The Great Forest 47 
upright in threes, the centre one driving the one on each side 
of it by projecting cogs. The whole are set in motion by 
oxen travelling round the same as in a thrashing-mill. The 
ungreased axles of the rollers, squeaking and screeching like 
a score of tormented pigs, generally inform the traveller of 
their vicinity long before he reaches them. The juice is 
boiled, and an impure sugar made from it. I do not think 
that the sugar-cane was known to the ancient inhabitants of 
the country: it is not mentioned by the historians of the 
conquest of Mexico and Peru, nor has it, like maize and 
cacao, any native name. 
As soon as we passed Pital we entered the great forest, the 
black margin of which we had seen for many miles, that 
extends from this point to the Atlantic. At first the road 
lay through small trees and brushwood, a second growth 
that had sprung up where the original forest had been cut 
for maize plantations; but after passing a brook bordered 
by numerous plants of the pzia, from which a fine fibre is 
obtained, and which gives its name to Pital, we entered 
the primeval forest. On each side of the road great trees 
towered up, carrying their crowns out of sight amongst a 
canopy of foliage; lianas wound round every trunk and hung 
from every bough, passing from tree to tree, and entangling 
the giants in a great network of coiling cables, as the serpents 
did Laocoon; the simile being strengthened by the fact that 
many of the trees are really strangled in the winding folds. 
Sometimes a tree appears covered with beautiful flowers, 
which do not belong to it, but to one of the lianas that twines 
through its branches and sends down great rope-like stems 
to the ground. Climbing ferns and vanilla cling to the 
trunks, and a thousand epiphytes perch themselves on the 
branches. Amongst these are large arums that send down 
aérial roots, tough and strong, and universally used instead 
of cordage by the natives. Amongst the undergrowth 
several small species of palms, varying in height from two to 
fifteen feet, are common; and now and then magnificent 
tree ferns, sending off their feathery crowns twenty feet from 
the ground, delight the sight with their graceful elegance. 
Great broad-leaved heliconiz, leathery melastomz, and 
succulent-stemmed, lop-sided leaved begonias are abundant, 
and typical of tropical American forests. Not less so are the 
