NATIVE VILLAGE NEAR THE RAILWAY.
Then there are native villages in considerable number, some of them concealed in the forest, and others standing in little clearings, where the trees form an agreeable background. The train stopped frequently, and did not seem to be in a hurry, although it was called an express, and was the fastest on the line. Frank said that probably the heat of the tropics had the same influence on a locomotive as on a man, and prevented its going rapidly. Fred said that Frank's reasoning reminded him of the boy at school, who was asked to give an illustration of the expanding power of heat, and the contracting power of cold.
"What did he do?" Frank inquired.
"Why," responded Fred, "he thought for some minutes over the matter, and finally answered that the days in winter were not nearly as long as those in summer, and it must be the cold that contracted them."
TROPICAL GROWTHS ALONG THE LINE.
The boys observed that the trees in some instances grew quite close to the track. Doctor Bronson explained to them that in the tropics it was no small matter to keep a railway-line clear of trees and vines, and sometimes the vines would grow over the track in a single night. It was necessary to keep men at work along the track, to cut away the vegetation where it threatened to interfere with the trains, and in the rainy season the force of men was sometimes doubled. "There is one good effect," said he, "of this luxuriant growth. The roots of the vines and trees become interlaced in the embankment on which the road is built, and prevent its being washed away by heavy rains. So you see there is, after all, a saving in keeping the railway in repair."
Frank noticed that some of the telegraph-poles had little branches growing from them; and at one place he saw a man near the top of a pole engaged in cutting the limbs away. He called the attention of his companions to the novel sight.