THE AMERICANS AND THE ABORIGINES. 301 



numerable rattlesnakes, king's-heads, and copperheads 

 writhe themselves, or lie coiled up on the watch for 

 the wild pigeons, mocking-birds, parroquets, and black 

 squirrels, who share with them the shelter of the 

 thicket. Rarely is the maze broken by a clearing, 

 and where it is so, is seen a chaos of mouldering tree- 

 trunks, uprooted by the frequent tornadoes, and piled 

 up like some artificial fortification. The wild luxuri- 

 ance of the place reaches its acme in the neighbour- 

 hood of the cypress swamp ; but on the further side 

 of that it assumes a softer character, and the perplexed 

 wanderer through these beautiful scenes finds himself 

 on a sudden transported into one of the most enchant- 

 ing of Mexican landscapes, where the myrtle, the 

 stately tulip-tree, and the palma-christi alternate with 

 the dark-leaved mangrove, and on the rising grounds 

 the cotton-tree and sycamore spread their silver-green 

 branches above a sward of the tenderest verdure. The 

 whole forest is interwoven, like a vast tent or awning, 

 with the jessamine and the wild vine, which, spring- 

 ing from the ground, grapple themselves to the tree- 

 trunks, ascend to the highest branches, and then again 

 descending, cling to another stem, and creeping from 

 mangrove to myrtle, from magnesia to papaw, from 

 papaw to the tulip-tree, form one vast and intermin- 

 able bower. The broad belt of land, in the centre of 

 which the waters of the Natchez flow, presents to the 

 beholder a waving and luxuriant field of rustling pal- 

 mettos, extending from the forest a full half-mile to 



