CHAP. XXXIII. J ASPECTS OF NATUBE. 295 



as to produce no effect whatever on the general scenery. 

 To give particulars : T have visited five distinct locali- 

 ties in the islands, I have wandered daily in the forests, 

 and have passed along upwards of a hundred miles 

 of coast and river during a period of six months, much 

 of it very fine weather, and till just as I was about to 

 leave, I never saw a single plant of striking brilliancy 

 or beauty, hardly a shrub equal to a hawthorn, or a 

 climber equal to a honeysuckle ! It cannot be said 

 that the flowering season had not arrived, for I saw many 

 herbs, shrubs, and forest trees in flower, but all had 

 blossoms of a green or greenish-white tint, not superior to 

 our lime-trees. Here and there on the river banks and 

 coasts are a few Convolvulaceae, not equal to our garden 

 Ipomseas, and in the deepest shades of the forest some 

 fine scarlet and purple Zingiberaceae, but so few and 

 scattered as to be nothing amid the mass of green and 

 flowerless vegetation. Yet the noble Cycadacete and 

 screw-pines, thirty or forty feet high, the elegant tree ferns, 

 the lofty palms, and the variety of beautiful and curious 

 plants which everywhere meet the eye, attest the warmth 

 and moisture of the tropics, and the fertility of the soil. 

 It is true that Aru seemed to me exceptionally poor in 

 flowers, but this is only an exaggeration of a general 

 tropical feature ; for my whole experience in the equa- 

 torial regions of the west and the east has convinced me, 



