300 
THE PYTHON SEEPENT. 
prises the traveller bom in the north of Europe. The idea 
of wild scenery, of a torrent rushing from rock to rock, is 
linked in his imagination with that ot a climate where the 
noise of the tempest is mingled with the sound of the cataract, 
and where, in a gloomy and misty day, sweeping clouds seem 
to descend into the valley, and to rest upon the tops oi the 
pines. The landscape of the tropics in the low regions o. 
the continents has a peculiar physiognomy, something ot 
greatness and repose, which it preserves even where one oi 
the elements is struggling with invincible obstacles. Near 
the equator, hurricanes and tempests belong to islands only, 
to deserts destitute of plants, and to those spots where parts 
of the atmosphere repose upon surfaces from which the 
radiation of heat is very unequal. _ 
The mountain of Manimi fomis tlm eastern limit ot a 
plain which furnishes for the history oi vegetation, that is, 
for its progressive development in bare and desert places, 
the same phenomena which we have described above m 
speaking of the raudal of Atures. During the rainy season, 
the waters heap vegetable earth upon the granitic rock, the 
bare shelves of which extend horizontally. These islands ol 
mould, decorated with beautiful and odoriferous plants, 
resemble the blocks of grauite covered with flowers, whicd 
the inhabitants of the Alps call gardens or coartils, ana 
which pierce the glaciers of Switzerland. 
In a place where we had bathed the day before, at tne 
foot of the rock of Manimi, the Indians killed a serpen 
seven feet and arhalf long. The Macos called it a canu 
Its back displayed, upon a yellow ground, transverse bands, 
partly black, and partly inclining to a brown green: under 
the belly the bands were blue, and united in rhombic spo • 
This animal, which is not venomous, is said by the natives 
attain more than fifteen feet in length. I thought at fir*’ ’ 
that the camudu, was a boa; but 1 saw with surprise, tni 
the scales beneath the tail were divided into two rows. * 
was therefore a viper, (coluber); perhaps a python ot 
New Continent : I say perhaps, for great naturalists appe» 
to admit that all the pythons belong to the Old, and * “ 
the boas to the New World. As the boa of Pliny was ‘ 
serpent of Africa and of the south of Europe, it would da 
been well if the boas of America had been named pytnoi 
