CAOUTCHOUC AND GUTTA-PERCHA. - 209 
three or four pounds is rarely gathered. The inner bark of the tree is used by 
the Indians for the preparation of articles of dress. 
The genuine caoutchouc tree is found everywhere in tropical America, from 
Mexico to Brazil. It chiefly abounds, however, in the extended plains south 
of the Orinoco, which are covered, so to say, by one primeval forest, and across 
which only the rivers, and especially the Amazon, can serve as roads, and in the 
numberless low islands enclosed by the exceedingly wide estuary of that gigantic 
stream. From this region caoutchouc is also exported in the form of shoes, 
manufactured by the Indians, who, for that purpose, make the milky juice flow 
slowly and repeatedly over the necessary moulds. Besides, considerable quan- 
tities are gathered around Quito, on the Mosquito coast, in Guiana, in the island 
of Mauritius, and in Brazil. 
In the East Indies, the fig trees are predominant. Their numerous species, 
which chiefly form forests in low localities, invest the vegetation of the islands 
situated in the Indian Archipelago with a peculiar charactey, manifesting itself 
in their closed and sombre appearance, the density of the forests, and the moisture 
and dampness of the air. ‘The stems of the trees rapidly develop themselves, 
and are remarkable for their bulky thickness, their irregular growth, and the 
wide spread of their intertwined branches. The wood, however, is soft and 
spongy, and a multitude of parasites and creeping plants spread a living cover 
over the bark of the stems growing out of the mouldering ground. Numerous 
hosts of apes leap to and fro, screaming and howling, over the high branches, 
and the thickets are all enlivened by the varied carols of the birds. 
Already, when approaching the Straits of Sunda, the traveller finds a full 
compensation for the weariness of his long voyage, and the view upon the coast, 
teaming with vegetation, surprises him the more pleasantly as he still remem- 
bers the sparsely-covered heights of the Canary and Cape Verde islands and the 
bald summits of the African table mountains. The nearer he approaches, the 
livelier becomes his desire to enter the scene which so charmingly opens to his 
eyes. While Borneo is covered with forests displaying in the highest degree 
the character of equatorial exuberance, and Sumatra presents the aspect of a 
perfect tropical wilderness, Java, the finest of the Sunda isles, deserves the 
. prize of beauty. Here the vegetable kingdom can be seen in its perfectly pure 
form; here more plainly than anywhere else can we see what the undisturbed 
power of vegetable growth in tropical climates, aided by a combination of most 
favorable circumstances, is able to achieve. In no other part, probably, of the 
eastern hemisphere is such luxuriance of vegetation to be met with. he whole 
island is a hot-bed reposing over a hearth or subterranean fire, still active and 
everywhere manifesting its activity. Just at the foot of the voleano Merapi, 
rising to an altitude of 8,000 feet, vegetation appears most powerful. Hundreds 
of species of trees, among which there is hardly one falling short of a hundred 
feet, form the high arched primeval forest, towering over a rich, spongy soil, 
covered with an endless multitude of mushrooms. Among these trees the 
urticew, or fig tree, are, in general, the principal figures. 
Forming a continuation of the volcanic chain of the Sunda isles, there is 
another range of voleanoes, which takes a northerly direction: it is that of the 
Moluccas and Philippines. Chiefly in the latter islands, one of which, Luzon, 
is covered with a dense range of volcanoes, the gorgeous magnificence of the 
equatorial zone is fully displayed. If we there ascend the mountains, we per- 
ceive in the forests the powerful fig trees, around which luxuriant parasites wind 
a dense trellis-work. 
On the Indian main land, and chiefly in further India, under the perpendicu- 
lar rays of the sun, nature displays its full strength in developing the vegetable 
world. And, again, it is the urticee, together with terebinths, magnolias, gum 
trees, with large resplendent leaves, hairy silver trees, palms, bamboos, and 
similar plants, that produce a theatre of vegetation entirely new to the European. 
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