Tropical Forests 
heavy, and full of reminiscences of decaying vegetation. 
Generally dull grey clouds cover the sky and increase 
the oppressiveness of the atmosphere. Such estuaries 
are covered with the remarkable mangrove-forests. 
There is neither cold nor drought to check in any way 
the riotous luxuriance of their growth, nor that of the 
ever-recurring birth of millions of objectionable insects, 
Mosquitoes especially swarm along the creeks and 
river branches, which extend for many miles inland and 
are everywhere fringed by those monotonous mangroves, 
Here and there a crocodile may be seen reposing on the 
sand, for fishes abound in the water as well as manatees 
and other unusual animals. 
Monkeys occasionally visit the creeks at low tide 
to feed on the oysters which grow on the mangrove 
roots. At low tide the appearance of the banks is quite 
unique. There is no firm, solid ground, but instead a 
dark blackish or brown slime of very unprepossessing 
appearance and exceedingly deep. From its depths 
bubbles of objectionable gases often arise and burst on 
the surface-mud, in which a small perch may be seen 
squattering about or climbing up by its winglike fins on 
to a mangrove root in order to rest, gasping, in the air. 
Out of this loathly. mud rises the wilderness of mangrove 
roots, of which each tree has a large number, They 
curve outwards in a complicated system from the base 
of the trunk so as to form a series of buttresses rising 
boldly out of the mud. The root system of each tree 
is entangled with that of its neighbour, which gives it a 
very strange appearance. Very odd growths, rather like 
asparagus shoots, are the air-roots by which oxygen 
penetrates to the root-system. 
The foliage is dense and of a glossy green ; the leaves 
are smooth, not unlike those of laurels or rhododendrons, 
though some possess a long and fine tip (see p. 188). 
From the branches long roots hang down towards the 
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