386 ON THE BANKS OF THE AMAZON. 



in their matted roots ; living trunks, dead trunks, rotten trunks ; dry, 

 barkless trunks, and trunks moist and green with moss ; bare trunks, 

 and trunks with branches prostrate, reclining, horizontal, propped 

 up at different angles ; timber of every size, in every stage of growth 

 and decay, in every possible position, entangled in every pos- 

 sible combination. The swampy ground was densely covered with 

 American dog-wood, and elsewhere with thickets of the aralea, a tough- 

 stemmed trailer, with leaves as large as those of the rhubarb-plant, and 

 growing in many places as high as a man's shoulders. Both stem 

 and leaves are covered with sharp spines, which pierce your clothes 

 as you force your way through the tangled growth, and make the legs 

 and hands of the pioneers scarlet from the inflammation of myriads of 

 punctures." 



Far grander the scene, however far richer in form and colour 

 which meets our gaze in the stupendous forest growth still covering the 

 basins of the Amazon and the Orinoco. As a companion to the fore- 

 going picture, we borrow one of this brighter and more wonderful 

 region as painted with equal truth and vigour by Mr. Bates: * 



" The ground was thickly carpeted with Lycopodiums,f but it 

 was also encumbered with masses of vegetable d^bi^is and a thick 

 coating of dead leaves. Fruits of many kinds were scattered about, 

 amongst which were numerous species of beans, some of the pods a 

 foot long, flat and leathery in texture, others hard as stone. In one 

 place might be seen a quantity of large empty wooden vessels ; such 

 they appeared to be, but in reality they had fallen from the Sapucaya 

 tree. They are called Monkey's Drinking-cups (Cuyas de Macaco), 

 and are the capsules of the nuts sold under this appellation in Covent 

 Garden Market. The top of the vessel is pierced with a circular hole, 

 in which a natural lid fits easily. When the nuts ripen this lid 

 becomes loosened, and down falls the heavy shell with a crash, scat- 

 tering the nuts over the ground. The tree J which bears this extra- 



* H. "W. Bates, " The Naturalist on the River Amazons." 

 t Order, Lycopodiacex ; club-mosses. 

 % Lecythis Ollaria (order, Lecythidacex) . 



