430 SCENERY. 



while beyond was the ocean, hushed into a perfect calm. 

 On our left extended the huge forest trees, for miles 

 fringing " the beached margent of the sea." Entering a 

 thicket, we threaded the woody maze a little distance, 

 and came suddenly upon a large mangrove swamp, where 

 all the trees had, from some cause unknown to us, 

 perished, and remained, some erect like huge, blackened 

 skeletons arising from an oozy bed ; and others prostrate, 

 and lying in vast heaps, forming fit hiding places for the 

 huge Monitors and broad-bellied Lace-lizards that we 

 soon perceived abounded here. The entire surface of the 

 hardened mud, in other parts, was covered with CcritMum 

 palustre and the large black C. telescopium, while here and 

 there fragments of those bivalve Mollusks, that love the 

 brackish water, strewed the soil. 



On the margin of this dried-up Lagoon, were heaps of 

 old decayed and moss-grown trunks, speckled with lichens 

 and sprouting with fungi, rotting piecemeal in the black 

 and slimy mud. Thousands of Gelasimi and other land- 

 loving crustaceans, bustled about the surface of the 

 ground, rushing into holes with the greatest trepidation, 

 but nevertheless snapping, as they retreated, their huge 

 single foot-claw, and thrusting it menacingly forth, when 

 they reached the aperture of their burrow. In many parts 

 of the yielding surface, well-beaten tracks were formed 

 by our dingy lacertine friends, the giant Hydrosauri; 

 and in other places, the soil was stamped with the foot- 

 marks of deer, and grooved by the snouts of wild boars. 

 The forest beyond was perfectly silent, and, sitting on 

 one of the tall and blasted trees, was a solitary white 

 heron, himself as motionless and silent as the rest of nature. 



