534 The Andes and the Amazons. 



CHAPTER XL. 



The Palms of the Amazons, Fan-leaved and Featheii}-. 



Palms, Bananas, and Ferns are the three forms of spe- 

 cial beauty peculiar to a tropical forest. Of these, the 

 first give the most striking feature to the landscape. The 

 elegance of the tall, slender stem, rough with the scars of 

 fallen leaves, but branchless and symmetrical as a column, 

 and the luxuriance of the feathery or fan-like foliage toss- 

 ed out of the summit, compel admiration which no amount 

 of familiarity tends to diminish,* 



It is usually supposed that the Palms tower over all the 

 other trees, their crowns standing so far above the sur- 

 rounding vegetation as to give Humboldt's idea of "a 

 forest above a forest." Along the sea - coast and river- 

 banks, this is true ; but within the virgin forest, the loftiest 

 Palms rarely exceed the average height of the exogenous 

 trees. The altitude of the highest Amazonian Palm taken 

 with a sextant was not over 120 feet; while the Brazil- 

 nut-tree has measured fully 200 feet. Then there are nu- 

 merous low Palms — the poor relations of the more lordly 

 species. 



* " It is a joy forever, a sight never to be forgotten, to have once seen Palms, 

 breaking through, and, as it were, defying, the soft rounded forms of the 

 broad-leaved vegetation by the stern grace of their simple lines ; the immov- 

 able pillar-stem looking the more immovable beneath the toss and lash and 

 flicker of the long leaves, as they awake out of their sun-lit sleep, and rage 

 impatiently for a while before the mountain gusts, and fall asleep again. 

 Like a Greek statue in a luxurious drawing-room, sharp cut, cold, virginal ; 

 shaming, by the grandeur of mere form, the voluptuousness of mere color, 

 however rich and harmonious : so stands the Palm in the forest ; to be wor- 

 shiped rather than to be loved." — Chakles Kingslet. 



