FIRST JOURNEY. 



5 



On viewing the 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 wild apple-tree, often rears itself from one of the 

 tig-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 the 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 



