WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 105 



Marondis, and Waracabas, for your nourishment, and there 

 are plenty of leaves to cover a shed whenever yon are 

 inclined to sleep. 



The soil has three-fourths of sand in it, till you come 

 within half an hour's walk of the Essequibo, where you 

 find a red gravel and rocks. In this retired and solitary' 

 tract, nature's garb, to all appearance, has not been injured 

 l)y fire, nor her productions broken in upon by the exter- 

 minating hand of man. 



Here the finest Green-heart grows, and Wallaba, Purple- 

 lieart, Siloabali, Sawari, Buletre, Tauronira, and ]\Iora, are 

 met with in vast abundance, far and near, towering up in 

 majestic gi^andeur, straiglit as pillars, sixty or seventy feet 

 high, without a knot or branch. 



Traveller, forget for a little while the idea thou hast of 

 wandering farther on, and stop and look at this grand 

 picture of vegetable nature ; it is a reflection of the crowd 

 thou hast lately been in, and though a silent monitor, it is 

 not a less eloquent one on that account. See that noble 

 Purple-heart before thee ! Nature has been kind to it. 

 Not a hole, not the least oozing from its trunk, to show 

 that its best days are past. Vigorous in youthful bloom- 

 ing beauty, it stands the ornament of these sequestered 

 wilds, and tacitly rebukes those base ones of thine own 

 species who have been hardy enough to deny the existence 

 of Him who ordered it to flourish here. 



Behold that one next to it ! — Hark ! how the hammer- 

 ings of the Eed-headed Woodpecker resound through its 

 distempered boughs ! See what a quantity of holes he 

 has made in it, and how its bark is stained with the drops 

 which trickle down from them. The lightning, too, has 

 blasted one side of it. Nature looks pale and wan in its 

 leaves, and her resources are nearly dried up in its ex- 

 tremities ; its sap is tainted ; a mortal sickness, slow as 



