In British Honduras the Mahogany-tree (Swietenia Mahagoni) is found scattered in the forests, attracting the woodman’s attention from a distance by its light-coloured foliage, and its magnificent growth. Such are its dimensions, and such is the value of peculiarly fine specimens, that in October 1823 a tree was felled which weighed more than seven tons, and at Liverpool was sold for 525l. The expense of sawing amounted to 750l. more: so that the wood of this single tree, before passing into the hands of the cabinet-maker, was worth as much as a moderately sized farm.
‘Heedless and bankrupt in all curiosity must he be,’ says Waterton,[14] ‘who can journey through the forests of Guiana without stopping to take a view of the towering Mora (Mora excelsa). Its topmast branch, when naked with age, or dried by accident, is the favourite resort of the toucan. Many a time has this singular bird felt the shot faintly strike him from the gun of the fowler beneath, and owed his life to the distance betwixt them. The wild fig tree, as large as a common English apple-tree, often rears itself from one of the thick branches at the top of the mora; and when its fruit is ripe, to it the birds resort for nourishment. It was to an indigested seed passing through the body of this bird, which had perched on the mora, that the fig tree first owed its elevated station there. The sap of the mora raised it into full bearing; but now, in its turn, it is doomed to contribute a portion of its own sap and juices towards the growth of different species of vines, the seeds of which also the birds deposited on its branches. These soon vegetate and bear fruit in great quantities; so, what with their usurpation of the resources of the fig-tree, and the fig-tree of the mora, the mora, unable to support a charge which Nature never intended it should, languishes and dies under its burden; and then the fig-tree and its usurping progeny of vines, receiving no more succour from their late foster-parent, droop and perish in their turn.’
Our stateliest oaks would look like pygmies near this chieftain of the forests,’ who raises his dark green cupola over all the neighbouring trees, and deceives the traveller, who fancies that a verdant hill is rising before him. Its wood is much firmer than that of the fir, and is, or will be, of great importance to the ship-builder. On the Upper Barima alone, a river of Guiana hardly even known by name in Europe, Schomburgk found the giant tree growing in such profusion that it could easily afford sufficient timber for the proudest fleet that ever rode the ocean.
The graceful tapering form of the Gramineæ, or grasses, belongs to every zone; but it is only in the warmer regions of the globe that we find the colossal Bambusaceæ, rivalling in grandeur the loftiest trees of the primeval forest.
In New Grenada and Quito the Guadua, one of these giant grasses, ranks next to the sugar-cane and maize as the plant most indispensable to man. It forms dense jungles, not only in the lower regions of the country, but in the valleys of the Andes, 5,000 feet above the level of the sea. The culms attain a thickness of six inches, the single joints are twenty inches long, and the leaves are of indescribable beauty. A whole hut can be built and thatched with the guadua, while the single joints are extensively used as water-vessels and drinking-cups.
India, South China, and the Eastern Archipelago are the seats of the real bamboos, which grow in a variety of genera and species, as well on the banks of lakes and rivers in low marshy grounds, as in the more elevated mountainous regions. They chiefly form the impenetrable jungles, the seat of the tiger and the python. Sometimes a hundred culms spring from a single root, not seldom as thick as a man, and towering to a height of eighty or a hundred feet. Fancy the grace of our meadow grasses, united with the lordly growth of the Italian poplar, and you will have a faint idea of the beauty of a clump of bamboos.
The variety of purposes to which these colossal reeds can be applied almost rivals the multifarious uses of the cocoa-nut palm itself. Splitting the culm in its whole length into very thin pieces, the industrious Chinese then twist them together into strong ropes, for tracking their vessels on their numerous rivers and canals. The sails of their junks, as well as their cables and rigging, are made of bamboo; and in the southern province of Sechuen, not only nearly every house is built solely of this strong cane, but almost every article of furniture which it contains—mats, screens, chairs, tables, bedsteads, bedding—is of the same material. From the young shoots they also fabricate their fine writing-paper, which is so superior to the produce of our own manufactories. Although the bamboo grows spontaneously and most profusely in nearly all the southern portion of their vast empire, they do not entirely rely on the beneficence of Nature, but cultivate it with the greatest care. They have treatises devoted solely to this subject, laying down rules derived from experience, and showing the proper soils, the best kinds of water, and the seasons for planting and transplanting the bamboos, whose use is scarcely less extensive throughout the whole East Indian world.
At one season of the year the bamboos are easily destroyed by fire; and as the great stem-joints burst from the expansion of the air confined within, the report almost rivals the roar of cannon. In Sikkim firing the jungle is a frequent practice, and Dr. Hooker, who often witnessed the spectacle, describes the effect by night as exceedingly grand. ‘Heavy clouds canopy the mountains above, and, stretching across the valleys, shut out the sky; the air is a dead calm, as usual in the deep gorges; and the fires, invisible by day, are seen raging all around, appearing to an inexperienced eye in all but dangerous proximity. The voices of birds and insects being hushed, nothing is audible but the harsh roar of the rivers, and occasionally rising far above it, that of the forest fires. At night we were literally surrounded by them; some smouldering like the shale-heaps at a colliery, others fitfully bursting forth, whilst others again stalked along with a steadily increasing and enlarging flame, shooting out great tongues of fire, which spared nothing as they advanced with irresistible might. At Darjiling the blaze is visible, and the deadened reports of the bamboos bursting is heard throughout the night; but in the valley, and within a mile of the scene of destruction, the effect is the most grand, being heightened by the glare reflected from the masses of mist which hover above.’[15]
The aloes form the strongest contrast to the airy lightness of the grasses, by the stately repose and strength of their thick, fleshy, and inflexible leaves. They generally stand solitary in the parched plains, and impart a peculiarly austere or melancholy character to the landscape. The real aloes are chiefly African, but the American yuccas and agaves have a similar physiognomical character. The Agave americana, the usual ornament of our hot-houses, bears on a short and massive stem a tuft of fleshy leaves, sometimes no less than ten feet long, fifteen inches wide, and eight inches thick! After many years a flower-stalk twenty feet high shoots forth in a few weeks from the heart of the plant, expanding like a rich candelabrum, and clustered with several thousands of greenish-yellow aromatic flowers. But a rapid decline succeeds this brilliant efflorescence, for it is soon followed by the death of the exhausted plant.
In Mexico, where the agave is indigenous, and whence it has found its way to Spain and Italy, it is reckoned one of the most valuable productions of Nature. At the time when the flower-stalk is beginning to sprout, the heart of the plant is cut out, and the juice, which otherwise would have nourished the blossom, collects in the hollow. About three pounds exude daily, during a period of two or three months. After standing for a short time, the sweet juice undergoes a vinous fermentation, and the stranger, when once accustomed to its disagreeable odour, prefers the pulque to all other wines, and joins in the enthusiastic praises of the Mexican.