the bush, furred with mosses and delicate creeping film-ferns, or
laced with the air-roots of some parasite aloft. Up this stem
scrambles a climbing Seguine {133a} with entire leaves; up the next
another quite different, with deeply-cut leaves; {133b} up the next
the Ceriman {133c} spreads its huge leaves, latticed and forked
again and again. So fast do they grow, that they have not time to
fill up the spaces between their nerves, and are, consequently full
of oval holes; and so fast does its spadix of flowers expand, that
(as indeed do some other Aroids) an actual genial heat and fire of
passion, which may be tested by the thermometer, or even by the
hand, is given off during fructification. Beware of breaking it, or
the Seguines. They will probably give off an evil smell, and as
probably a blistering milk. Look on at the next stem. Up it, and
down again, a climbing fern {133d} which is often seen in hothouses
has tangled its finely-cut fronds. Up the next, a quite different
fern is crawling, by pressing tightly to the rough bark its creeping
root-stalks, furred like a hare's leg. Up the next, the prim little
Griffe-chatte {133e} plant has walked, by numberless clusters of
small cats'-claws, which lay hold of the bark. And what is this
delicious scent about the air? Vanille? Of course it is; and up
that stem zigzags the green fleshy chain of the Vanille Orchis. The
scented pod is far above, out of your reach; but not out of the
reach of the next parrot, or monkey, or negro hunter, who winds the
treasure. And the stems themselves: to what trees do they belong?
It would be absurd for one to try to tell you who cannot tell one-
twentieth of them himself. {133f} Suffice it to say, that over your
head are perhaps a dozen kinds of admirable timber, which might be
turned to a hundred uses in Europe, were it possible to get them
thither: your guide (who here will be a second hospitable and
cultivated Scot) will point with pride to one column after another,
straight as those of a cathedral, and sixty to eighty feet without
branch or knob. That, he will say, is Fiddlewood; {133g} that a
Carapo, {133h} that a Cedar, {133i} that a Roble {133j} (oak); that,
larger than all you have seen yet, a Locust; {133k} that a Poui;
{133l} that a Guatecare, {133m} that an Olivier, {133n} woods which,
he will tell you, are all but incorruptible, defying weather and
insects. He will show you,