CHARACTER OF THE BANKS 51 



stream. Instead of the larger parasites, mosses and junger- 

 mannias weave their carpets over the drooping branches. But 

 few animals besides the numerous water-birds inhabit this 

 damp forest zone, in which, as it is almost superfluous to add, 

 no plantation has been formed by man. 



The many windings of the water channels which traverse 

 the littoral woods are so overgrown with bushes, that the boat 

 can only with difficulty be pushed onwards through these re- 

 treats, whose silence is only broken by the splashing of a fish or 

 the snorting of a crocodile. 



The many islands of the delta of the Amazon are everywhere 

 encircled by mangToves ; but sailing stream upwards, the mono- 

 tonous green of these monarchs of the shore is gradually re- 

 placed by flowers and foliage, which, in every variety of form 

 and colour, for hundreds and hundreds of miles characterise the 

 banks of the river. 



During the dry season prickly astricarias, large musaceae, 

 enormous bamboo-like grasses, white plumed ingas, and scarlet 

 poivreas, are most frequently seen among the numberless plants 

 growing along the bank of the stream, or projecting over its 

 margin ; while above the shrubbery of the littoral forest num- 

 berless palms tower, like stately columns, to the height of a 

 hundred feet ; others of a lower stature are remarkable for the 

 size of their trunks, on which the foot-stalks of the fellen leaves 

 serve as supports for ferns and other parasites. 



On the trees which often lie floating on the river, though 

 still attached by their roots to the bank on which they had 

 flourished, petrels or scarlet ibises frequently perch ; and as a 

 boat approaches, hideous bats, disturbed in their holes, fly out 

 of the mouldering trunks. 



It stands to reason that in a length of more than 3000 miles I 

 the species of plants must frequently change ; yet the low/ 

 banks of the Amazon, and of its vassals, as soon as they have/ 

 emerged from the mountains where they rise, have everywhere 

 a similar character. 



On sailing down the river for hundreds of miles, the eye may 

 at length grow weary of the uniformity of a landscape, which 

 remains constantly the same ; but the interest increases as the 

 mind becomes more and more impressed by the grandeur of 

 its dimensions. A broad stream, now dividing into numerous 



