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journey back to Mokokchung |
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During the last three days the landscape has had a character all its own. The mountains are both higher and steeper with a precipitous jagged skyline. It is as if the Mokokchung hills had been crushed together and the slopes had become more sheer and the valleys narrower. During the rains the whole area is a land of rivers, rushing mountain streams and cascades showering over black boulders. Bridges are of all kinds; corrugated iron covered with cement, great tree trunks thrown across narrow rocky gorges, and simple Naga bridges - slats of wood twisted together with creepers which sway and bounce as we cross. |
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The vegetation is always changing. On the hill crests are pinewoods and a kind of open heath-land sprinkled with small flowers. Slightly lower down are oak forests full of flowering shrubs - orange Mandarin Hats, magenta pea blossoms and a flower like lilac. Finally down in the river valleys the forest is dense with festoons of creeper draping the trees like sodden cloth. Today down by the Dzulu river the jungle had been cut and there was an expanse of coarse grass six to eight feet tall. The ground was flecked with sulphur-yellow and periwinkle blue flowers, while scarlet dragonflies hovered by the path and huge pink and green grasshoppers shot up from under our feet. It (66) was like a painting by Rousseau le Douanier and I kept expecting a friendly tiger's head to part the great grasses. |
