THE TROPICAL REGIONS. 135 



humming-birds, and fly-catchers — gems animated and mobile, which 

 incessantly flutter to and fro. At night — a far more astonishing 

 scene ! — begins the fairylike illumination of shining fire-flies, which, 

 by thousands of millions, weave the most fantastic arabesques, dazzling 

 fantasias of light, magical scrolls of fire. 



With all this splendour there lurks in the lower levels an obscure 

 race, a hideous and foul world of caymans, of water-serpents. To the 

 trunks of enormous trees the fanciful orchids, the well-loved daughters 

 of fever, the children of a miasmatic atmosphere, quaint vegetable 

 butterflies, suspend themselves in seeming flight. In these murderous 

 solitudes they take their delight, and bathe in the putrid swamps, 

 drink of the death which inspires them with vitality, and, by the 

 caprice of their unheard-of colours, make sport of the intoxication of 

 nature. 



Do not yield — defend yourself — let not the fatal charm bow down 

 your sinking head. Awake ! arouse ! under a hundred forms the 

 danger surrounds you. Yellow fever lurks beneath these flowers, 

 and the black vomito ; reptiles trail at your feet. If you gave way 

 to fatig-ue, a noiseless army of implacable anatomists would take 

 possession of you, and with a million lancets conveit all your 

 tissues into an admirable bit of lacework, a gauze veil, a breath, 

 nothingness. 



To this all-absorbing abyss of devouring death, of famished life, 

 what does God oppose to re-assure us ? Another abyss, not less 

 famished, thirsty of life, but less implacable to man. I see tlie Bird, 

 and I breathe ! 



What 1 is it in you, ye living flowers, ye winged topazes and 

 sapphires, that I shall find my safety ? Your saving vehemence it is, 

 excited to the purification of this superabundant and furious fecundity, 

 that alone renders practicable the entrance to this dangerous realm 

 of faery. Were you absent, jealous Nature would perform her mys- 

 terious labour of solitary fermentation, and not even the most daring 

 savant would venture upon observing her. Who am I here ? And 

 how shall I defend myself ? Wliat power would be sufficient ? The 



