42 
BLUEFIELDS. 
pursue any particular line of observation, as to take 
a general glance at Nature, and to delight my fancy 
with the richness and the novelty of the field in which 
I thus found myself. At one corner of the pasture 
a steep rocky hill rises abruptly, covered with pristine 
woods. The boughs of an immense fig-tree, which 
had been prostrated in a storm a few weeks before, 
enabled me to climb the ascent ; but I was astonished 
at the difficulty of penetrating the forest. The num- 
ber of tough withes, many of them fearfully spinous, 
that entwine about the trees and about each other ; 
the long prickly cacti, too, that trail here and there ; 
the lianes, that resemble ropes, or lines, or strings, 
according to their thickness, hanging down in loops, 
or loosely waving to and fro, — are wonderful : these 
last frequently extend from a lofty bough nearly to 
the ground, without a branch or leaf till near the 
extremity, where the cord commonly divides into 
three or four more slender ones. Some of the larger 
ones are woody, and are often seen tightly twisted 
together, like the strands of a cable. The bushes 
and smaller trees are sometimes very numerous and 
close, quite choking the ground, and preventing the 
view beyond a few yards in any direction. The 
oppressive heat, the insects, and often, as here, the 
loose stony character of the ground, render it im- 
possible to go far into these woods. 
Yet here was much to interest a stranger. The 
large trees, and many of the small ones, were studded 
with parasites, springing out of the bark of the trunk, 
from the angles of the forks, or from the upper sur- 
face of the great horizontal branches. Some of these 
