538 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



thirsty insects would instantly make him repent of his temerity ; for the plague of the 

 mosquitoes is nowhere more dreadful than in these thickets. And supposing his 

 scientific zeal intense enough to bid defiance to the torture of their stings, and to scorn 

 the attacks of every other visible foe insect or serpent, crocodile or beast of prey 

 that may be lurking among the mangroves, yet the reflection may well bid him pause, 

 that poisonous vapours, pregnant with cholera or yellow fever, are constantly rising 

 from that muddy soil. Even in the temperate regions of Europe the emanations from 

 marshy grounds are pregnant with disease, but the malaria ascending from the sultry 

 morasses of the torrid zone is absolutely deadly. Thus there cannot possibly be a 

 better natural bulwark for a land than to be belted with mangroves ; and if Borneo, 

 Madagascar, Celebes, and many other tropical islands and coasts, have to the present 

 day remained free from the European yoke, they are principally indebted for their 

 independence to the miasms and tangles of a mangrove girdle, bidding defiance alike 

 to the sharp edge of the axe or the destructive agency of fire. 



Next to the mangroves, the Bruguieras, the Avicennias, the Sonneratias, and various 

 species of palms, such as the Nipa fruticans and the Phoenix paludosa, a dwarf date- 

 tree, which literally covers the islands of the Sunderbunds, at the delta of the Ganges, 

 form conspicuous features in the marsh-forests of the torrid zone. The magnificent 

 Avicennia tomentosa, which, with a more majestic growth than the rhizophora, raises 

 its crown to the bight of seventy feet, and is said to flourish throughout the whole 

 range of the tropics as far as the flood extends, mixes with the mangroves, standing 

 like them on overarching roots. The Sonneratias (acida, alba) grows along the 

 marshy banks of the large rivers of India, the Moluccas, and New Guinea ; their roots 

 spread far and wide through the soft mud, and at various distances send up, like the 

 avicennias, extraordinarily long spindle-shaped excrescences four or five feet above the 

 surface. These curious formations spring very narrow from the root, expand as they 

 rise, and then become gradually attenuated, occasionally forking, but never throwing 

 out shoots or leaves, or in any way resembling the parent root. For lining insect- 

 boxes and making setting-boards they are unequalled, as the finest pin passes in easily 

 and smoothly, and is held so firmly and tightly that there is no risk of the insects 

 becoming disengaged. In fact Nature, while forming them, seems to have had the 

 entomologist in view, and to have studied how to gratify his wishes. 



But of all trees none are so distinctively characteristic of the Tropical World as the 

 different species of the Palm. They assume every variety of form, but all are beauti- 

 ful. We shall undertake to mention only a few of those which are of special utility 

 to man. The graceful Acanthus gave the imaginative Greeks the first idea of the 

 Corinthian capital; but the shady canopy of the Cocoa-nut tree would form a still 

 more beautiful architectural ornament of architecture, were it possible for art to imitate 

 its feathery fronds and carve their delicate tracery in stone. No cathedral has a pil- 

 lared aisle so magnificent as the famous Avenue of Palms in the Botanical Garden of 

 Rio de Janeiro. The tall stems rise to the bight of eighty feet, and their overarching 

 branches interlace, forming a roof whose beauty human hands can never imitate. 



Essentially littoral, this noble palm requires an atmosphere damp with the spray 

 and moisture of the sea to acquire its full stateliness of growth ; and while along the 

 bleak shores of the Northern Ocean the trees are generally bent landward by the 

 rough sea breeze, and send forth no branches to face its violence, the cocoa, on the 



