96 THE WONDERS OF YE(lETATIOS. 



I asked. 'There,' lie said, Ms the first of the giant 

 trees, sir, the one you saw from town, sir.' 



He pointed out to me a kind of tower adorned at 

 the summit with brandies and flowers, a structure 

 such as no foreigner surely would ever have taken for 

 a tree. 



a This is only a small one," said the guide, " but 

 in going higher up, you will find trees of larger 

 growth." 



In fact, although the specimen before our eyes 

 seemed to be almost supernatural in its size, we saw 

 as we came to the borders of the immense forest, that 

 as we proceeded the trees became larger and larger 

 still. One remarkable circumstance was that they 

 were almost all diseased ; many of them were black 

 at the top and stretched far into the air their huge, 

 leafless arms. I was told that the sun was the cause 

 of this, and that these vigorous trees could not endure 

 the fierceness of its rays. 



I am not able, now that I have no longer these 

 giants of the forest before my eyes to express the 

 sense of awe excited in me by the sight of these 

 colossi, veritable patriarchs of the forest, many of 

 which, no doubt, had witnessed the earliest creations 

 of nature, and belonged to epochs when the earth was 

 still in its first vigorous youth, while now they sur- 

 rounded me with their gigantic trunks and shaded 

 me with the foliage of their enormous branches. 



Humboldt- represents the bananas as everywhere 

 found in company with palms. These trees, he says, 

 are the ornaments of moist climates. Their fruits 



