The immense forests of Brazil and Guiana are for the whole world an inexhaustible storehouse of woods for dyeing and cabinet work. They spread their dense masses of foliage along the borders of the sea, where the Mangroves (Rhizophora mangle) plunge their adventitious roots into the mud inundated by the surging tides of those regions, and form a kind of impenetrable palisade, behind which grow in infinite variety trees of the costliest timber. Such are the Swieteniæ, or Mahogany trees; the Ferolia Guyanensis, which supplies the well-known rose or satin wood; the Jacaranda Brasiliensis, and the Dalbergia, which yield the violet ebony; the Sterculia acuminata, whose flowers exhale a fœtid odour, and whose timber, called “stinkwood,” is nevertheless held in high esteem on account of its durability, the fineness of its texture, and the excellent polish of which it is susceptible. Nor must we forget the Cæsalpineæ, whose woods are impregnated with a red colouring matter which varies in tint according to the species, and which are largely employed by the dyer under the names of “Brazil wood” and “Pernambuco wood.” A great number of other woods which we procure from these countries, and which are in daily use in cabinet work, toys, marquetry, and dyeing, belong to vegetable species as yet undetermined. We might, however, almost venture to assert that whatever tree you accidentally and at haphazard struck down in these forests, either its timber, bark, or roots would be found capable of being utilized.
I have not mentioned, among the species proper to the Forests of the New World, those which are common with our own, and which abound upon elevated lands. The extraordinary height to which not only isolated mountains, but whole districts rise, in the vicinity of the Equator, and the low temperature which is the consequence of this elevation, provide the inhabitant of the Torrid Zone with a remarkable spectacle. For while, as Humboldt remarks, he may look around him upon groves of palms and bananas, he also sees those vegetable forms which are regarded as more particularly belonging to the countries of the North. Cypresses, firs, and oaks, barberries and alders, closely resembling our own, cover the table-lands of Southern Mexico and that part of the Andes which the Equator traverses. Thus Nature allows the denizen of the Torrid Zone to see, without quitting his native land, all the vegetable forms of the earth, at the same time that from one pole to the other the entire vault of heaven reveals to his gaze its luminous worlds.
I conclude my account of the South American Forests with a picture taken from the interesting volume of Mr. Bates, and drawn on the bank of a forest stream flowing into the Murncupé. “A glorious vegetation,” he says, “piled up to an immense height, clothes the banks of the creek, which traverses a broad tract of semi-cultivated ground, and the varied masses of greenery are lighted up with the sunny glow. Open palm-thatched huts peep forth at intervals from amidst groves of banana, mango, cotton, and papaw trees and palms. Both banks are masked by lofty walls of green drapery, here and there a break occurring. The projecting boughs of the trees are hung with natural garlands and festoons, and an endless variety of creeping plants clothe the water frontage, some of which, especially the Bignonias, are ornamented with large, gaily-coloured flowers. Art could not have assorted together beautiful vegetable forms so harmoniously as is here done by Nature. Palms, as usual, form a large proportion of the lower trees; some of them, however, shoot up their slim stems to a height of sixty feet or more, and wave their branches of nodding plumes between you and the sky. One kind of palm, the Pashiúba (Iriartea Exorhiza), which grows here in greater abundance than elsewhere, is especially attractive. It is not one of the tallest kinds, for when full-grown its height is not more, perhaps, than forty feet; the leaves are somewhat less drooping, and the leaflets much broader than in other species, so that they have not that feathery appearance which those of some palms have, but still they possess their own peculiar beauty.”
Probably there is no richer field on earth for the naturalist, the poet, or the artist than the virgin forest;—
“To mark the structure of a plant or tree,
And all fair things of earth, how fair they be!”
