her, felt a delightful awe, which thrilled him at each repeated sigh of the forest trees. The perfume of the foliage, the soft green light which filtered through the leaves, the soughing silence of the undergrowth, filled them with tremulous excitement, as though the next turn of the path might lead them to ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... no way of telling where they were, Cecil took a definite course through the jungle. They scrambled over and through the twisted tangle of undergrowth, creepers and lianas, and, in less than an hour, reached a ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... sought their prey. As we proceeded up the river, the banks gradually became higher and drier, and we passed some small plantations of bananas and plantains made in clearings in the forest, which now consisted of a great variety of dicotyledonous trees with many tall, graceful palms; the undergrowth being ferns, small palms, Melastomae, Heliconiae, etc. The houses at the plantations were mostly miserable thatched huts with scarcely any furniture, the owners passing their time swinging in dirty hammocks, and occasionally taking down a canoe-load of plantains to Greytown for sale. It is ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... and dogs. Moose don't go together in herds. In the summer they wander about over the forest, and in the autumn they come together in small groups, and select a hundred or two of acres where there is plenty of heavy undergrowth, and to which they usually confine themselves. They do this so that their tracks won't tell their enemies where ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... attention began to present themselves. By means of a stick he drew down the overhanging branch of a tree and tied to it his handkerchief. He also managed to insert a stick in the ground near him, and on its top placed his hat, but he saw that they could not be seen through the thick undergrowth at any great distance. Then more deliberately, and with an effort to economize his strength, he again attempted to undermine the rocks on which his leg rested, but found that they ran under him and hopelessly deep. At intervals he would shout ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... Henry, with all the canny provincial's conviction of his own superior shrewdness; and he repeated, so as to intensify this conviction and impress it on others, "Oh!" In the undergrowth of his mind was the thought: "How dare this man whose brains belong to me be the organizing secretary of something that I don't know anything about and don't ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... also to find excellent highways running throughout this semi-wilderness, between almost impenetrable walls of green, which though beautiful, produced a feeling of loneliness under their weird shadows. Some distance ahead the country appeared more rolling, the trees higher and the undergrowth less dense. Vistas opened up, revealing an occasional farmstead. Suddenly the scene changed for, instead of the emerald hues of thrifty vegetation, there were seen the brown, seared forms as of the desert; the charred ruins of buildings, the ashy outlines of fences and blackened ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... the highway, then up a trail where the Gomez brushed the undergrowth on each side as it desperately dug into moss, rain-gutted ruts, loose rocks, all on a vicious slant which seemed to push the car down again. Beside them, the mountain woods were sacredly quiet, with fern and lily and green-lit spaces. They came out in a clearing, before ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... washed down to deep indentations; above the whole a stretch of burnt, broken timber that goes by the name of "fire-scald," and is a relic of the fury of the fire which was "set out" in the woods with the mission to burn only the leaves and undergrowth, and which, in its undisciplined strength, transcended its instructions, as it were, and destroyed great trees. And this is all. But once more, at a coigne of vantage on the opposite side of the gorge, and the experience can be utilized in differentiating ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... but as later I found the front of my shirt soaked I assume the water was for me. Coherent memory resumes with the noise the warriors made in returning to the camp. I shall never forget their appearance as they emerged from the undergrowth. Black Hoof walked ahead. Close behind him came two ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... and after a consultation Mr. Waterman concluded that the young Indian was right, and they turned off. The trail soon became very hard to distinguish, but each time that Mr. Waterman hesitated, the Indian went by him, leading the way without a halt. As they were passing through some thick undergrowth Mr. Waterman halted and pointed to a partridge seated on a limb on a nearby tree, only twelve or fifteen feet from the trail. The bird, evidently trusting to its protective coloring, sat on the limb without moving a muscle. Mr. Waterman had just begun to explain to the boys that the bird ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... plan, on which he made no comment, but, taking her by the hand as if she were a little child, he led her through the undergrowth to a spot where the trees were older, and standing at wider distances. Among them was the tree he had spoken of—an elm; huge, hollow, distorted, and headless, with a ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... lonely; he hoped to press on and be at his father's door before two in the morning or perhaps at one. The night was so still that he heard no noise in the high wood, not even the rustling of a leaf or a twig crackling, and no animal ran in the undergrowth. The moss of the ride was silent under his heavy tread, but now and then the steel of his side-arm clicked against a metal button of the great cloak he wore. This sharp sound made him so conscious of himself that he seemed to fill that forest with his own presence and to be all that was, ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... is the time to cut alders, spruce, or other undergrowth, because the roots then die quickly without sprouting. ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... then proceeded along an obscure path, which led across stubble-fields, to a wood. The path continued through the wood, but he quickly struck out of it, and made his way, seemingly at random, through a most perplexing undergrowth of bushes ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... been two o'clock when he crossed the King's Highway, a mile or more above the northern gates, and struck down into the same thick undergrowth that had protected him and Hobbs on a ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... wooded with ironbark. After leaving the creek we crossed the ridges and came on land with a good deal of rich soil and wooded with belts of myall, Port Curtis sandalwood, and western-wood acacia. About these scrubs the grass is very good and there is a luxuriant undergrowth of saltbush and salt herbs. When we had come four miles from camp we sighted to the south-west a small isolated hill and went towards it. When we had crossed about three and a half miles over country like what I have just described we reached ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... this mound was completely surrounded by trees, intermingled with an undergrowth so dense that it was only with difficulty I was enabled to force a way through it. I wished to reach the top of the mound, if possible, because it appeared to be a very suitable spot upon which to ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... the undergrowth, she managed to move her head and look down. Far below in the ravine somebody was ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... arrival it would be well-nigh impossible to send further aid into the town. Vere took with him 900 English and 900 Dutch infantry, and 800 Dutch cavalry. The enemy had possession of a fortified country house called Loo, close to which lay a thick wood traversed only by a narrow path, with close undergrowth and swampy ground on either side. The enemy were in great force around Loo, and came out to attack the expedition as it passed through the wood. Sending the Dutch troops on first, Vere attacked the enemy ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... the left boundary of the field, and one wall, cut down, was now a part of the fence. Circling about to avoid the undergrowth and at the same time to keep out of Mayo's range, the men with the ram came up behind the old wall; and here they were halted to wait until the Major properly placed his marksmen. He made the circuit of the field, and coming back, announced that all was ready. A score of shot-guns were trained ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... the river at one of its great bends, and for an hour we had been slowly climbing a long hill. When we reached the top, we unsaddled for dinner in the shade of a tree by the wayside. A hundred yards from the road was a dense copse of undergrowth and bushes on the edge of the forest. Off to the east flowed the majestic Rhine, a league distant, and to the north ran the road like a white ribbon, stretching downhill to the valley and up again to the top of another ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... waiting for news in England. All afternoon I've been wandering about the front line, exploring, and learning to find my way about that desolate waste of devastation representing recently captured ground. One waded knee high amid tangled undergrowth dotted with three-foot stakes, and learned from the map that this was a wood. One looked for a railway, where only a buried bar of twisted metal could be found. One road we could not find at all, so battered was ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... forest, they ought to have very nearly reached its southern skirts; but as far as the eye could penetrate, in the uncertain moonlight, through the sylvan vistas, there was no sign of break or opening of any kind; nothing but an apparently endless succession of trees and dense undergrowth. Seeing this, Leicester began to feel uneasy. He knew that they had been travelling through the timber in anything but a straight line—indeed, to do so would have been simply a physical impossibility— and he began to fear that, in spite of all his efforts to avoid such a misfortune, ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... the hillside sloped more gently on the one hand, and the teamster flung, himself backwards, dragging at the reins. The wagon, tilting, swung partly round, then there was a horrible lurching, and the lathered beasts were floundering up a slope, smashing down the undergrowth and fern, until the vehicle stopped suddenly with a crash. The man sprang down and Miss Deringham and her father lost no time in following him, while when at last the team stood still trembling, he crawled out from under the wagon ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... found Helianthus ten to twelve feet high in bloom everywhere in the canons. A Salvia with a blue corolla, dotted with red glands, was very striking, a new variety, as it proved. We also observed elders with flowers and leaves at the same time, and the Bambusa formed a thick light-green undergrowth in beautiful contrast to the darker shades of the oaks, elders, and fan palms. The latter were the last of their kind we saw on this side ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... what, it is hoped, he interpreted as polite entreaties not to put himself out for his visitors and return to the house. Then ensued a tour of the estate, which had once been of great promise and now, alas, was overrun with undergrowth and weed. After their walk the Englishmen found that the most hospitable preparations had been made for their entertainment, and, more, that these had evidently been seen to by a daughter whose presence had not before been observed. Would I could describe this young girl as she appeared to X., ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... muffled report, a blinding smother of dust just in front of us, a crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of the cliff-side—pines, undergrowth, and all—slid down into the road below, completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees swayed and tottered for a moment like drunken giants in the gloom, and then fell prone among their fellows with a thunderous crash. Our two horses stood motionless and sweating with fear. As soon as the rattle ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... chimneys to mar the effect of Nature and Nature's colouring. If you follow with your eyes this calm, reposeful river, now hiding itself beneath its protecting banks with their wealth of branching trees, tall cocoanut palms, and luxuriant undergrowth, now emerging like a huge blue serpent encrusted with diamonds, so brightly does the clear water sparkle in the sun, you note that it finally loses itself in a heavy, impenetrable mass of green forest. And ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... were so treated, five on either side of the road. Standing, as they did, among the undergrowth, the operation which had been performed on them was invisible to any one passing by. Ropes were now fastened to the upper part of the trees and carried across the road, almost hidden from sight by the foliage ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... the thorns and the thick undergrowth that had surrounded it. It was a wild, lonely country; but you know what it was like by her description, though of course you will understand that the colours have been heightened. A child's imagination always makes ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... shot was more terrible than a continuous cannonade. Our sentinels fired twice close by; we did not know why. The shots resounded in the forest. We lay down in our boat and hid our heads. It was difficult for us to advance through the undergrowth as the spaces between the bushes were generally very narrow. We could not row, and we had ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... body in the night, at the foot of the tree. As soon as it was light in the morning, he worked at turning up all the ground near the tree, and hacking and hewing at the neighbouring bushes and undergrowth. When the labourers came, there was nothing suspicious, and ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... to land before nightfall at Sabbath Day Point, twenty-five miles down the lake; stretched themselves to doze for a while in the dry undergrowth; re-embarked under the stars and, rowing on through the dawn, reached the lake-end at ten in the morning. Here they found the first trace of the enemy—a bridge broken in two over the river which drains into Lake Champlain. A small French rear-guard ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of some trees. Right beyond was a deep basin, chuck full of undergrowth. The machine just took a slide off the tops of the trees, and slipped down to the bottom of the basin. Then she turned, I ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... years, after the great "Seven years' fire" had burnt down the forests and enriched the soil of Madeira. It was soon after Zarco's return to Funchal that he first set fire to the woods behind the fennel fields of the coast, to clear himself a way through the undergrowth into the heart of the island; the fire blazed and smouldered till it had taken well hold of the entire mass of timber that covered the upper country, nothing in the feeble resources of the first settlers could stop it, and Madeira lighted ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... night at a little beach which came down to the river and offered an ideal place for their bivouac. Tall pines stood all about, and there was little undergrowth to harbor mosquitoes, although by this time, indeed, that pest of the Northland was pretty much gone. The feeling of depression they sometimes had known in the big mountains had now left the minds of our young travelers, and they were disposed, since they found themselves well ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... exultant song. The hill on which we stood was covered with young birch saplings bursting into leaf, and the sky itself was not more blue than the wild hyacinths at our feet. Here and there in the undergrowth gleamed the pallid anemone. A copper wire ran from pole to pole down the slope of the hill and glittered in the sun like a thread of gold. A little to our right two circular mirrors, glancing obliquely at each other, stood on a tripod, and a graduated sequence ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... you, friends," he went on. "This is what it is. Ever since the early spring your cattle have been in my copse and garden every day. Everything is trampled down; the pigs have rooted up the meadow, are ruining everything in the kitchen garden, and all the undergrowth in the copse is destroyed. There is no getting on with your herdsmen; one asks them civilly, and they are rude. Damage is done on my estate every day and I do nothing—I don't fine you or make a complaint; meanwhile you impounded my horses and my bull calf and exacted five ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... their voyage they came upon many islands, whose thick growth of forest trees was so interlaced with vines and undergrowth as to render them almost impenetrable. Vigorously they plied their paddles, day after day, breasting the strong current of the river, encountering no incident of importance. Every night they landed, drew their canoe upon the grass, turned ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... further effort to approach. The men sat down again, watching the trail and evidently figuring out their plan of escape. There was no means of scaling the mountain wall behind them. Horses could not possibly climb that steep slope, covered with such a tangle of trees and undergrowth, but it was possible to proceed farther along the upper edge of the valley until finally timber-line was reached, after which the party could drop over the divide into the happy little kingdom just off the reservation where a capable ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... the scrub—that wild thick undergrowth among trees, harbouring so many strange creatures—there were hoarse cries, and now and then the howl of a dingo, so horribly suggestive of a human being in an ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... the footpath and went through the undergrowth. He stamped on every fungus that grew on his way. He was in a destructive mood. He looked for a snake so as to trample on it or kill it with ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... autumn afternoon presently became almost oppressive to her. There was the far-off, sweet low murmur of a placid sea rolling in upon the base of the cliffs, the constant chirping of ground insects, and the occasional scurrying of a rabbit through the undergrowth. Once a great lean rat stole up from the ditch, and—horrible—ran across his body; but at the sound of her startled movement it paused, sat for a moment quite still, with its wide-open black eyes blinking ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... accustomed to catch butterflies for me. My two Amboyna hunters I left behind to shoot and skin what birds they could while I was away. Quitting the village, we first walked briskly for an hour through a dense tangled undergrowth, dripping wet from a storm of the previous night, and full of mud holes. After crossing several small streams we reached one of the largest rivers in Ceram, called Ruatan, which it was necessary to cross. It was both deep and rapid. The baggage was ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the chalk and melted into the fields or the undergrowth, or came up to the skyline only to be swallowed into the earth probably by the German trench which they were entering. I wondered if one group had been killed, or knocked over, or had merely taken cover in a shell-crater ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... a large bear at the edge of a forest two miles from the huts. Alexis and Godfrey at once took their guns, borrowed a couple of long spears and two hunting knives, and started for the wood, the native going with them to show them the exact spot where he had seen the bear. There was a good deal of undergrowth about, and they thought it probable that the animal was not far off. The Buriat had brought a dog with him, and the animal at once began sniffing the ground. His master encouraged it, and presently it ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... which the river was then hid, came glimpses of two mountains, about 11,000 feet in height, whose bald grey summits were crowned with pure snow. It was one of those glorious surprises in scenery which make one feel as if one must bow down and worship. The forest was thick, and had an undergrowth of dwarf spruce and brambles, but as the horse had become fidgety and "scary" on the track, I turned off in the idea of taking a short cut, and was sitting carelessly, shortening my stirrup, when a great, dark, hairy beast rose, crashing and snorting, out ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... oriole; but for brightness, volubility, execution, and power of imitation, he is unsurpassed by any of our northern birds. His ordinary note is forcible and emphatic, but, as stated, not especially musical; Chick-a-re'r-chick, he seems to say, hiding himself in the low, dense undergrowth, and eluding your most vigilant search, as if playing some part in a game. But in July of August, if you are on good terms with the sylvan deities, you may listen to a far more rare and artistic performance. Your first impression will be that that ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... Charleston dust and fever, may be found, indeed, the bristly palmetto; but the whole island, with the exception of the western point, and a line of hard, white beach on the sea-coast, is covered with a dense undergrowth of sweet myrtle, so much prized by the horticulturalists of England. The shrub here often attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and forms an almost impenetrable coppice, burthening the air with ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... to the shining line of the river, and rose again on the further side! They were oak woods, and spoke strangely to Lucy of the American and English north. Yet, as she came nearer, the moon shone upon delicate undergrowth of heath and arbutus, that chid her fancy back to ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... towards it, heedless of long grass and briers: of worms, snails, and slugs, and all the creeping things that be. With her dark eyes and her hook nose warily in advance of her, Mrs. Sparsit softly crushed her way through the thick undergrowth, so intent upon her object that she probably would have done no less, if the wood had been a ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... in command; but Grant, as commander in chief of all the Union armies, directed the campaign in person. Crossing the Rapidan, the army entered the Wilderness, a stretch of country covered with dense woods of oak and pine and thick undergrowth. Lee attacked, and for several days the fighting was almost incessant. But Grant pushed on to Spottsylvania Court House and to Cold Harbor, where bloody battles were fought; and then went south of ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... orchids. Smoking-room, house, England, all were gone, and he sat on a settee in the heart of a virgin forest of the Amazon. It was no mere optical delusion or trick. He could see the hot steam rising from the tropical undergrowth, the heavy drops falling from the huge green leaves, the very grain and fibre of the rough bark which clothed the trunks. Even as he gazed a green mottled snake curled noiselessly over a branch above his head, and a bright-coloured paroquet ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... vivid scarlet flowers instead of leaves. These open park-like expanses of country, however, were of comparatively limited extent, the trees for the most part growing closely together, while the space between their trunks was choked with thick undergrowth, consisting of shrubs, bushes, and long, tough, flowering creepers, so densely and inextricably intermingled that it was sometimes impossible to force a way through it, and long detours became necessary in order to make any progress. But there were ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... however, I could satisfy myself positively that the old snake really held supervision over her brood, the gentleman with whom I happened to be came upon the scene, whereupon the interesting family disappeared beneath the undergrowth of the forest. ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... chosen, without stones or roots, and matted with the fallen needles of the pines. If there should come any wind, or storm of rain, the branches were thick overhead, and around them on three sides tall rocks and undergrowth made a barrier. He cut the pegs for the tent, and the front pole, stretching and tightening the rope, one end of it pegged down and one round a pine tree. When the tightening rope had lifted the canvas to the proper height from ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... as to be visible as a dark line, from the distance of many miles. It is, however, very poor, all the large trees having been removed. We rode for several miles into it, and found the soil dry and hard, but supporting a prodigious undergrowth of gigantic harsh grasses that reached to our heads, though we were mounted on elephants. Besides Sal there was abundance of Butea, Diospyros, Terminalia, and Symplocos, with the dwarf Phoenix palm, and occasionally ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org
|
|
|
