The herald., 1895-10-20

blue strip of sea beyond; above you tn Q
woods climb up to the clouds, a prodig-
ious, PERCEPTIONS surface of burning
green. solid and rugoss like a cliff. You
do not distinguish whole trees in the
mass; you only perceive suggestions,
dreams of es-phantasmagorias, Dores-
queries; sylvan shapes that seem to be
| staggering under the great dropping bur-
dens rise hundred feet above you; still
huger laboring forms tower far above
these; and yet, at a more dizzy altitude,
legion of fetiches, goblirs, spectsrs,
monstrosities are nodding, bendir g,
writhing, tossing up green arms. push
ing out prodigious knees, projecting
huge curves like backs and shoulders, in
tertwining colossal mockeries of limbs.
But you discern no suggestions of h eads,
except where some royal palm, after an
astounding struggle. has succeeded in
pushing up its crsst twn hundred feet to
greet the sun. All else appears as If
under pondsrous vail. half hidden, half
smothered by dropping things. Blazing
green vines cover every branch, every
twig. every stem; they form m antics and
draperies and curtains and tapestries,
pouring down over ali projections like u
thick, slow flood of inoandescent color,
cascadlng over all in one amazing inun-
datlon OF parasitic life. All this may rise
to two thousand, three Thousand, four
thousand feet above you, according to
the height OF the mountain; and ono
perpetual. never stacking storm of shrill
SOUND rises from it--:nnumerable voices
OF birds, insects and tree e-clim bing frogs.
but this absolutism of green does not
eternaliy prevail; in tine season cores
ponolng to our winter these woods sud.
denly break into enormous conflasra.
tlons OF color, and such colors flame
yellow, flesh pink. blood scarlet, burning
azure, vermilion-colors that Skinner / n
sheets. often without touching or blend.
ing; there are cataracts of these colors
that pour from the mountain crests un-
brokenly to the roofs of the city; there
are curtains of pure crimson or fiery
lilac; there are precipices of canary yell
low; thsre are rose burning glens; and
between these, when towering species
lntermingle in the mercless tropical
struggle for life, there are supernal corus-
cations of hundred hues, pyrotech nical
splendor of tint blendin IS and tint con-
trasts impossible tu describe, bewildering
to vision, dazzling the eye like some tre-
mendous kindling of chemical fires.
But the sense of awe inspired by the
view of tropical forest is unutterably
greater than any mystical fear which any
wooded wilderness of the north could
ever have inspired. The very brilliancy
OF these colors-that seem pretern stural
to northern eyes-is terrifying; but the
vastness of the mile broad and mile high
masses of frondage, their impenetrabil-
lty, the violet blackness of the few rare
apertures in their perpendicular facades,
where mountain torrents break through
to the sun, and their enormous mu,mur,
made up of a million inexpliuable. crawl.
ing, creeping. crumbling sounds-aIl COM
oine to produce the conception of
creative forcs that appals. Man feels
here like an insect fears like an insect,
ever on the alert for merciless enemies.
10 enter these green abysses without
guide were madness; evan with the best
OF guides it is peril. Nature is anger
ous here; the powers that build here are
also the powers that putrefy bers life
and death are perpetually intercnanging
OhiNV ~ ohO HoNcr CcdsluS
of forces, melting down and reshaping
living substance simultaneously within
the same awful crucible. There are trees
distilllng venom; there are plants that
have fangs; there are perfumes that affoct
the brain; there are cold green creepers
whose touch consumes flesh like fire;
while in all of the recesses and the shad-
ows is a swarmine of unfamiliar life,
beautiful or hldsous-insect, reptile,
bird-interwarring, devouring, observ-
ing, preying. Strange spiders of burn
ing color5 immense lizards. scaribs CUR
assed in all tints of metal, humming
birds. plumaged in all splendor of jew
eled radiance, flies that flash like fire,
centipedes of gigantic growth. And the
lord Of all these, the despot of these vast
domains. is the terrible lance, the
trigonocephalus, the Bathrops lanceola-
tus. the raspodecephalus, dsadliest of
occidental thanatophldia.
Don't you see the forest? Don't you
feel the oppression of it round. and half
shudder at the thought of the dangers
you may be encountering? To write thus
is to be true artist of the pen; and
such Lafcadio Hearn proves himself.