FIRST JOURNEY. 



5 



On viewing tlie stately trees around him, the natu- 

 ralist will observe many of them bearing leaves, and 

 blossoms, and fruit not their own. 



The wild fig-tree, as large as a common English 

 The mid apple-tree, often rears itself from one of the 

 fig-tree. thick branches at the top of the mora ; and 

 when its fruit is ripe, to it the birds resort for nourish- 

 ment. It was to an undigested seed, passing through 

 the body of the bird which had perched on the mora, 

 that the fig-tree first owed its elevated station there. 

 The sap of the mora raised it into full bearing ; but 

 now, in its turn, it is doomed to contribute a portion of 

 its own sap and juices towards th^ growth of different 

 species of vines, the seeds of which, also, the birds 

 deposited on its branches. These soon vegetate, and 

 bear fruit in great quantities ; so, what with their 

 usurpation of the resources of the fig-tree, and the fig- 

 tree of the mora, the mora, unable to support a charge 

 which nature never intended it should, languishes and 

 dies under its burden ; and then the fig-tree, and its 

 usurping progeny of vines, receiving no more succour 

 from their late foster-parent, droop and perish in their 

 turn. 



A vine called the bush-rope by the wood-cutters, 

 The bush- on account of its use in hauling out the 

 heaviest timber, has a singular appearance 

 in the forests of Demerara. Sometimes you see it nearly 

 as thick as a man's body, twisted like a corkscrew round 

 the tallest trees, and rearing its head high above their 

 tops. At other times, three or four of them, like strands 

 in a cable, join tree and tree, and branch and branch 

 together. Others, descending from on high, take root as 

 soon as their extremity touches the ground, and appear 



