54 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



than a day's navigation to visit each other, following the wind- 

 ings of small rivulets in thei.r courses, as the forest renders 

 communication by land impossible. 



Even the more open parts of the forest are full of mysteries. 

 In our woods the summits of the highest trees are accessible ; 

 there is no blossom that we are not able to pluck — no plant 

 that we are not able to examine, from its root to its topmost 

 branches ; but in the Brazilian forest, where the matted bush- 

 ropes wind round the trunks like immense serpents waiting for 

 their prey or stretch like the rigging of a ship from one tree 

 to another, and blossom at a giddy height, it is frecjuently as 

 impossible to reach their flowers as it is to distinguish to which 

 of the many interlacing stems they may belong. 



If any one should be inclined to tax this description with 

 exaggeration, let him try to pluck the flowers of the lianas, or 

 to ascend by climbing their flexible cordage. The tiger-cat 

 and the monkey, perhaps also the agile Indian, may be able to 

 accomplish the feat ; but it would be utterly hopeless for the 

 European to undertake it. Nor is it possible to drag down 

 these inaccessible creepers ; for, owing to their strength and 

 toughness, it would be easier to pull down the tree to which 

 they attach themselves than to force them from their hold. 

 Here two or three together twisting spirally round each other 

 form a complete living cable as if to bind securely the monarch s 

 of the forest; there they form tangled festoons, and covered 

 themselves with smaller creepers and parasitic plants, hide the 

 parent stem from sight. 



No botanist ever entered a primitive forest without envying 

 the bird to whom no blossom is inaccessible, who, high above 

 the loftiest trees, looks down upon the sea of verdure, and enjoys 

 prospects whose beauty can hardly be imagined by man. 



A majestic uniformity is the character of our woods, which 

 often consist but of one species of tree, while in the tropical 

 forests an immense variety of families strive for existence, and 

 even in a small space one neighbour scarcely ever resembles the 

 other. Even at a distance this difference becomes apparent in 

 the irregular outlines of the forest, as here a dome-shaped 

 crown, there a pointed p3rramid, rises above the broad flat masses 

 of green, in ever-varying succession. On approaching, the difle- 

 rences of colour are added to the irregularities of form; for 



