o-U) CUBA AND PORTO RICO 



which cannot be- described, photographed, or painted. The 

 following description by Dr. E. Eniz gives only a faint 

 idea of the island's wonders: 



( >nly the sea can afford as any term of comparison for the attempt 

 to describe a grand hois; but even then one must imagine the sea 

 on a day of storm, suddenly immobilized in the expression of its 

 mightiest fury. For the summits of these vast woods repeat all 

 the inequalities of the land they cover; and these inequalities 

 are mountains from forty-two to forty-eight hundred feet in 

 height, and valleys of corresponding profundity. All this is hid- 

 den, blended together, smoothed over by verdure, in soft and 

 enormous undulations, in immense billo wings of foliage. Only, 

 instead of a blue line at the horizon, you have a green line ; instead 

 of flashings of blue, you have flashings of green, and in all the 

 tints, in all the combinations of which green is capable deep 

 green, light green, yellow-green, black-green. 



When your eyes grow weary if it indeed be possible for them 

 to weary of contemplating the exterior of these tremendous 

 woods, try to penetrate a little into their ulterior. What an inex- 

 tricable chaos it is ! The sands of a sea are not more closely 

 pressed together than the trees are here some straight, some 

 curved, some upright, some toppling, fallen, or leaning against 

 one another, or heaped high upon each other. Climbing lianas, 

 which cross from one tree to the other, like ropes passing from 

 mast to mast, help to fill up all the gaps in this treillage ; and 

 parasites not timid parasites like ivy or like moss, but parasites 

 which are trees self -grafted upon trees dominate the primitive 

 trunks, overwhelm them, usurp the place of their foliage, and fall 

 back to the ground, forming fictitious weeping- willows. You do 

 not find here, as in the great forests of the North, the eternal 

 monotony of birch and fir : this is the kingdom of infinite variety ; 

 species the most diverse elbow each other, interlace, strangle and 

 devour each other; all ranks and orders are confounded, as in a 

 human mob. The soft and tender balisier opens its parasol of 

 leaves beside the gommier, which is the cedar of the colonies ; you 

 see the acomat, the courbaril, the mahogany, the tendre-d-caillou, 

 the iron wood ; . . . but as well enumerate by name all the soldiers 

 of an army ! Our oak, the balata, forces the palm to lengthen 

 itself prodigiously in order to get a few thin beams of sunlight ; 



