Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-07-18


Soon you will be struck by the variety of the
vegetation, and win recollect what you have
heard, that social plants are rare in the tropic
forests. Certainly they are rare in Trinidad,
where the only instances of social trees are the
Moras (Which | have never seen growing wild)
and the Moriche palms. In Europe forest is
usually made up of one dominant plant-Of frs
or of pines, of oaks or of beeches, of birch or
of heather Here no two plants seem alike.
There are more species on an acre here than in
all the New forest, Savernake, or Sherwood.
Stems rough, prickly, round, tluted, stited,
upright, sloping, branched, arched, onted,
opposite leaved, alternate leaved, leatess, or
covered with leaves of every conceivable pat
tern, are iumbled together till the eye and
brain are tired of continually asking, "What
neXtW The stems are of every color-copper,
pink, grey, green brown, black as if burnt,
marbled with lichens, many of them silvery
white cleaning afar in the bush, furred with
MOSES and delicate creeping flm-ferns, or
laced with the air roots of some parasite alOft.
Up this stem scrambles a climbing Seguine
with entire leaves; up the next another quite
different, with deeply cut leaves; up the next
the German spreads its huge leaves lattced
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 conse-
quenty full of oval holes; and so fast does its
spadix of flowers expand that las, indeed, do
some other Aroids) an actual genial heat, and
fire of passion, which may be tested by the
during qualification. Beware of breaking it or
the Seguines. They will probably give off an
evil smell, and as probably blistering
milk. Look on at the next stem. Up it,
and down again, climbing fern which is often
seen in lighthouses, has tangled its finely cut
lronds Up the next, quite different fern is
crawling, by pressing tightly to the rough
bark its creeping root stalks, furred like
hares leg. Up the next the prim little Griffe-
ehatte..plant has walked, by numberless clus-
nj q p1 To-, ef.
bark. And what is this delicious scent about
the air2 Vanille2 OF course it is; and up
that stem zigzags the green heshy 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
negrohunter, who winds the treasure. And
the stems themselves; TO what trees do they be-
long? 1t would be absurd for one TO try to tell
you who cannot tell one-twentieth of them him
self. Suffice it to say, that over your head are,
perhaps, 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 Hospital
BILE Scott 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; that a carapo,
that cedar, that roble, (oak); that, larger
than all you have seen yet, locust; that
poui; that a guatecare, that an olivier, woods
which, he will tell you, are all but incorrupti-
Bile, detYing weather and insects. He will show
you, as curiosities, the smaller but intensely
hard letter-wood, lignumviLa and purple-heart
He Will pass by as useless weeds, ceibaS
and sand-box trees, whose bulk appals you.
He will look up, with something like a
malediction, at the matapalos, which, every
fifty yards, have seized on mighty trees,
and are enjoying, l presume every diff
ferent stage of the strangling art, from
the baby matapalo, who, like the one which you
saw in the Botanic garden, has let down his first
air.root along his victims stem, to the old sim
ner whose dark crown of leaves is supported,
eighty feet in air, on innumerable branching
columns of every size, cross-clasped to each
other by transverse bars. The giant tree, on
which his first fruit fell has rotted away utterly
and he stands in its place, prospecting in his
wickedness, like certain folk whom David knew
too well. Your guide walks on with a sneer
Bnt he stops with smile of satisfaction as he
sees lying on the ground dark green glossy
leaves, which are fading into a light crimson;
for overhead somewhere there must be balata
the king of the forest; and there close by is his
stem-a madder-brown column, whose head
may be hundred and fifty feet or more aloft
The forester pats the sides of his favorte tree as
breeder might that of his favorite race-horse.
lie goes on TO evlnce his affection, in the fashion
of West Indians, by giving it a chop with his
cutlasS; but not in wantonnesS He wishes to
show you the hidden virtues of this lin his eyes)
noblest Of treeS-how there issues out swiftly
from the wound a flow of thick white milk,
which will CONCEAL, in an hours time, into a
gum intermediate in its properties between ca
outchouc and gutta-perch. He talks of a time
when thelEngish gutta-perch market shall be
supplied from the balatas of the northern hills
which cannot be shipped away as timber. He
tells you how the tree is a tree of a generous,
Vlrtuous and elaborate race-"a tree of God,
which is full of sap" as one said of old of such
and what could he say better, less or more2
For it is q Sapota, cousin to the Sapo-
Liant frt,tt a1f
most excellent even in its fruit-bearing power;
for every five years it is covered with such
crop OF delicious plums that the lazy negro
thinks it worth his while to spend days of hard
work. besides incnrring the penalty of the
law TOR the trees are government property in
cutting it down for the sake of its fruit But
this tree your guide will cut himself. There is
no gully between it and the government station;
and he can carry it away; and it is worth his
while TO do SO; for it will square, he thinks into
log more than three feet in diameter, and
eighty, ninety-he hopes almost a hundred
feet in length of hard, heavy wood, incorrupti-
Die, save in salt water; better than oak as good
as teak, and only surpassed in this island by the
Poui. He will make stage around it, some
eight feet high, and cut it above the spurs. 1t
will take his convict gang (for convcts are
turned to some real use IN Trinidad) several
days TO get 1t down, and many more days to
square 1t with the axe. A trace must be made
to ii through the wood clearing away vegeta-
ton for which an European millionaire, could
he keep it in his park, would gladly pay 910O
&. yard, The cleared stems, especially those of
the palms, must be cut into rollers; and the
dragging of the huge log over them will be a
work OF weeks, especially in the wet season.
But it can be done, and it shall be; so he leaves
significant mark on his new-found treasure,
and leads you on through the bush, hewing his
way with light strokes right and left, so care
lessly that you are inclined to beg him to hold
his hand, and not destroy in a moment things so
beautiful, so curious-things which would be
invaluable in an English hothouse.-A Christ
mas IN the West Indies, By Charles Kingsley.