194 Travels and Adventures 



with its pale-green flowers and long, mossy roots ; the 

 natives use the sap of the bulbs as gum for their 

 cigars. The long rolls of tobacco which everyone 

 sniokes are first made from the leaves, and then the 

 end is finished by sticking it with a little of the sap of 

 this Schomburgkia. Most of the Indian huts have 

 two or three old squaws who are adepts at this, and 

 thus every hut has its own private tobacco-manufac- 

 tory. Apart from its utility in this respect, the plant 

 has not merit enough to warrant it being brought to 

 England, except as a botanical curiosity. Some of 

 the trees which hung over the stream were laden 

 with a pink-flowered Epidendrum, one of the pani cu- 

 latum section, the branches being so heavy with the 

 weight of the plants as to bend into the water. 



I found a variety of bird here (Trogan viridis) I 

 had not seen before in the low lands ; the breast of 

 this species, instead of being scarlet or rose-coloured 

 like the most of its fellows, is a steel-blue, the back a 

 shiny green, and the under part of the body yellow. 

 I have found the same bird at an altitude of five 

 thousand feet. Myself and my native helpers have had 

 many adventures with snakes, from the delicate whip- 

 snake to the mighty boa, which every living thing in 

 the forest flees from and leaves master. An incident 

 that happened here is curious enough to be worth 

 mentioning. One evening I went for a stroll in the 



