[CHAPTER II.]
IN THE FOREST.
The unknown had struck into a dense forest, the last skirts of which dwindled away close to the banks of the Rio Bermejo.
American forests have little resemblance to those of the Old World: in the former, the trees shoot up hap-hazard, crossing and interlacing each other, and sometimes leaving large spaces completely open, strewn with dead trees, uprooted, and piled on each other in the strangest manner.
Some trees, partially or wholly withered, show in their hollow remnants of the strong and fruitful soil; others, equally ancient, are supported by the entangled creepers, which, in process of time, have almost attained the size of their former props—the diversity of foliage forming here the most agreeable contrast; others, concealing within their hollow trunks a hotbed, formed from the remains of their leaves and half-dead branches, which has promoted the germination of the seed that fell from them, seem to promise an indemnification for the loss of the parent trees in the saplings they nourish.
One could imagine that nature had determined to put beyond the ravages of time some of these old trees, when sinking under the weight of ages, by clothing them in a mantle of gray moss, which hangs in long festoons from the topmost branches to the ground. This moss, called barbe d'Espagnol, gives to the trees a most fantastic aspect.
The ground of these forests, formed from the remains of trees falling, in successive generations, for centuries, is most eccentric: sometimes raising itself in the shape of a mountain, to descend suddenly into a muddy swamp, peopled by hideous alligators wallowing in the green slime, and by millions of mosquitoes swarming amidst the fetid vapours exhaled, sometimes extending itself endlessly in plains of a monotony and regularity truly depressing.
Rivers, without a name, traverse these unknown deserts, bearing nothing on their silent waters save the black swans, which let themselves carelessly float down the currents; while rosy flamingoes, posted along the banks, fish philosophically for their dinners, with eyes half-closed and sanctimonious air.
Even where the view seems most contracted, sudden clearings sometimes open out prospects picturesque in the extreme and deliciously fortuitous.