6 



INTRODUCTION. 



nating, were under the control of a wholesome criticism. It was long the 

 favourite idea of my friend to write to them explanatory letterpress ; and if his 

 unexpected death had not prevented the carrying out of his plan, the whole would 

 have been an interesting work, whereas now the plates may rather suffer from 

 want of fuller explanations than here given. 



I may also be blamed for undertaking the execution of the plates on copper my- 

 self, instead of assigning them to more artistic hands, which would have insured more 

 elegance and saved me the time necessarily lost in trying to perfect myself for a self- 

 imposed task. But the points on which in this case everything depends, the true 

 character of the views represented — the portraiture, so to speak — would have lost by 

 that process more than it would have gained by the supposed increase of elegance 

 in execution. It is perhaps not generally known how extremely difficult it is to obtain 

 from the hands of an engraver or lithographer a correct copy of a picture embra- 

 cing such numerous and delicate points of character ; but proofs are furnished by a 

 series of expensive illustrations in works of travel, which convey no idea of the 

 scenes represented, though it was not from want of good original drawings. This 

 applies with full force to what alone is here to be represented, characteristic 

 foliage and large masses of vegetation generally. One may justly say that an 

 artist must have seen them in nature merely to copy a drawing without utterly 

 spoiling it, to say nothing about rendering it in quite a different manner. The 

 most talented landscape painter can only reproduce the "je ne sais quoi" in 

 the character of those districts which he has seen himself, and he would violate 

 Nature if suddenly called upon to paint objects belonging to climes foreign to him. 

 It is true the shadows of a tropical forest, for instance, are subject to the same laws 

 as elsewhere, but still they are formed in a peculiar way, difficult for a painter to 

 convey. As for descriptions it is impossible for them to supply the place of 

 illustrations. The expressions so often used by travellers in dwelling on tropical 

 vegetation, — " Innumerable branches and leaves form such a thick mass that 

 the rays of the sun cannot possibly penetrate," &c, — are calculated to give, and in 

 many instances do give, a very erroneous impression. Judging from such descrip- 

 tions, I had imagined a deep shade, a darkness almost approaching to night, and 

 much greater than that of our pine forests ; and I was not a little surprised to 

 perceive so much light under the finest trees, the widely spread foliage of which 

 nowhere allowed the sky to be seen. At first I was inclined to ascribe this solely 

 to the perpendicular light of noon, but, after observing the same phenomenon at 

 every time of day, I became convinced that it was one of the characteristics of the 

 climate. Indeed, what would become of all the plants destined to live in this 



