eaves rustled in the breeze and cast a
cool shadow on the ground.

Well might they gaze in great surprise; for all these curious and
beautiful trees were surrounded by, and entwined in, the embrace of
luxuriant and remarkable climbing-plants. The parasitic vanilla with
its star-like blossoms crept up their trunks and along their branches,
where it hung in graceful festoons, or drooped back again almost to the
ground. So rich and numerous were these creepers, that in many cases
they killed the strong giants whom they embraced so lovingly. Some of
them hung from the tree-tops like stays from the masts of a ship, and
many of them mingled their brilliant flowers so closely with the leaves,
that the climbing-plants and their supporters could not be distinguished
from each other, and it seemed as though the trees themselves had become
gigantic flowering shrubs.

Birds, too, were there in myriads,--and such birds! Their feathers were
green and gold and scarlet and yellow and blue--fresh and bright and
brilliant as the sky beneath which they were nurtured. The great
toucan, with a beak nearly as big as his body, flew clumsily from stem
to stem. The tiny, delicate humming-birds, scarce larger than bees,
fluttered from flower to flower and spray to spray, like points of
brilliant green. But they were irritable, passionate little creatures,
these lovely things, and quarrelled with each other and fought like very
wasps! Enormous butterflies, with wings of deep metallic blue, shot
past or hovered in the air like gleams of light; and green paroquets
swooped from tree to tree and chattered joyfully over their morning
meal.

Well might they gaze with wonder, and smile too with extreme merriment,
for monkeys stared at them from between the leaves with expressions of
undisguised amazement, and bounded away shrieking and chattering in
consternation, swinging from branch to branch with incredible speed, and
not scrupling to use each other's tails to swing by when occasion
offered. Some were big and red and ugly,--as ugly as you can possibly
imagine, with blue faces and fiercely grinning teeth; others were
delicately-formed and sad of countenance, as if they were for ever
bewailing the loss of near and dear relations, and could by no means
come at consolation; and some were small and pretty, with faces no
bigger than a halfpenny. As a general rule, it seemed to Barney, the
smaller the monkey the longer the tail.

Yes, well mi