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Info for Free Men
Info for Free Women
Info for slaves
Cities & Regions

 


The jungle region on Gor

Marching Ants of the Jungle

Spice plants of the jungle

The language of the jungle

Wildlife of the Jungle - by levels of the jungle

Clothing worn in the Tropical (Jungle) Regions


The Levels of the Rain Forest / Jungle
Highest level is of the emergents - 125 to 200 feet up from the ground
In the rain forest we may distinguish three separate ecological zones, or tiers or levels. Each of these tiers, or levels, or layers, is characterized by its own special forms of plant and animal life. These layers are marked off by divergent tree heights. The highest level or zone is that of the “emergents,” that of those trees which have thrust themselves up above the dense canopies below them. This level is roughly from a hundred and twenty-five feet Gorean to two hundred feet Gorean.

Second level is canopy - the level of dense greenery that ranges from 60 to 125 feet from the ground.

The second level is often spoken of as the canopy, or as that of the canopies. This is the fantastic green cover which constitutes the main ceiling of the jungle. It is what would dominate one’s vision if one were passing over the jungle in tarn flight or viewing it from the height of a tall mountain. The canopy, or zone of the canopies, ranges from about sixty to one hundred and twenty-five feet high, Gorean measure.

The first level is the floor or ground zone, ranging from ground level to 60 feet up.
The first zone extends from the ground to the beginning of the canopies above, some sixty feet in height, Gorean measure. We may perhaps, somewhat loosely, speak of this first zone as the “floor,” or, better, “ground zone,” of the rain forest.

Explorers

Floor of jungle is not thick overgrowth
Floor of jungle is usually rather open
The ground is quite shaded from the canopies overhead
Contrary to popular belief the floor of the jungle is not a maze of impenetrable growth, which must be hacked through with machete or pangs. Quite the contrary, it is usually rather open. This is the result of the denseness of the overhead canopies, because of which the ground is much shaded, the factor which tends to Inhibit and limit ground growth. Looking about among the slender, scattered colonnades of trees, exploding far overhead in the lush capitals of the green canopy, one is often exposed to vistas of one to two hundred feet, or more. It is hard not to be reminded of the columns in one of the great, shaded temples of Initiates, as in Turia or Ar. And yet here, in the rain forest, the natural architecture of sun, and shade, and growth, seems a vital celebration of life and its glory, not a consequence of aberrations and the madness of abnegations, not an invention of dismal men who have foresworn women, even slaves, and certain vegetables, and live by parasitically feeding and exploiting the superstitions of the lower castes.

Areas that are impenetrable are usually "second-growth" patches
There are, of course, impenetrable, or almost impenetrable, areas in the jungle. These are generally “second-growth” patches. Through them one can make ones way only tortuously, cuffing with the machete or panga, stroke by stroke.
They normally occur only where men have cleared land, and then, later, abandoned it. That is why they are called “second-growth” patches; they normally occur along rivers and are not characteristic of the botanical structure of the virgin rain forest itself.
Explorers

Jungle (Rain Forest) Weather
Commonly two large rains during the day
One in late afternoon, the second late in evening - ah ahn or so before midnight
Rains often accompanied by violent winds
It is not always easy to make a fire in the forest. There are commonly two large rains during the day, one in the late afternoon and the other late in the evening, usually an Ahn or so before midnight, or the twentieth hour. These rains are often accompanied by violent winds, sometimes, I conjecture, ranging between one hundred and ten and one hundred and twenty pasangs an Ahn. The forest is drenched. One searches for wood beneath rock overhangs or under fallen trees. One may also, with pangas, hack away the wet wood of fallen trees, until one can obtain the dry wood beneath.

The jungle steams with humidity during the day
Even during the heat of the day it is hard to find suitable fuel. The jungle, from the heat and rain, steams with humidity. Too, like the roof of a greenhouse, the lush green canopies of the rain forest tend to hold this moisture within. It is the fantastic oxygenation produced by the vegetation, conjoined with the humidity and heat, and the smell of plant life, and rotting vegetable matter and wood, that gives the diurnial jungle its peculiar and unmistakable atmosphere, an encompassing, looming, green, warm ambience which is both beautiful and awesome.

At night the jungle is cooler, even chilly sometimes
The nocturnal jungle is cooler, sometimes even chilly, and the air, a little thinner, a shade less rich, is different, the sun’s energy no longer powering the complex reaction chains of photosynthesis.
Explorers

There is a rainy season and a dry (less rainy) season
The equatorial waters about Schendi, of course, are open to shipping all year around. This is one reason for the importance of the port. Schendi does not, of course, experience a winter. Being somewhat south of the equator it does have a dry season, which occurs in the period of the southern hemisphere’s winter. If it were somewhat north of the equator, this dry season would occur in the period of the northern hemisphere’s winter. The farmers about Schendi, as farmers in the equatorial regions generally, do their main planting at the beginning of the “dry season.” From the point of view of one accustomed to Gor’s northern latitudes I am not altogether happy with the geographer’s concept of a “dry season.” It is not really dry but actually a season of less rain. During the rains of the rainy season seeds could be torn out of the ground and fields half washed away. The equatorial farmer, incidentally, often moves his fields after two or three seasons as the soil, depleted of many minerals and nutriments by the centuries of terrible rains, is quickly exhausted by his croppage. The soil of tropical areas, contrary to popular understanding, is not one of great agricultural fertility. Jungles, which usually spring up along rivers or in the vicinity of river systems, can thrive in a soil which would not nourish fields of food grains. The farmers about Schendi are, in a sense, more gardeners than farmers. When a field is exhausted the farmer clears a new area and begins again. Villages move. This infertility of the soil is a major reason why population concentrations have not developed in the Gorean equatorial interior. The land will not support large permanent settlements. On the equator, itself, interestingly, geographers maintain that there are two dry seasons and two rainy seasons. Once again, if there is much to this, I would prefer to think of two rainy seasons and two less rainy seasons. My own observations would lead me to say that for all practical purposes there is, on the equator itself, no dry season.

Explanation for the amount of rains in the region
The reason for the great amount of rain in the equatorial regions is, I suppose, clear to all. At the equator the sun’s rays are most direct. This creates greater surface heat than oblique rays would. This heating of the surface causes warm air to rise. The rising of the warm air leaves a vacuum, so to speak, or, better, an area of less pressure or density in the atmosphere. Into this less dense area, this “hole,” so to speak, cooler air pours, like invisible liquid, from both the north and south. This air is heated and rises in its turn. When the warm air reaches the upper atmosphere, well above the reflecting, heated surface of the earth, it cools; as it cools, its moisture is precipitated as rain, This is, of course, a cycle. It is responsible for the incredible rains of the Gorean equatorial interior. There are often two major rains during the day, in the late afternoon, when the warm air has reached its precipitation point, and, again, in the late evening, when, due to the turning of the planet, the surface and upper atmosphere, darkened, cools. There can be rain, of course, at other times, as well, depending on the intricate interplay of air currents, pressures and temperatures.
Explorers



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