188 The Andes and the Amazon. 



Lower Amazon, and straight as an arrow, but we saw none 

 of remarkable size. A perpetual mist seems to hang on 

 the branches, and the dense foliage forms dark, lofty 

 vaults, which the simlight never enters. The soil and air 

 are always cool, and never dry. Every thing is penetrated 

 with dampness. All our watches stopped, and remained 

 immovable till we reached Para. It is this constant and 

 excessive humidity which renders it so difficult to transport 

 provisions or prepare an herbarium. The pending branches 

 of moss are so saturated with moisture that sometimes the 

 branches are broken off to the peril of the passing traveler. 

 Yet the climate is healthy. The stillness and gloom are 

 almost painful ; the firing of a gun wakes a dull echo, and 

 any unlooked-for noise is startling. Scarce a bird or a 

 flower is to be seen in these sombre shades. Kearly the 

 only signs of animal life visible thus far were insects, most- 

 ly butterflies, fireflies, and beetles. The only quadruped 

 seen on our journey to the Napo was a long-tailed marten 

 caught by the Indians. The silence is almost perfect ; its 

 chief interruption is the crashing fall of some old patriarch 

 of the forest, overcome by the embrace of loving parasites 

 that twine themselves about the trunk or sit ujDon the 

 branches. The most striking singularity in these tropical 

 woods is the host of hanas or air-roots of epiphytous plants, 

 which hang down from the lofty boughs, straight as plumb- 

 lines, some singly, others in clusters ; some reaching half 

 way to the ground, others touching it and striking their 

 rootlets into the earth. We found lianas over one hundred 

 feet long. Sometimes a toppling tree is caught in the grace- 

 ful arms of looping sijyos^ and held for years by this nat- 

 ural cable. It is these dead trunks, standing like skeletons, 

 which give a character of solemnity to these primeval 

 woods. The wildest disorder is seen along the mountain 

 torrents, where the trees, prostrated by the undermining 



