. There is light enough in this darkness, it seems.
But now a look again at the plants. Among the white-flowered Arums
are other Arums, stalked and spotted, of which beware; for they are
the poisonous Seguine-diable, {139a} the dumb-cane, of which evil
tales were told in the days of slavery. A few drops of its milk,
put into the mouth of a refractory slave, or again into the food of
a cruel master, could cause swelling, choking, and burning agony for
many hours.

Over our heads bend the great arrow leaves and purple leafstalks of
the Tanias; {139b} and mingled with them, leaves often larger still:
oval, glossy, bright, ribbed, reflecting from their underside a
silver light. They belong to Arumas; {139c} and from their ribs are
woven the Indian baskets and packs. Above these, again, the
Balisiers bend their long leaves, eight or ten feet long apiece; and
under the shade of the leaves their gay flower-spikes, like double
rows of orange and black birds' beaks upside down. Above them, and
among them, rise stiff upright shrubs, with pairs of pointed leaves,
a foot long some of them, pale green above, and yellow or fawn-
coloured beneath. You may see, by the three longitudinal nerves in
each leaf, that they are Melastomas of different kinds--a sure token
they that you are in the Tropics--a probable token that you are in
Tropical America.

And over them, and among them, what a strange variety of foliage:
look at the contrast between the Balisiers and that branch which has
thrust itself among them, which you take for a dark copper-coloured
fern, so finely divided are its glossy leaves. It is really a
Mimosa--Bois Mulatre, {139d} as they call it here. What a contrast
again, the huge feathery fronds of the Cocorite palms which stretch
right away hither over our heads, twenty and thirty feet in length.
And what is that spot of crimson flame hanging in the darkest spot
of all from an under-bough of that low weeping tree? A flower-head
of the Rosa del Monte. {139e} And what is that bright straw-
coloured fox's brush above it, with a brown hood like that of an
Arum, brush and hood nigh three feet long each? Look--for you
require to look more than once, sometimes more than twice--here, up
the stem of that Cocorite, or as much of it as you can see in the
thicket. It is all jagged with the brown butts of its old fallen
leaves; and among the butts perch broad-leaved ferns, and fleshy