On the low level it was quite another affair.

The huge forest-trees were loaded with parasitical creepers, which, stretching from trunk to trunk in all directions, formed here and there an impenetrable net or trellis-work.

In such places the kris of Saloo, and the ship's axe carried by Murtagh, were called into requisition, and much time was expended in cutting a way through the tangled growth.
Another kind of obstacle was also occasionally met with, in the brakes of bamboo, where these gigantic canes, four or five inches in diameter, and rising to a height of over fifty feet, grew so close together that even a snake would have found difficulty in working its way through them.

Fortunately, their stems being hollow, they are easily brought down, and a single stroke from the axe, or even Saloo's sharp kris, given slantingly, would send one of them crashing over, its leafy top bearing along with it the long ribbon-like leaves of many others.
One of these cane brakes proved to be upwards of a mile in width, and its passage delayed them at least three hours.

They might have attempted to get round it, but they did not know how far it extended.
Possibly ten or twenty miles--for the bamboo thickets often run in belts, their growth being due to the presence of some narrow water track, or the course of a stream.