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The pass was a dry arroyo, its banks fringed with large pines and cotton-woods, matted together by llianas and vines. Where the gorge debouched into the uplands its banks were high and naked, with here and there a few scattered palmettos that grew up from huge hassocks of bunch-grass.

I studied the parasites the huge llianas, with branches like tree-trunks, black and gnarled; the cane-vines, with pretty star-like flowers; the muscadine grape-vines, with their dark purple clusters; the bignonias, with trumpet-shaped corollas; the smilacae, among which are conspicuous the Smilax rotundifolia, the thick bamboo-briar, and the balsamic sarsaparilla.

As in the rivers of Guinea, the llianas form fibrous chains, varying in size from a packthread to a cable; now straight, then twisted; investing the trees with an endless variety of folds and embraces, and connecting neighbours by graceful arches like the sag of an acrobat's rope.

Mary's Island; stubbles of Guinea-corn, loved by quails; a velvety expanse of green grass sloping inland, with here and there a goodly palmyra grander than the columns of Ba'albek; palms necklaced with wine-calabashes, and a grove of baobab and other forest trees cabled with the most picturesque llianas, where birds of gorgeous plume sit and sing.

The savannahs, which are covered with grasses and slender plants, present a surprising luxuriance and diversity of vegetation; piles of granite blocks lie here and there, and, at the margins of the plains, occur deep valleys and ravines, the humid soil of which is covered with arums, heliconias, llianas.

There is the usual wasteful profusion of growth. Ferns ramp upon the trees; Cameron counted at Akankon two dozen different species within a few hundred yards. Orchids bunch the boughs and boles of dead forest-giants; and llianas, the African 'tie-tie, varying in growth from a packthread to a cable, act as cordage to connect the growths.

Striking a fair pathway, we passed westward over a low wave of ground, sandy and mouldy, and traversed a fern field surrounded by a forest of secular trees; some parasite-grown from twig to root, others blanched and scathed by the fires of heaven; these roped and corded with runners and llianas, those naked and clothed in motley patches.

They have lost their way in the middle of the forest, and are unable to extricate themselves from the labyrinth of llianas and thickets that surround them. A guide appears in the presence of a young hunter, who engages to conduct them to the place whither they wish to go.

This return march of two hours or so had been a mere abomination. The path, which had not been cleared, led through a tangle of foul and fetid thicket, upon which the sun darted a sickly, malignant beam. Creepers and llianas, some of which are spiny and poisonous, barred the thread of path, which could not be used for hammocks.

It is mostly covered with jungly forests, in which are found the palm, the tree-ferns, the mahogany and india-rubber trees, dyewoods, canes, llianas, and many other gigantic parasites. In the underwood you meet thorny aloes, the "pita" plant, and wild mezcal; various Cactacese, and flora of singular forms, scarcely known to the botanist.