50 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



Here the finest Green-heart grows, and Wal- 

 laba, Purple-heart, Siloabali, Sawari, Buletre, 

 Tauronira, and Mora, are met with in vast abun- 

 dance, far and near, towering up in majestic gran- 

 deur, straight as pillars, sixty or seventy feet 

 high, without a knot or branch. 



Traveller, forget for a little while the idea thou 

 hast of wandering farther on, and stop and look 

 at this grand picture of vegetable nature ; it is a 

 reflection of the crowd thou hast lately been in, and 

 though a silent monitor, it is not a less eloquent 

 one on that account. See that noble Purple-heart 

 before thee! Nature has been kind to it. Not a 

 hole, not the least oozing from its trunk, to show 

 that its best days are pasto Vigorous in youthful 

 blooming beauty, it stands the ornament of these 

 sequestered wilds, and tacitly rebukes those base 

 ones of tliine own species who have been hardy 

 enough to deny the existence of Him who ordered 

 it to flourish here. 



Behold that one next to it! — Hark! how the 

 hammerings of the Red-headed Woodpecker re- 

 sound through its distempered boughs ! See what 

 a quantity of holes he has made in it, and how its 

 bark is stained with the drops which trickle down 

 from them. The lightning, too, has blasted one 

 side of it. Nature looks pale and wan in its 

 leaves, and her resources are nearly dried up in 

 its extremities ; its sap is tainted ; a mortal sick- 

 ness, slow as a consumption, and as sure in its 

 consequences, has long since entered its frame, vi- 

 tiating and destroying the wholesome juices there. 



Step a few paces aside, and cast thine eye on 

 that remnant of a Mora behind it. Best part of its 



