In the early dawn the sky is invariably cloudless; the heavy dew or the previous night’s rain, which lay on the moist foliage, becoming quickly dissipated by the glowing sun, which, rising straight out of the east, mounts rapidly towards the zenith. All nature is fresh, new leaves and flower-buds expanding rapidly. Some mornings a single tree will appear in flower amidst what was the preceding evening a uniform green mass of forest—a dome of blossom suddenly created as if by magic. The birds are all active; from the wild fruit trees, not far off, we hear the shrill yelping of the Tucano (Ramphastos vitellinus). Small flocks of parrots flow over on most mornings at a great height, appearing in distinct relief against the blue sky, always two by two chattering to each other, the pairs being separated by regular intervals. Their bright colours, however, are not discernible at such a height.
Towards two o’clock the heat rapidly increases, and every voice of bird or mammal grows hushed; only in the trees sounds at intervals the harsh whirr of a cicada. The leaves, so moist and fresh in early morning, now become lax and drooping; the flowers shed their petals. On most days in June or July a heavy shower will fall some time in the afternoon, producing a most welcome coolness. The approach of the rain clouds takes place after a uniform fashion very interesting to observe. First, the cool sea-breeze, which commenced to blow about ten o’clock, and which increases in force with the increasing power of the sun, flags, and finally dies away. The heat and electric tension of the atmosphere then grows almost insupportable. Languor and uneasiness seize on every one; even the denizens of the forest betraying it by their motions. White clouds rising in the east gather into cumuli, with an increasing blackness along their lower portions. The whole eastern horizon becomes almost suddenly black, and this darkness spreads upwards, obscuring the “orb of day.”
Then through the forest hurtles a mighty wind, swaying the lofty tree-tops; a vivid flash of lightning bursts forth, then breaks a crash of thunder, and down streams the deluging rain. Such storms soon cease, leaving bluish-black motionless clouds in the sky until night. Meantime all nature is refreshed; but heaps of flower-leaves and fallen petals lie under the trees. Towards evening life revives again, and the ringing uproar is resumed from bush and tree. The following morning the sun again rises in a cloudless sky, and so the cycle is completed; spring, summer, and autumn, as it were, in one tropical day. The days are more or less like this throughout the year in this country. A little difference exists between the dry and wet seasons; but generally the dry season, which lasts from July to December, is varied with showers; and the wet, from January to June, with sunny days.
“It results from this,” says Mr. Bates, “that the periodical phenomena of plants and animals do not take place at about the same time in all species, or in the individuals of any given species, as they do in temperate countries. Of course there is no hybernation, nor, as the dry season is not excessive, is there any summer torpidity as in some tropical countries. Plants do not flower or shed their leaves, nor do birds moult, pair, or breed simultaneously. In Europe, a woodland scene has its spring, its summer, its autumnal, and its winter aspects. In the equatorial forests the aspect is the same, or nearly so, every day in the year—budding, flowering, fruiting, and leaf-shedding are always going on in one species or other. The activity of birds and insects proceeds without interruption, each species having its own separate times. The colonies of wasps, for instance, do not die off annually, leaving only the queens, as in cold climates; but the succession of generations and colonies goes on incessantly. It is never either spring, summer, or autumn, but each day is a combination of all three. With the day and night always of equal length, the atmospheric disturbances of each day neutralizing themselves before each succeeding morn; with the sun in its course proceeding mid-way across the sky, and the daily temperature the same within two or three degrees throughout the year, how grand in its perfect equilibrium and simplicity is the march of Nature under the equator!”
Now night comes on, not, as in temperate climes, with a hush and a silence that are almost breathless, but with a thousand strange and formidable sounds. In Asia, in Africa, in America, as well as in the great islands of the Pacific Ocean, the forests and the savannahs re-echo all night with discordant cries. The branches are torn down with a crash as the beasts of prey sweep past, and earth resounds beneath their headlong steps. It is no longer the gay, fresh movement of happy life which in the golden noon of day converts the forest into a veritable Eden; it is the rush to and fro of scattered animals, pressed by hunger and thirst, either in flight or pursuit; it is the roar of rage or the wail of agony; it is, in a word, the mêlée of sharpened appetites; it is the “Witches’ Sabbath” of the savage world, at which no European, however hardened by the perils of an adventurous career, can be present for the first time without experiencing a deep emotion of melancholy and apprehension.
CHAPTER II.
VEGETABLE LIFE IN THE FORESTS OF THE OLD WORLD.
I DO not think that in all Europe, nor, indeed, in the entire Temperate Zone of the Old World, exists such an agglomeration of plants and trees as may merit the appellation of “primeval” or “virgin forest.” At all events, this forest, if it really exists, will assuredly be composed of the very trees which we see every day in our own woods, our fields, our parks, and even in our towns, and which have long ceased to awaken in us the idea of wild nature. With the woods of Great Britain, France, or Spain we are all familiar:—
“The beam
Of noon is broken there by chestnut boughs
Down the steep verdant sides; the air
So freshened by the leaping stream, which throws
Eternal showers of spray on the mossed roots
Of trees, and veins of turf, and long dark shoots
Of ivy-plants, and fragrant hanging bells
Of hyacinths, and on late anemones
That muffle its wet banks.”[158]
Our poets have sung of the murmurous groves of pines, and the deep dark beech-woods that clothe with shadows the rounded forms of the chalk-hills, and the long alleys of blossoming chestnut, fragrant lime, or sombre yew. Therefore, without losing valuable time in these familiar shades, without pausing before the oak which the history of a thousand years has made immortal, let us rapidly traverse the Corsican forests, where among the twisted leaves of the elms flourishes the gigantic Larician pine; those of Greece, where thrive the pines of Cephalonia and Apollo, and the oaks sacred also to the divinity of Delphi and Dodona—those oaks, dumb to-day, which formerly gave utterance to oracles not less reverend than those of the Pythoness. We will not even suffer ourselves to be delayed among the forests of Eastern Europe, of Asia Minor, and of Persia, where dominate such species as the pine, the beech, and the chestnut. It is not until we have crossed the Indus—that mighty river on whose banks halted the legions of Alexander—that the exuberant vegetation of the Tropical world breaks upon us in all its glorious verdure and prodigious richness, though confined to a comparatively limited area.