42 BLUEFIELDS. 



pursue any particular line of observation, as to take 

 a general glance at Nature, and to delight my fancy 

 with the richness and the novelty of the field in which 

 I thus found myself. At one corner of the pasture 

 a steep rocky hill rises abruptly, covered w-ith pristine 

 woods. The boughs of an immense fig-tree, which 

 had been prostrated in a storm a few weeks before, 

 enabled me to climb the ascent ; but I was astonished 

 at the difliculty of penetrating the forest. The num- 

 ber of tough withes, many of them fearfully spinous, 

 that entwine about the trees and about each other ; 

 the long prickly cacti, too, that trail here and there ; 

 the lianes, that resemble ropes, or lines, or strings, 

 according to their thickness, hanging down in loops, 

 or loosely waving to and fro, — are wonderful : these 

 last frequently extend from a lofty bough nearly to 

 the ground, without a branch or leaf till near the 

 extremity, where the cord commonly divides into 

 three or four more slender ones. Some of the larger 

 ones are woody, and are often seen tightly twisted 

 together, like the strands of a cable. The bushes 

 and smaller trees are sometimes wery numerous and 

 close, quite choking the ground, and preventing the 

 view beyond a few yards in any direction. The 

 oppressive heat, the insects, and often, as here, the 

 loose stony character of the ground, render it im- 

 possible to go far into these woods. 



Yet here was much to interest a stranger. The 

 large trees, and many of the small ones, were studded 

 with parasites, springing out of the bark of the trunk, 

 from the angles of the forks, or from the upi)er sur- 

 face of the great horizontal branches. Some of these 



