CHAPTER XI. 
VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL PRODUCTIONS. 
T ROPICAL vegetation cannot well be described; but 
the fact that even when seen it is hard to un¬ 
derstand, need not prevent an attempt to sketch the 
general features. The real trouble that meets the 
novice on the threshold of the tropics is the utter 
inadequacy of the English language to express the 
variety and luxuriance he sees in the vegetable world. 
Even in color his vocabulary fails him, and he must 
include in the name “ green” so many distinct tints 
that at last he relinquishes the difficult task and falls 
back upon the commonplace epithets, or leaves his tale 
untold. In the abundance, in the confusion, of plant-life 
the observer sees that as he goes from shore to moun¬ 
tain the trees and plants are not the same, and he will 
readily divide the vegetation into four tolerably dis¬ 
tinct regions; these are the Shore, the River-bottoms, 
the Upland, and the Arid plain. 
On all the low Cayos that are almost awash with 
every wave, and on the low margin of the mainland, 
extending up the wide rivers for miles, are the man¬ 
groves (.Rhizophora mangle ), giving the landscape a 
dull look not at all attractive. They make indeed a 
hedge of interlaced branches and tangled roots inhos¬ 
pitably forbidding landing on the shores. In their 
