Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/63

 some remarks on the wonderful vegetation. The forest is very similar on most of the low lands, and therefore one description will do for all.

On leaving the town we walked along a straight, suburban road constructed above the level of the surrounding land. It had low swampy ground on each side, built upon, however, and containing several spacious rocinhas which were embowered in magnificent foliage. Leaving the last of these, we arrived at a part where the lofty forest towered up like a wall five or six yards from the edge of the path to the height of, probably, 100 feet. The tree trunks were only seen partially here and there, nearly the whole frontage from ground to summit being covered with a diversified drapery of creeping plants, all of the most vivid shades of green; scarcely a flower to be seen, except in some places a solitary scarlet passion-flower set in the green mantle like a star. The low ground on the borders between the forest wall and the road, was encumbered with a tangled mass of bushy and shrubby vegetation, amongst which prickly mimosas were very numerous covering the other bushes in the same way as brambles do in England. Other dwarf mimosas trailed along the ground close to the edge of the road, shrinking at the slightest touch of the feet as we passed by. Cassia trees, with their elegant pinnate foliage and conspicuous yellow flowers, formed a great proportion of the lower trees, and arborescent arums grew in groups around the swampy hollows. Over the whole fluttered a larger number of brilliantly-coloured butterflies than we had yet seen; some wholly orange or yellow (Callidryas), others with excessively elongated