CONTINUED. 369 



in 'Titus Andronicus,' he thus alludes to this pecu- 

 liarity : 



" The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind 

 And make a chequered shadow on the ground." 



I have frequently seen the Bamboo, that magnificent 

 member of the grassy-tribe, waving aloft its feathery 

 sprays in groves, more than forty feet high. The ap- 

 pearance of the epiphytic vegetation, in these forests, 

 exactly resembles, in some spots, the vineyards full of 

 trees so eloquently mentioned by Dickens : " The wild 

 festoons ; the elegant wreaths, and crowns, and garlands 

 of all shapes ; the fairy nets flung over great trees, and 

 making them prisoners in sport ; the tumbled heaps and 

 mounds of exquisite shapes upon the ground ; how rich 

 and beautiful they are ! And every now and then, a 

 long, long line of trees will be all bound and garlanded 

 together, as if they had taken hold of one another, and 

 were coming dancing down the field !"* 



What must ever strike a European observer in tro- 

 pical forests, is the singular want of any of those autumnal 

 signs of partial decay, or vernal indications of gradual 

 development, seen in climes more temperate. There are 

 no mellow tints, or boughs covered with young green 

 buds ; no red withered leaves falling from the trees ; but 

 always renovation and dissolution, always the same 

 quantity of dead rotting leaves, and the same dense mass 

 of dark green foliage, wherever the woods are entered, 

 whether in the dry or rainy season. In many parts of 

 these forests I noticed a vast number of Fungi, those 

 scavengers of the vegetable kingdom, which insignificant, 



* Pictures from Italy, p. 90. 

 VOL. II. 2 B 



