152 



JOURNEY FROM VILLA DE ST. SALVADOR 



Proceeding from the Iritiba, we next came to the river Goaraparim. 

 Marshy meadows and bogs extend nearly to the sea-shore, ahernately 

 with thickets; and noble forests occasionally delight the traveller. We 

 continually heard the roaring of the sea, the hilly shores of which 

 are covered with woods. The path was overgrown like a dark bower ; 

 it was bordered by majestic ancient trees, their bark covered with a 

 world of plants, and their branches with fungi and lichens ; young 

 cocoa-palms adorned the underwood of the thicket, interlaced with 

 creeping plants, the fresh foliage of which, exhibiting the most beau- 

 tiful red or bright green tints, was just breaking forth; and far 

 above our heads the feathery crowns of older palms waved in the 

 air, while their stems bent creaking, backwards and forwards. At 

 one place we met with an extremely beautiful grove, consisting en- 

 tirely of airi palms. Young vigorous trees of this species, from 

 twenty to thirty feet high, rise with their straight dark-brown stems, 

 surrounded with thorny rings : their beautifully feathered leaves 

 skreened the damp ground from the scorching noon-tide sun ; while 

 younger ones, which had not yet any stem, formed the brush-wood, 

 above which old dead palms, withered and decayed, projected like 

 broken columns. Upon these trees, devoted to destruction, the soli- 

 tary yellow-hooded woodpecker (picus Jiavescens, Linn.) or the beau- 

 tiful species with the red head and neck ( picus robustus) * was at 

 work. The flower of the flame-coloured heliconia covered the low 

 bushes near us, round which twined a beautiful convolvulus, with the 

 finest azure-blue bells. In this magnificent forest the ligneous creep- 

 ing plants again shewed themselves in all their originality, with their 

 curvatures and singular forms. We contemplated with admiration 

 the sublimity of this wilderness, which was animated only by toucans, 



* This name was given by the Berlin natiiraUsts, after Azara had described this bird in the 

 4th vol. of his Travels, p. 6, where he calls it charpentier d huppe et cou rouges. 



