288 SCENES OF ANCIENT DAYS. 



mountains, meandering through the vast Amazonian plain. 

 The age of winter has passed away. The earth, warmed by 

 the fires beneath and the hot sun above, steams with vapour. 

 Lofty trees rise from the alluvial soil. A dense mass of 

 underwood springs up ; creepers innumerable hang from the 

 boughs ; countless multitudes of insects have been called into 

 existence — termites, ants, and beetles — feeding on the leaves 

 and herbage, and on the giant trunks themselves. It might 

 seem, numerous and voracious as they are, that they must 

 quickly destroy the clothing of verdure which covers the soil. 

 But they are not destined thus to triumph over the wonder- 

 ful work of the Creator's hand. 



A law has been framed by which all things are beautifully 

 and wonderfully balanced. Monstrous animals have been 

 created to place bounds on their too great increase. Huge, 

 awkward-looking beasts covered with shaggy hair, with thick, 

 short limbs, and powerful, sharp claws bent inwards on soft 

 pads — compelling them to move on the edge of their paws — 

 are busy with the claj^-formed nests of the insects, dashing 

 them asunder, and devourins^ their active builders — taking' in 

 whole armies at a mouthful. 



See yonder huge creature, its body the size of a rhinoceros, 

 covered with a coat of armour, a convex oval shield, formed 

 of hexagonal plates wonderfully fitted to each other ! It is 

 an armadillo, the precursor of a race still abounding in the 

 land, though of diminutive form compared to its mighty pre- 

 decessor. See how, with powerful jaws, it crunches up a 

 fallen tree, perforated through and through by ants, — grind- 

 ing the papery partitions of the dry wood, licking in and 

 chewing between its wonderful cylinder teeth the whole mass 

 into a black pulp ! 



