WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 91 



tree, often rears itself from one of the thick branches at 

 the top of the mora ; and when its fruit is ripe, to it the 

 birds resort for nourishment. It was to an undigested 

 seed, passing through the body of the bird which had 

 perched on the mora, that the fig-tree first owed its ele- 

 vated station there. The sap of the mora raised it into full 

 bearing ; but now, in its turn, it is doomed to contribute a 

 portion of its own sap and juices towards the growth of 

 different species of vines, the seeds of which, also, the 

 birds deposited on its branches. These soon vegetate, and 

 bear fruit in great quantities ; so what with their usurpa- 

 tion of the resources of the fig-tree, and the fig-tree of the 

 mora, the mora, unable to support a charge which nature 

 never intended it should, languishes and dies under its 

 burden ; and then the fig-tree, and its usurping progeny 

 of vines, receiving no more succour from their late foster- 

 parent, droop and perish in their turn. 



A vine, called the Bush-rope by the wood-cutters, on 

 account of its use in hauling out the heaviest timber, has 

 a singular appearance in the forests of Demerara. Some- 

 times you see it nearly as thick as a man's body, twisted 

 like a corkscrew round the tallest trees, and rearing its 

 head high above their tops. At other times three or four 

 of them, like strands in a cable, join tree and tree and 

 branch and branch together. Others, descending from on 

 high, take root as soon as their extremity touches the 

 ground, and appear like shrouds and stays supporting 

 the mainmast of a line-of-battle ship; while others, 

 sending out parallel, oblique, horizontal, and perpendi- 

 cular shoots in all directions, put you in mind of what 

 travellers call a matted forest. Oftentimes a tree, above a 

 hundred feet high, uprooted by the whirlwind, is stopped 

 in its fall by these amazing cables of nature ; and hence 

 it is that you account for the phenomenon of seeing trees 



