Tjo Voyage of the Novara. 



a few square feet of soil hundreds of plants of all kinds. 

 They strike into the soil, or struggle upwards to the 

 light, or give out roots from the stems or branches, and 

 all twine and tangle with each other to such an extent 

 that often in these tufts and thickets one sees the top of 

 a fern, without being able to distinguish any part of its stem, 

 or a passion-flower without any visible stalk or leaves, all 

 suspended in mid-air, like so many elegant festoons. 



A short distance from this singular, thoroughly tropical 

 landscape, is the second, known as the Great Cascade, which, 

 however, owes its special attractions rather to the character 

 of the surrounding vegetation than to the volume of water. 

 The trees here grow on a sort of amphitheatre of rocks, 

 all of colossal size, and the most widely different forms, no 

 two of the same species adjoining each other, their stems and 

 branches adorned with the most beautiful parasites and the 

 blood-red leaves of innumerable creepers, which in their 

 lavish luxuriance now stretch like garlands from tree to 

 tree, now hang perpendicularly down from the very highest 

 branch of the tree like a network of green lace, till they sweep 

 alonof the ground. 



The water welling out from the granite rock, rushes into 

 the abyss below after traversing a rocky declivity, somewhat 

 resembling a sloping terrace of about twenty fathoms wide. 

 Its track is indicated by the irregularly-shaped blocks piled 

 upon each other, some of which at a little distance below, their 

 huge wide ridges enclosed by retaining walls, serve as spots in 



