The Oak oe the Tropics. 
147 
masses of Cccropia peltata showed ia the far distance the site of such 
a. settlement. 
514. Since we left Warina, the e Hirse of the Barima had turned 
more towards the South-West, and with the increasing alteration in the 
height of its hanks the hitherto characteristic vegetation had also taken 
on a corresponding change. The palms disappeared and only here and 
there a thick clump of the spiny Badris acanthocarpa Mart, the deep- 
red ripe fruits of which shone forth in a dazzling play of colour out of 
the fresh verdure, covered a spot here and there on the river-sides. 
Among the new forms of creepers putting in an appearance several 
AristoiocUiae, Passiflorae, and Ecliites grandif/ora Willd. especially at- 
tracted my attention. The large dark-red floral tufts resembling the 
Oleander, which hung down on thin pedicles from the slender runners, 
were the sport of the light morning breeze, while the Ecliites macro = 
phi/1 la and E. lucid a Humb., not indeed so rich in flowers, yet glittering 
with their beautiful yellow tints, as well as the snow-white peculiarly 
constructed blossoms of Calyptrion A ubletii Ging., the little scarlet-red 
brushes of Comb return laxum Aubl. and the delicately shaded grape- 
like flowers of Hirtella racemosa Lam., embellished the handsome river- 
side screens with the most glorious exchange of colour. 
515. After passing shortly before midday the mouths of the Anita 
and Pegua on its left bank, the bed of the Barima gradually narrowed 
down to 40 yards, and so increased its current in equal proportion. 
Through this narrow channel the stream wound itself in innumerable 
bends and hindered our progress to such an extent that we could only 
make very slow headway. The banks ever became higher, the vegetation 
ever more luxuriant until it reached its climax in the Mora excclsa 
Benth., the “Oak of the Tropics” one might almost say. I really know 
of no representatives in our northern forests even approaching this 
tree. Our most colossal oaks would only stand like dwarfs bv l o ^'de 
of such a giant, the huge trunk of which is shaded with a dome of the 
most beautiful dark-green foliage. The Indians call it the “Chieftain of 
the Forest,” and it is the most characteristic name that they could have 
chosen for it. The stately tree had often deceived us when, on coming 
round a river-bend, we thought we were gazing upon 'a series of verdant 
hills in the distant background, only to find that they changed at close 
quarters into isolated groups of mora trees with a height of from 150 
to 100 feet. Bush -ropes, of the same girth as a man, wind their immense 
arms around these huge trunks and boughs up to the very top, where 
their floral chaplet decorates, as it were, the head of the conqueror of 
the virgin forest: they then fall once more from these dizzy heights onto 
their humbler brethren the branches of which they likewise enfold, and 
thus they chain tree to tree and hold in their embrace those giants, the 
hitherto safe foundations of which the raging current has perhaps under- 
mined, and so secure them against sudden overthrow. On several occas- 
ions the high river-banks, undermined by the rush of waters, presented 
this riotous scenery of a landscape where these giants of the primitive for- 
est, only held back by the bush-ropes clinging round them and the more 
distant trees, thus bent over the surface of the river into which it was 
every minute to be feared they were about to take their annihilating 
