mirage; while stretching out into it, some half a mile off, a gray
promontory into a green sea, was an object which filled me with more
awe and admiration than anything which I had seen in the island.

It was a wood of Moriche palms; like a Greek temple, many hundred
yards in length, and, as I guessed, nearly a hundred feet in height;
and, like a Greek temple, ending abruptly at its full height. The
gray columns, perfectly straight and parallel, supported a dark roof
of leaves, gray underneath, and reflecting above, from their broad
fans, sheets of pale glittering-light. Such serenity of grandeur I
never saw in any group of trees; and when we rode up to it, and
tethered our horses in its shade, it seemed to me almost irreverent
not to kneel and worship in that temple not made with hands.

When we had gazed our fill, we set hastily to work to collect
plants, as many as the lateness of the hour and the scalding heat
would allow. A glance showed the truth of Dr. Krueger's words:--

'It is impossible to describe the feelings of the botanist when
arriving at a field like this, so much unlike anything he has seen
before. Here are full-blowing large Orchids, with red, white, and
yellow flowers; and among the grasses, smaller ones of great
variety, and as great scientific interest--Melastomaceous plants of
various genera; Utricularias, Droseras, rare and various grasses,
and Cyperoids of small sizes and fine kinds, with a species of
Cassytha; in the water, Ceratophyllum (the well-known hornwort of
the English ponds) and bog-mosses. Such a variety of forms and
colours is nowhere else to be met with in the island.'

Of the Orchids, we only found one in flower; and of the rest, of
course, we had time only to gather a very few of the more
remarkable, among which was that lovely cousin of the Clerodendrons,
the crimson Amasonia, which ought to be in all hothouses. The low
bushes, I found, were that curious tree the Chaparro, {259a} but not
the Chaparro {259b} so often mentioned by Humboldt as abounding on
the Llanos. This Chaparro is remarkable, first, for the queer
little Natural Order to which it belongs; secondly, for its tanning
properties; thirdly, for the very nasty smell of its flowers;
fourthly, for the roughness of its leaves, which make one's flesh
creep, and are used, I believe, for polishing steel; and lastly, for
its wide geographical range, from Isla de Pinos, near Cuba--where