VEGETATION OF NEW ANDALUSIA. 89 
says Humboldt, “ penetrates for the first time into 
the forests of South America, nature presents her- 
self tohis view in an unexpected aspect ; the objects 
by which he is surrounded bear but a faint resem- 
blance to the pictures drawn by celebrated writers 
on the banks of the Mississippi, in Florida, and in 
_ other temperate regions of the New World. He 
_ perceives at every step, that he is not upon the verge, 
_ but in the centre of the torrid zone,—not in one of 
_ the West India islands, but upon a vast continent, 
where the mountains, the rivers, the mass of vege- 
tation, and every thing else, are gigantic. If he be 
sensible to the beauties of rural scenery, he finds it 
_ difficult to account to himself for the diversified 
_ feelings which he experiences: he is unable to de- 
termine what most excites his admiration ; whether 
\ the solemn silence of the wilderness, or the indivi- 
' dual beauty and contrast of the forms, or the vigour 
_ and freshness of vegetable life that characterize the 
‘climate of the tropics. It might be said that the 
' earth, overloaded with plants, does not leave them 
|room enough for growth. The trunks of the trees 
jare every where covered with a thick carpet of ver- 
‘dure; and were the orchidez and the plants of the 
| genera Piper and Pothos, which grow upon a single 
jcourbaril or American fig-tree, transferred to the 
jground, they would cover a large space. By this 
‘singular denseness of vegetation, the forests, like the 
‘rocks and mountains, enlarge the domain of organic 
‘nature. The same lianas, which creep along the 
\ground, rise to the tops of the trees, and pass from 
\the one to the other at a height of more than a 
/hundred feet. In consequence of this intermixture 
y 
pf parasitic plants, the botanist is often led to con- 
as ma ae ee 
