Forest on the Amazon. 287 



Ayres, expands a sea of verdure, in which we may draw a 

 circle of eleven hundred miles in diameter, which shall in- 

 clude an ever green, unbroken forest. There is a most bewil- 

 dering diversity of grand and beautiful trees— a wild,uncon- 

 quered race of vegetable giants, draped, festooned, corded, 

 matted, and ribboned with climbing and creeping plants, 

 woody and succulent, in endless variety. The exuberance of 

 nature displayed in these million square acres of tangled, im- 

 penetrable forest offers a bar to civilization nearly as great 

 as its sterility in the African deserts. A macheta is a necessa- 

 ry predecessor : the moment you land (and it is often difficult 

 to get a footing on the bank), you are confronted by a wall 

 of vegetation. Lithe lianas, starred with flowers, coil up the 

 stately trees, and then hang down like strung jewels ; they 

 can be counted only by myriads, yet they are mere super- 

 fluities. The dense dome of green overhead is supported 

 by crowded columns, often branchless for eighty feet. The 

 reckless competition among both small and great adds to 

 the solemnity and gloom of a tropical forest. Individual 

 struggles with individual, and species with species, to mo- 

 nopolize the air, light, and soil. In the effort to spread 

 their roots, some of the weaker sort, imable to find a foot- 

 ing, climb a powerful neighbor, and let their roots dangle 

 in the air ; while many a full-grown tree has been lifted 

 up, as it were, in the strife, and now stands on the ends of 

 its stilt-like roots, so that a man may walk upright be- 

 tween the roots and under the trunk.* 



The mass of the forest on the banks of the great river 

 is composed of palms (about thirty speciesf), leguminous or 



* Buttress roots are not peculiar to any one species, but common to most 

 of the large trees in the crowded forest, where the lateral growth of the roots 

 is made difficult by the multitude of rivals. The Paxiuba, or big-bellied 

 palm, is a fine example. 



+ Von Martins, in his gi-eat work on the Brazilian Palms, enumerates in all 

 582 species. 



