26 



RIO DE JANEIRO 



CHAP. 



forget my feelings of surprise, disgust, and shame, at seeing a 

 great powerful man afraid even to ward 

 off a blow, directed, as he thought, at his 

 face. This man had been trained to a 

 degradation lower than the slavery of the 

 most helpless animal. 



April I ZtJi. — In returning we spent two 

 days at Socego, and I employed them in 

 collecting insects in the forest. The greater 

 number of trees, although so lofty, are not 

 more than three or four feet in circum- 

 ference. There are, of course, a few of 

 much greater dimension. Senhor Manuel 

 was then making a canoe 70 feet in length 

 from a solid trunk, which had originally 

 been 1 1 o feet long, and of great thickness. 

 The contrast of palm trees, growing amidst 

 the common branching kinds, never fails 

 to give the scene an intertropical character. 

 Here the woods were ornamented by the 

 Cabbage Palm — one of the most beautiful 

 of its family. With a stem so narrow 

 that it might be clasped with the two 

 hands, it waves its elegant head at the 

 height of forty or fifty feet above the 

 ground. The woody creepers, themselves 

 covered by other creepers, were of great 

 thickness : some which I measured were 

 two feet in circumference. Many of the 

 older trees presented a very curious 

 appearance from the tresses of a liana 

 hanging from their boughs, and resembling 

 bundles of hay. If the eye was turned 

 do ^W '^f^' from the world of foliage above, to the 

 ."^jJ^sHlilr' ■, o ground beneath, it was attracted by the 

 extreme elegance of the leaves of the ferns 

 and mimosse. The latter, in some parts, 



covered the surface with a brushwood only a few inches high. 



In walking across these thick beds of mimosae, a broad track 



was marked by the change of shade, produced by the drooping 



^Ue^ 



CABBAGE PALM. 



