38 The Andes and the Amazon. 



desert. At 3 p.m. we passed through La Mona, a village of 

 twenty-five bamboo huts, all on stilts, for in the rainy sea- 

 son the whole town is under water. Signs of indolence 

 and neglect were every where visible. Idle men, with an 

 uncertain mixture of European, Negro, and Indian blood ; 

 sad-looking Quichua women, carrying a naked infant or 

 a red water-jar on the back ; black hogs and lean poultry 

 wandering at will into the houses — such is the picture of 

 the motley life in the inland villages. Strange was the 

 contrast between human poverty and natural wealth. We 

 were on the borders of a virgin forest, and the overpower- 

 ing beauty of the vegetation soon erased all memory of the 

 squalor and lifelessness of La Mona. Our road — a mere 

 path, suddenly entered this seemingly impenetrable forest, 

 where the branches crossed overhead, producing a delight- 

 ful shade. The curious forms of tropical life were all at- 

 tractive to one who had recently rambled over the com- 

 paratively bleak hills of ISTew England. Delight is a weak 

 term to express the feelings of a naturalist who for the 

 first time wanders in a South American forest. The su- 

 perb banana, the great charm of equatorial vegetation, 

 tossed out luxuriantly its glossy green leaves, eight feet in 

 length ; the slender but graceful bamboo shot heavenward, 

 straight as an arrow ; and many species of palm bore aloft 

 their feathery heads, inexpressibly light and elegant. On 

 the branches of the independent trees sat tufts of parasites, 

 many of them orchids, which are here epiphytal; and 

 countless creeping plants, whose long flexible stems en- 

 twined snake-like around the trunks, or formed gigantic 

 loops and coils among the limbs. Beneath this world of 

 foliage above, thick beds of mimosse covered the ground, 

 and a boundless variety of ferns attracted the eye by their 

 beautiful patterns.* It is easy to specify the individual 



* Ferns constitute one sixth of the flora of South America; Spruce counted 



