The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-05-28 00:00:00

SCENE IN A TROPIC FOREST.

The sun had for some hours passed the meridian, and
ceased to throw his scorching and withering beams over
the scene with that blighting intensity that had mariced
him when in the flaming zenith. Nature began again to
slowly struggle into life. The dead and almost unnatural
silence which had been reigning over the leafy wilderness
became slowly and almost imperceptibly interrupted ; a
light air began to breathe through nature's glorious colon-
nade; the leaves of the plantain and the banana, which
had been hanging pendant, drooping, rich and motionless,
now slowly waved and fluttered like vegetable banners,
and disclosed their rich drupes of fruit hanging like
clustres of golden ingots ; the feathery palms moved their
graceful crowns with an action so calm and gentle that
to the imaginative thing might seem the genuflexions of
gratitude to the god of day ; and although they owed
to him their pride and majesty, yet were they thankful
for a short respite from his burning embrace. The
breeze began to blow more freely ; the hitherto still and
steaming lagoon seemed to awaken in the general stir;
the leaves of the nymphacea and victoria, which carpeted
its dark surface, began to tremble upcn the bosom of the
tiny wavelets, and over which the jacana might be seen
picking its way with cautious steps; the rope-like
bejuco either hung in inextricable mazes from the lofty
branches of the mora and wild tamarind, or it embraced
their huge trunks with its enormous snake-like arms, as
would a Python round limbs of a giant; the countless
orchidce, which as yet the most enthusiastic botanist has
been unable to chronicle in his catalogue, peered forth in
startling beauty from the hole of every decayed branch
or rotten trunk ; while passaflora, convolvuli, and myriad
others of which a Linnaeus or a Lindley never dreamt,
hang in festoons of the wildest and most beautiful
luxuriance.

The wind, which now briskly stirred the woods, begun
to also shake off the torpor which had fallen upon the
animal world ; groups of parrots would fly from one tall
group of cedars to another, their gay plumage gleaming
and flashing in the sun ; parroquets would scream and
chatter amidst the foliage of the brugmamsia or clianthus,
shaking the snow-white bells from the former, and defy-
ing the eye of observation by the similarity of their colour
with that of the leaves . amidst which they sheltered.
trogons might be seen sitting lengthway, in stupid and
stolid indifference, on the branches of any tree whose hori-
zontal arms afforded them a secure seat, while active
woodpeckers, creepers, dendrocolaptes, and those who
live by insect plunder, pursued their nimble inquiries into
every hole and crevice of the forest monarchs.
Here and there, wherever a glade appeared to break the
arboreus waste in the tallest trees which overlooked it,
groups of blue and yellow or red and yellow maccaws
might be seen sitting in all the magnificence of feathered
splendour, and screeching with most deafening and un-
tiring energy. Nor was the scene alone vocal by the
waving branches, the rippling lagoon, for ever and anon
the clear bell-like voice of the arapongo would startle
the traveller, or the sudden scream of the shrike or fly-
catcher, as they darted upon their flying insect prey, cause
him to turn a glance of quick inquiry. Merry groups of
monkeys, cebus, and sapajous ever and anon gambolled
through the lofty branches, and the beautiful little jacchus
and midas would sit and squeak and whistle on the nearest
branch with fearless confidence ; the sloth might be seen
banging back downwards, motionless as the bough to
which he clung, his grey, dry, withered coat not being
easily distinguished from the parasites and mosses by
which he was surrounded. Gaily-coloured agile lizards
were darting and frisking around the black and scabrous
stems of the zamia and cycas, in wait for the burnished
beetle or brilliant butterfly, or in hopes of capturing the
humming-birds as they flickered and sparkled amidst the
noble flowers, like living gems. Herds of deer, roused by
the step of the passing traveller, would retreat with
cautious speed into their vegetable fortresses, but giving,
from time to time, inquiring glances at the intruder who
thus dared to break in upon their hitherto undisturbed
solitude. Emerging into the plain, the great ant-eater
might be seen mining and digging into the mountain-like
erections of his tiny insect prey; and amidst the stems of
a trailing cereus a snake might be perceived lurking in
gay and gilded malignity.
The sun approaches the western horizon, his beams
diminished in fierceness but increased in splendour;from
amidst masses of molten gold ; he flings his alories broad-
cast over the earth, illuminating tree and bird, and fish
and flower, with all we can imagine of supernatural
richness.

The scene, however, soon changes within the tropics,
his dying glories are brief as they are brilliant; he does
not, as in northern climes, wear out an hour or two of
dull decay, lingering and struggling on the horizon rayless,
faint and feeble, but he rushes downwards into the lap of
Thetis in one great "blaze of living light," and the next
moment darkness deep as chaos wraps the scene. Few
moments are allowed us to prepare for rest, no cosey fire,
well-swept hearth, easy chair, easier slippers, smiling
and happy wife, cigar and whiskey toddy, which some
are proud to prate of, heralds our way to repose. But
we carefully wipe our rifles' locks, set our wourali tube
perfectly perpendicular, hang our dead game and bu:,-
terfly nets upon a neighbouring branch, trice up our
grass hammock between two strong stems of bijueo, and
lighted by the sparkling glimmer of the fire-fly, lulled by
the low booming of the bull frog, the gay chirrup of the
cicada, the stridulous note of the hula, the far-off how-
ling of the mysticetes, and the speech.like note of the
whip-poor-will, ten thousand miles from civilization, and
its attendant train of boisterous and degrading refine-
ments, its cruelties, privations, heart-burnings, and
miseries, and sink to healthy and happy repose within
the bosom of the leafy wilderness.—Leaf from an un-
published MS: