58 TlMEHRI. 



permit of the passage of vessels of large size, which 

 could be loaded at the very farms where the fruit would 

 be grown. The amount of land now lying idle can be 

 reckoned literally by hundreds of thousands of acres, 

 and is, to outward appearances, as judged by following 

 the course of the various rivers, uniformly flat, rich, 

 and swampy. 



A peculiarity of all these western streams is the 

 absence of mucco-mucco (Montrichardia arborescens) 

 from their banks ; and this is the more extraordinary and 

 incomprehensible, when it is considered how very abundant 

 this plant is on all our more eastern rivers. For 

 many miles on the Barima, etc., nothing green meets 

 the eye but one almost unending wall of man- 

 grove trees (Rhizophora mangal) , which renders the 

 scenery somewhat dull and uninteresting ; though, as if to 

 make up for this monotony, the trunks of the trees are 

 in many places covered with a small profusely flowering 

 orchid, whose sweet smelling blooms possess quite a 

 strong odour of fresh honey. Now and then too one sees 

 the flower spike of another common arboreal orchid, 

 Oncidium altissimum, which throws out a spray of 

 yellow and brown blossoms, some twelve to fifteen feet 

 in length, that sways gently to and fro in the breeze like a 

 delicate lace streamer. 



As the Morawhanna passage is neared, one catches at 

 intervals glimpses of troolie palms (Manicaria saccifera) 

 and other trees in the bush, behind the fringe of mangrove. 

 This is, however, very seldom, and the mangrove is the 

 predominant tree on the river bank. Over their tops fly 

 numbers of macaws (Ara, sp.) and parrots passing to 

 and from their feeding grounds in the aeta palm swamp 



