70 OVER THE MOUNTAINS TO THE LLANOS. 



opened jaws, lay basking in the bi-iglit sun upon the 

 shelving borders of the stream. Xot more strange and 

 varied were the forms of animated life than Avere the 

 beauty. and exuberance of vegetation, which rose above 

 us in walls of eternal green, variegated with flowers that 

 decked richly the trees, and filled the air with their fi-a. 

 grance. The small, slender, and delicately-pinnated foli- 

 age of mimosas and tamarinds contrasted pleasingly with 

 the many large, coriaceous-leaved species that filled the 

 forest. The arum, that giant of aerial plants, trumpet- 

 llowered bignonias, banisterias, and passion-flowers, with 

 thousands of orchidaceous plants of exquisite beauty, 

 covered the branches and embowered the trees. Palms 

 rose in forms and numbers unknown in the higher altitudes 

 of the Cordilleras. Here was the pahna de cobija {Cory- 

 pha tectoriim) or roofing palm, its palmate leaves few in 

 number, with the lower ones withered and drooping, giving 

 the tree a gloomy and mournful asj)ect. The stem, twenty 

 to thirty feet in height, like that of the palmetto so abun- 

 dant along our Southern seaboard, is remarkable for main- 

 taining a constant diameter of eight or ten inches in 

 all individuals of the species. The wood" is hard and 

 durable, making excellent building-timber where exposure 

 to the weather is necessary, nor is it subject to the ravages 

 of ants, which are such wood-destroyers in the tropics. 

 The leaves ai-e employed by the natives of the Llanos for 

 covering roofs. 



But a far more beautiful palm growing here than the 

 one just described, and one more generally useful, is the 

 Moriche {Mauritia Jlexuosa), or what is known as the 

 sago or bread-tree of the country. It resembles the above 

 in the form of its leaves, which are folded like a fan ; but 

 these are much larger than are those of the former species, 

 as is also the trunk, which attains a height of fifty and 

 even eio-htv feet. It is a tree of wide distribution and 



