chap, xvi.] PRECIPICES. 371 



of which appears the white limestone rock or the dark 

 holes and chasms with which it abounds. These precipices 

 are enabled to sustain such an amount of vegetation by 

 their peculiar structure. Their surfaces are very irregular, 

 broken into holes and fissures, with ledges overhanging 

 the mouths of gloomy caverns ; but from each projecting 

 part have descended stalactites, often forming a wild gothic 

 tracery over the caves and receding hollows, and affording 

 an admirable support to the roots of the shrubs, trees, and 

 creepers, which luxuriate in the warm pure atmosphere 

 and the gentle moisture which constantly exudes from the 

 rocks. In places where the precipice offers smooth sur- 

 faces of solid rock, it remains quite bare, or only stained 

 with lichens and dotted with clumps of ferns that grow 

 on the small ledges and in the minutest crevices. 



The reader who is familiar with tropical nature only 

 through the medium of books and botanical gardens, will 

 picture to himself in such a spot many other natural 

 beauties, lie will think that I have un accountably for- 

 gotten to mention the brilliant flowers, which, in gorgeous 

 masses of crimson gold or azure, must spangle these 

 verdant precipices, hang over the cascade, and adorn the 

 margin of the mountain stream. But what is the reality ? 

 In vain did I gaze over these vast walls of verdure, among 

 the pendant creepers and bushy shrubs, all around the 

 cascade, on the river's bank, or in the deep caverns and 



B B 2 



