BEAUTIFUL SCENERY. 



33 



groves of plantain and cocoanut trees ; canoes with 

 sails set were lying on the water, and men and women 

 were sitting under the trees gazing at us. It was a 

 soft and sunny scene, speaking peace and freedom 

 from the tumults of a busy world. 



But, beautiful as it was, we soon forgot it ; for a 

 narrow opening in a rampart of mountains wooed us 

 on, and in a few moments we entered the E-io Dolce. 

 On each side, rising perpendicularly from three to four 

 hundred feet, was a wall of living green. Trees grew 

 from the water's edge, with dense, unbroken foliage, 

 to the top ; not a spot of barrenness was to be seen ; 

 and on both sides, from the tops of the highest trees, 

 long tendrils descended to the water, as if to drink and 

 carry life to the trunks that bore them. It was, as its 

 name imports, a Rio Dolce, a fairy scene of Titan 

 land, combining exquisite beauty with colossal gran- 

 deur. As we advanced the passage turned, and in a 

 few minutes we lost sight of the sea, and were enclosed 

 on all sides by a forest wall ; but the river, although 

 showing us no passage, still invited us onward. Could 

 this be the portal to a land of volcanoes and earth- 

 quakes, torn and distracted by civil war ? For some 

 time we looked in vain for a single barren spot ; at 

 length we saw a naked wall of perpendicular rock, but 

 out of the crevices, and apparently out of the rock it- 

 self, grew shrubs and trees. Sometimes we were so 

 enclosed that it seemed as if the boat must drive in 

 among the trees. Occasionally, in an angle of the 

 turns, the wall sunk, and the sun struck in with scorch- 

 ing force, but in a moment we were again in the deep- 

 est shade. From the fanciful accounts we had heard, 

 we expected to see monkeys gambolling among the 

 trees, and parrots flying over our heads ; but all was as 

 Vol. L— E 



