THE EQUATORIAL ZONE. 281 



reach its limit, the sun is gone, and, but for the timely aid 

 of the glowing full moon, we should have found ourselves 

 in the dark. 



After the oppressive heat of the day, how reviving is the 

 delicious coolness of the night, so often a characteristic of 

 the tropics ! The moon, high overhead, is encircled by a 

 halo of coloured rings; and here we see, what only in this 

 part of the world it is possible to see, " the glorious spec- 

 tacle of all the stars of the southern and northern heavens 

 revealed at one glance ;" our old friend the Great Bear, and 

 the other northern constellations, assume "a remarkable 

 and almost fearful magnitude, owing to their low position." 

 And here, as we cast our eyes to earth again, a scene of 

 far softer beauty than the interior of the forest is revealed 

 to us by this flood of golden light. There is a river run- 

 ning by, the margin of which is fringed by the borders of 

 the forest, which here abruptly terminates. Not coarse and 

 rank is vegetation here, like that from which we have just 

 emerged, but far more beautiful. The mass of verdure is 

 still "adorned by splendid climbing plants;" an elegant 

 species of Pern too here first attracts our attention; a 

 "large-leaved Lygodmm hanging down from the tops of the 

 trees in festoons forty or fifty feet long ;" and side by side 



