l')4 THE NORTHERN MOUNTAINS. 



oue class of objects in the forest which I had set my heart on 

 examining, with all my eyes and soul ; and after a while, I 

 scrambled and hewed my way to them, and was well repaid 

 for a quarter of an hour's very hard work, 



I had remarked, from the camp, palms unlike any I had 

 seen before, starring the opposite forest with pale grey-green 

 leaves. Long and earnestly I had scanned them through the 

 glasses. Xow was the time to see them close, and from 

 beneath. I soon guessed (and rightly) that I was looking at 

 that Palma de Jagua,-^ wliicli excited and no wonder the 

 enthusiasm of the usually unimpassioned Humboldt. Magni- 

 ficent as the tree is when its radiating^ leaves are viewed from 

 above, it is even more magnificent when you stand beneath 

 it. The stem, like that of the Coco-nut, usually curves the 

 height of a man ere it rises in a shaft for fifty or sixty feet 

 more. From the summit of that shaft springs a crown I 

 had rather say, a fountain of pinnated leaves ; only eight or 

 ten of them ; but five-and-twenty feet long each. For three- 

 fourths of their length they rise at an angle of 45 or more : 

 for the last fourth they fall over, till the point hangs straight 

 down ; and each leaflet, which is about two feet and a half 

 long, falls over in a similar curve, completing the likeness of 

 the Avhole to a fountain of water, or a gush of rockets. I 

 stood and looked up, watching the innumerable curled leaflets, 



^ Jessenia. 



