THE EQUATORIAL ZONE. 321 



Here too, in many parts, we again find the Jessamine 

 growing in profusion, but principally on the hills ; and a 

 beautiful parasitical creeper, called jEschynantkus, with 

 bright, dark-green, fleshy leaves, and brilliant scarlet flow- 

 ers ; and out of the mingled rock and bush on the slopes 

 of the mountains, " where the soil is far from fertile," some 

 of the monster Baobabs (here called Z>m#-trees) rear their 

 ancient heads, whilst watercourses murmur through the 

 valleys below. 



Let us rest under the shade of one of these Baobab-trees, 

 let us hide from the glare of the sun, let us cease from our 

 wanderings, let us tell over in memory the things we have 

 seen, and trace out in thought the gradual development we 

 have watched, from the time when we wondered at the 

 miniature Willows in the Polar Regions, to this hour when 

 we sit sheltered under the gigantic Baobab. 



But, after all, what we have seen seems but to have 

 given us a glimpse of an inexhaustible world of wonder ; 

 and when we remember the two hundred thousand different 

 plants, including known and unknown, which, according to 

 a computation made by Meyen,* are distributed over the 



* It will be remembered that 50,000 has been before mentioned, on high 

 authority, as the most probable number of known plants. 



Y 



