such things as ground on which to plant their feet,
though none of the firmest, activity of muscle and
mind, midst scenes so new and wonderful to them,
together with liberal potations from the reputed fever-
preventing bottle, had a most exhilarating effect upon
their spirits; though most of them were quite ready
again to seek refuge in a ship before they found one
on the other side.
Surpassingly beautiful is the foliage along the banks of this Circean stream. Kolling up from either side are mountains of impervious forest, gigantic, rank, and wild. Every shade of green, sombre and bright, min- gles with rose-red, purple, white, and yellow, orange, blue, and pink in endless varying kaleidoscope. Solemn palms, thick-leaved mangoes, bold majestic teaks, and iDounteous bananas are linked by crimson-blossomed parasites, which, twining, interlacing, creeping, and pendant, mat and unite all brotherhoods in close em- brace, and over-reaching the glistening banks meet their image in the glassy waters. Bending acacias dig their sinewy roots into the soft earth to pre- vent falling, and weave their branches into thick screens ; bread-fruit hangs in huge clusters overhead, and plantain pine-apple and orange, mango and lime, papaw alligator-pear and sugar-cane, yield profusely their spontaneous favors. It is no trifling matter to be a tree in the tropics. If erect and strong it is made a plant-patriarch, whether it will or not, and must support a dense mass of orchids, purple convol- vuli, and creeping plants of almost every genus and species, which if spread upon the ground would form a thick carpet covering a space five times the area of the tree's shadow at noon-day ; and when at last the forest behemoth is smothered to death, and dragged down by these relentless parasites, its sapless trunk is speedily buried in broad leaves and tender vines and bunches of spongy moss, and its tomb decorated with flaming flowers and delicate microscopic blossoms.
Underneath dark vistas of shadowy colonnade are
