Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/65

few cattle belonging to an estate down a shady lane were congregated, panting, under a cluster of wide-spreading trees. The very soil was hot to our feet, and we hastened onward to the shade of the forest which we could see not far ahead. At length, on entering it, what a relief! We found ourselves in a moderately broad pathway or alley, where the branches of the trees crossed overhead and produced a delightful shade. The woods were at first of second growth, dense, and utterly impenetrable; the ground, instead of being clothed with grass and shrubs as in the woods of Europe, was everywhere carpeted with Lycopodiums (Selaginellæ). Gradually the scene became changed. We descended slightly from an elevated, dry, and sandy area to a low and swampy one; a cool air breathed on our faces, and a mouldy smell of rotting vegetation greeted us. The trees were now taller, the underwood less dense, and we could obtain glimpses into the wilderness on all sides. The leafy crowns of the trees, scarcely two of which could be seen together of the same kind, were now far away above us, in another world as it were. We could only see at times, where there was a break above, the tracery of the foliage against the clear blue sky. Sometimes the leaves were palmate, or of the shape of large outstretched hands; at others, finely cut or feathery like the leaves of Mimosæ. Below, the tree trunks were everywhere linked together by sipós; the woody, flexible stems of climbing and creeping trees, whose foliage is far away above, mingled with that of the taller independent trees. Some were twisted in strands like cables, others had thick stems contorted in