THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 19 
average and extreme heights of the forests in 
various parts of that region ; but truth compels 
me to admit that I have never anywhere measured 
a loftier tree than that at Para. In height, then, 
the forest trees of the Amazon must yield to the 
pines of North America and even to the gum trees 
of Australia. 
Whilst on this head, I may say a word about the 
height of palms. Humboldt having seen, at two 
or three points of his South American journey, 
the crowns of palms standing so completely above 
the surrounding forest as to give (to use his own 
words) the idea of a forest above a forest, that has 
been rashly assumed by some writers as a uni- 
versal characteristic of South American palms. A 
traveller approaching by sea the cities of Guaya- 
quil, Panama, and many others within the tropics, 
will see groves of Coco palms towering far above 
the bushy spreading Mangoes and Guavas (Ingas) 
that nestle at their base ; but the latter are by no 
means forest trees, nor is the Coco a forest palm. 
Let him, however, leave the coast and penetrate 
the virgin forest beyond, and he will see that the 
loftiest palms do not usually exceed the exogenous 
trees of average height ; and that, except on the 
river-banks, they are often quite hidden from view 
until closely approached. From the bald granite 
hills of the Rio Negro and Orinoco, and from some 
of the Lower Andes, I have looked over perfect 
oceans of forest, and am able to assert that very 
rarely do palms domineer over all other trees ; 
so rarely, indeed, that I believe I have only noted 
it twice, and then on a very limited area, during 
the whole course of my travels. On the contrary, 
