422 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 



In the Philippines vegetation is singularly favoured by the 

 humidity of the climate and the elevation of the temperature, so that 

 the Flora of these richly-endowed islands displays a prodigious variety. 

 Not a single family of tropical plants but is here represented by 

 several species. Hill and valley and plain alike are characterized by 

 the exuberant growth of leaf and fruit and flower ; the graceful forms 

 might have enchanted an ancient Greek, the wealth of glowing and 

 intense colour would have fired the imagination of Turner, and defied 

 the palette of Titian or Tintoretto. There are landscapes of such 

 beauty and fertility as the fancy of artist or poet never conceived. 

 Ferns and Orchids are, perhaps, even more abundant here than in the 

 forests of Java, Borneo, or Sumatra. The Bamboo attains to unusual 

 proportions ; the Areca (Areca catechu} raises to the sky its tall 

 shapely stem, crested with plume-like leaves ; and the Betel-nut tree 

 supplies in profusion the grains which, mixed with the fruits of the 

 gigantic palm, constitute the Pinangue ; a kind of quid, which the 

 Orientals chew delightedly, and to which they attribute very valuable 

 stomachic and digestive properties. Under the dense shade of the 

 great forests we are amazed by untold numbers of various kinds of 

 plants, all adorned by richly coloured leaves, which invest the scene 

 with a singular charm, nay, with something of a fairy character ; and 

 amongst these we single out the Dracaena terminalis, with its blood- 

 empurpled foliage, which, recently introduced into Europe, has already- 

 become one of the greatest ornaments of our parks and gardens. 



I have previously had occasion to remark the singularity of char- 

 acter which in Australia distinguishes almost every member either of 

 the vegetable or the animal kingdom. I have already said that this 

 immense island-continent seems to have been the chosen theatre for a 

 distinct creative display, where every type differs from the representa- 

 tives of our scientific classifications in other parts of the globe. The 

 reader has been able to form some idea of the fancifulness of the 

 vegetable forms peculiar to the Australian savannahs. Nor are those 

 which constitute the so-called forests less strangely fantastic. On the 

 southern coast, which is the coolest, the forests are of very moderate 



