THE FORESTS OF GUIANA . 113 



savages take refuge upon the ceiba trees during the inundations. 

 The seeds have an agreeable taste, and are frequently eaten, as 

 well as the young and mucilaginous leaves. 



In British Honduras, in the neighbourhood of Balize, and 

 along the Motagua river, the Mahogany tree {Swietenia Ma- 

 hagoni) is found scattered in the forests, attracting the wood- 

 man's attention from a distance by its light-coloured foliage. 

 Such are its dimensions, and such is the value of peculiarly 

 fine specimens, that in October 1823 a tree was felled which 

 weighed more than seven tons, and cost, when landed at 

 Liverpool, above 375^. ; here it was sold for 525^., and the 

 expense of sawing amounted to 750^. more : so that the wood 

 of this single tree, before passing into the hands of the cabinet- 

 maker, was worth as much as a moderately sized farm. The 

 African mahogany wood is furnished by the near-related Khaya 

 senegalensls, which likewise towers to the height of a hundred 

 feet, and has been transplanted to the Antilles. 



" Heedless and bankrupt in all curiosity must ne be," says 

 Waterton*, "who can journey through tlie forests of Guiana 

 without stopping to take a view of the towering Mora {Mora 

 excelsa). Its topmost branch, when naked with age, or dried 

 by accident, is the favourite resort of the toucan. Many a 

 time has this singular bird felt the shot faintly strike him from 

 the gun of the fowler beneath, and owed his life to the distance 

 betwixt them. The wild fig tree, as large as a common English 

 apple tree, often rears itself from one of the thick branches at 

 the top of the mora ; and when its fruit is ripe, to it the birds 

 resort for nourishment. It was to an indigested seed passing 

 through the body of this bird, which had perched on the mora, 

 that the fig tree first owed its elevated station there. The sap 

 of the mora raised it into full bearing ; but now, in its turn, it 

 is doomed to contribute a portion of its own sap and juices 

 towards the growth of different species of vines, the seeds of 

 which also the birds deposited on its branches. These soon 

 vegetate and bear fruit in great quantities ; so what mth their 

 usurpation of the resources of the fig tree, and the fig tree of 

 the mora, the mora, unable to support a charge which Nature 

 never intended it should, languishes and dies under its burden ; 



* "Wanderings," p. 5. 

 I 



