On the Potaro. 349 



Besides the silverbally proper, there is another kind 

 known as " wallaba gale" silverbally, which we are told 

 literally means wallaba barked silverbally — the word 

 "gale" signifying bark or skin. The wood of this tree is 

 very hard and pretty, being of a light straw colour, with 

 silvery streaks (the medullary rays) running through it. 

 The leaves of the two trees differ considerably, and one 

 of them (we forget which) exhales a very pleasant odour 

 when freshly cut. 



Towering above every other tree, even over the stately 

 mora of Waterton, the purple heart (Copaijera pubi- 

 flora) spreads its crown of finely divided leaves to the 

 scorching sun. From the bark of the purple heart the 

 Indian fashions his frail wood-skin canoe, in which he and 

 his family travel from one part of the Colony to the other, 

 safely and apparently in comfort. The wood is exceed- 

 ingly hard and tough. 



Had the ancients been acquainted with this tree, its 

 straight cylindrical stems would have furnished them with 

 excellent beams for their battering-rams and other en- 

 gines of war. 



In temperate countries the gorgeousness of the woods 

 in autumn is due to the heftic flush of death, in Guiana 

 on the contrary it is the freshness and vigour of health 

 that decks the leafy landscape in gay attire, and our 

 forests throughout the year can present patches of colour 

 unsurpassed by anything out of the tropics. To say 

 nothing of the various shades of pink and red with which 

 the young leaves of some of our trees are dyed, we do 

 not think that nature has ever painted in any part of the 

 world a more brilliant cbjefl than a tree I saw near the 

 Ouruwa cataracts on the Rupununi river. It was about 



