EQUATORIAL VEGETATION. 25 



include a vast variety of forms. More striking were 

 the masses of climbers, parasites, and epiphytes, to 

 say nothing of the rich and strange herbaceous plants 

 that fringed the edge of the forest. Our train, being 

 express, gave but a single chance of distinguishing 

 anything amid the crowd of passing objects — during 

 a brief halt at a station about half-way across the 

 isthmus, round which was a cluster of small houses 

 or huts, inhabited by Indians. Their features were 

 much less remote from the European type than I had' 

 expected — less remote, I thought, than those of many 

 Asiatics of Mongol stock. Ten minutes on the verge 

 of the surging mass of vegetation that surrounded us 

 gave a tantalizing first peep at the flora of Equatorial 

 America. Many forms hitherto seen only in herbaria 

 or hot-houses— several Melastoinacece, Heliconia, Costtis, 

 and the like — were hastily gathered ; but the summons 

 to return to the train speedily calmed the momentarily 

 increasing excitement. Although the sky was almost 

 completely free from clouds, and the sun very near 

 the zenith, the heat was no way excessive. My 

 thermometers had been stowed away in the hurry of 

 leaving the steamer, but I do not believe that the 

 shade temperature was higher than 84° Fahr. On the 

 western side of the isthmus the land rises into hills 

 some five or six hundred feet in height, and between 

 these the railway winds to the summit level, thence 

 descending rather rapidly towards Panama. What a 

 crowd of associations are evoked by the first view of 

 the Pacific ! What trains of mental pictures have 

 gathered round the records of the early voyagers, the 

 adventurers, the scientific explorers ! Strangely enough. 



