roots, tough and strong, and universally used instead of cordage by
the natives. Amongst the undergrowth several small species of
palms, varying in height from two to fifteen feet, are common; and
now and then magnificent tree ferns, sending off their feathery
crowns twenty feet from the ground, delight the sight with their
graceful elegance. Great broad-leaved heliconiae, leathery
melastomae, and succulent-stemmed, lop-sided-leaved begonias are
abundant, and typical of tropical American forests. Not less so are
the cecropia trees, with their white stems and large palmated
leaves standing up like great candelabra. Sometimes the ground is
carpeted with large flowers, yellow, pink, or white, that have
fallen from some invisible tree-top above, or the air is filled
with a delicious perfume, for the source of which one seeks around
in vain, as the flowers that cause it are far overhead out of
sight, lost in the great overshadowing crown of verdure. Numerous
babbling brooks intersect the forest, with moss-covered stones and
fern-clad nooks. One's thoughts are led away to the green dells in
English denes, but are soon recalled; for the sparkling pools are
the favourite haunts of the fairy humming-birds, and like an arrow
one will dart up the brook, and, poised on wings moving with almost
invisible velocity, clothed in purple, golden, or emerald glory,
hang suspended in the air; gazing with startled look at the
intruder, with a sudden jerk, turning round first one eye, then the
other, and suddenly disappear like a flash of light.

Unlike the plains and savannahs we crossed yesterday, where the
ground is parched up in the dry season, the Atlantic forest, bathed
in the rains distilled from the north-east trades, is ever verdant.
Perennial moisture reigns in the soil, perennial summer in the air,
and vegetation luxuriates in ceaseless activity and verdure, all