88 



AMERICA. 



mentioned substance is the produce of many trees, 

 some of them natives of other parts of the globe. 



South America, from the isthmus of Panama to 

 the mouth of the river Amazon, is, taking all the suc- 

 cession of seasons, and all the characters of soil, a 

 compound of almost all sorts of tropical climate that 

 can be imagined. Much of it consists of dense forests, 

 the tops of the trees of which are grazed on by the sloths 

 (see Ai) ; the branches swarm with birds and American 

 monkeys, all in incessant activity and chatter, the 

 former rivalling in colour the gayest flowers, yet 

 having their flowery rivals in the very same forests, 

 in the magnificent climbing and other parisitical 

 plants which spring up in all places where a root 

 can insinuate itself or a clasper twine, and sup- 

 port a plant which, mouth all over, feeds upon the 

 moisture raised by the heat from those depths of the 

 tropical forest which the light of the sun is unable to 

 penetrate. The lower portions of these forests arc 

 often flooded to the depth of fathoms during the 

 rains ; and the usual tenants of the wood, the aquatic 

 reptiles, the swimming birds, and the fishes, may be all 

 said to inhabit together in one and the same locality. 

 Places which arc bare of trees, and not subject to bo 

 flooded by the rains, have generally a very parched 

 character during the dry season ; and when the rain 

 comes they change to beds of flowers, or plantations 

 of luxuriant vegetables, as if by magic. 



To the south of the Amazon, the vegetable riches 

 of Brazil are even, if possible, more luxuriant than 

 those that have been mentioned. The country 

 stands out more to the sea, and takes the sea-wind, 

 loaded with humidity, upon two of its sides. The 

 soil and surface are, however, both very much va- 

 ried, and that gives much change of scene to the 

 country. There are not, perhaps, in any part of the 

 world finer bowers and forests than those which are 

 met with in the dells and by the watercourses of 

 Brazil, whether we regard the beauty of the trees, or 

 of the plants which those trees support The dye- 

 woods of Brazil are of much value, and so are the 

 rose-woods, which are the timber of certain species 

 of robinia, the colour and qualities of which are, like 

 those of the mahogany, understood to depend very 

 much on the nature of the soil and situation. 



Much of Brazil, and indeed of all the tropical parts 

 of America, where the surface is varied, is, however, 

 covered not by close forests, but by " bush" or 

 stunted shrubs, which are very generally of a hard 

 and prickly character. These, though as tropical in 

 their latitude and more burning in their climate, 

 have none of the perennial verdure and bloom of the 

 tropical forests. They exhibit the tropical clime in 

 a new character, and the year under a new aspect of 

 seasons. During the rains, the bushes put forth 

 leaves, and increase by shoots, in the same manner 

 as our deciduous trees in the summer. But when 

 the drought comes to its full intensity, the leaves 

 disappear, and the bush has the aspect of our 

 hedges and bushes in the winter ; not that the 

 plants are burnt up or withered, though the earth to 

 their deepest root may be as dry as the ashes of a 

 hearth. They are fitted to the climate, and they are 

 as conserved and safe as our hardy deciduous shrubs 

 when the ground is frozen around them, and the air 

 far below freezing. Their leaves, when the heat and 

 drought prevent them any longer from performing 

 their living functions, " heal off," and the little buds 

 in their axillue arc as well protected from the drought 



by their envelopes as our buds are by theirs from 

 the cold. If the rains come twice in the course of 

 the year, at nearly equal intervals, as is the case in 

 some places, these deciduous tropical plants have 

 two seasons of growth in the year. 



The plains in these countries arc, perhaps, more 

 unlike anything that we are apt to consider a plain, 

 than the woods and thickets are to ours. Their ex- 

 tent is very great, and they are without water, uiiless 

 when partially flooded during the rains, or whew they 

 are crossed by a rough branchless stream, which in 

 the hot season is low between its banks of indurated 

 mud, and diminishes in volume as it crawls along, 

 without perceptibly adding to the life of vegetation 

 even in its immediate neighbourhood. Unless to- 

 ward the interior, few of those plains in South Ame- 

 rica are at any time wholly destitute of vegetation ; 

 they have generally under shrubs scattered over 

 them which afford some shelter to the herbaceous 

 plants ; and there is generally dew during the night, 

 the difference of temperature between which and the 

 day is generally much greater than in temperate 

 climates. Still the vegetation upon them has, in the 

 burning season, much more the character of that of 

 a polar wild after the grass has withered, than of 

 anything to be met with in England. The mam- 

 malia on those plains are not grazing animals, but 

 peculiar species of rodentia, or gnawing animals, 

 which can subsist upon the sapless vegetation. 

 In some instances, those plains maintain their hu- 

 midity, and even a perpetual verdure, by means of a 

 double crop, the one part of which a^'ords shelter to 

 the other, till it has covered the ground, and then 

 falls, forming a sort of manure, but sowing its seeds 

 at the same time. One of these crops frequently 

 consists of thistles or other rapidly growing compo- 

 sites, which begin to sprout as soon as the rain falls, 

 and completely cover the soil, and retain the moisture 

 by the time that it ceases ; and under their shade, 

 some more slow-growing herbage comes forward, 

 and again fills the ground, after their leaves have 

 begun to drop, and their steins to become hard. 



It is through some such succession as this, changing 

 the species and appearance of the plants with the la- 

 titude, that the vegetation of South America passes 

 from the vast forests on the tropical rivers, to the pe- 

 culiar vegetation of the extreme south. Even there, 

 however, the country has, if not a sort of tropical 

 character, at least a very peculiar one ; and one 

 which, though in position upon the globe it is antarc- 

 tic, is not the same as in any of the other antarctic 

 lands. The araucarias of Brazil, and of Chili, and 

 the southern Andes, are trees unknown any where to 

 the north of the equator ; but they are unlike the 

 trees of those southern lands which lie nearest to 

 America, either on the east or on the west. They 

 are not known in Southern Africa, or Van Diemen's 

 Land ; and though there are some of the same fa- 

 mily in these parts, they have a much lower latitude 

 in New Holland, and are most abundant in some of 

 the smaller isles to the east. Altogether, the vegetation 

 of the American continent is peculiar ; and the spe- 

 cies become the more peculiarly its own as we ad- 

 vance toward the south. Thus we cannot say that 

 t has derived its plants from any other part of the 

 world, or that any other part of the world has derived 

 plants from it. They are adapted to the climate, 

 and the climate to them ; and that is all we are able 

 to say upon the subject. 



