GEOLOGICAL DREAMS. 181 



Savanna of Aripo as one of the last-made bits of dry land 

 in Trinidad, still unfurnislied with the common vegetation of 

 the island. The two invading armies of tropical plants one 

 advancing from the north, off the now almost destroyed 

 land which connected Trinidad and the Cordillera with the 

 Antilles ; the other from the south-west, off the utterlv 

 destroved land whicli connected Trinidad wdth Guiana met. 

 as I fancy, ages since, on the opposite banks of a mighty 

 river, or estuary, by which the Oroonoco entered the ocean 

 alono; the foot of the northern mountains. As that river- 

 bed rose and became dry land, the two Floras crossed and 

 intermingled. Only here and there, as at Aripo, are left 

 patches, as it were, of a third Flora, which once spread unin- 

 terruptedly along the southern base of the Cordillera and 

 over the lowland which is now^ the Gulf of Paria, along the 

 alluvial flats of the mighty stream ; and the ]Moriche palms 

 of Aripo may be the lineal descendants of those which now 

 inhabit the Llanos of the main ; as those again may be the 

 lineal descendants of the Moriches which Schomburo'k found 

 forming forests among the mountains of Guiana, up to 4,000 

 feet above the sea. Age after age the Moriche apples floated 

 down the stream, settling themselves on every damp spot not 

 yet occupied by the richer vegetation of the forests, and 

 ennobled, wdtli their solitary grandeur, what without them 

 would have been a dreary w^aste of mud and sand. 



