verge of a high wood,--remnant of the enormous growth once
covering all the island. What a tropical forest is, as seen from
without, you will then begin to feel, with a sort of awe, while
you watch that beautiful upclimbing of green shapes to the height
of perhaps a thousand feet overhead. It presents one seemingly
solid surface of vivid color,--rugose like a cliff. You do not
readily distinguish whole trees in the mass;--you only perceive
suggestions, dreams of trees, Doresqueries. Shapes that seem to
be staggering under weight of creepers rise a hundred feet above
you;--others, equally huge, are towering above these; and still
higher, a legion of monstrosities are nodding, bending, tossing
up green arms, pushing out great knees, projecting curves as of
backs and shoulders, intertwining mockeries of limbs. No distinct
head appears except where some palm pushes up its crest in the
general fight for sun. All else looks as if under a veil,--hidden
and half smothered by heavy drooping things. Blazing green vines
cover every branch and stem;--they form draperies and tapestries
and curtains and motionless cascades--pouring down over all projections
like a thick silent flood: an amazing inundation of parasitic life....
It is a weird awful beauty that you gaze upon; and yet the
spectacle is imperfect. These woods have been decimated; the
finest trees have been cut down: you see only a ruin of what was.
To see the true primeval forest, you must ride well into the
interior.

The absolutism of green does not, however, always prevail in
these woods. During a brief season, corresponding to some of our
winter months, the forests suddenly break into a very
conflagration of color, caused by blossoming of the lianas--
crimson, canary-yellow, blue and white. There are other