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The woods in the upper zone are very pretty, tree-ferns replacing the cocoa-nuts on the coast. It must not, however, be supposed that these woods at all equal in splendour the forests of Brazil. The vast numbers of productions, which characterize a continent, cannot be expected to occur in an island.
Tree-ferns rose to incredible heights above his head, and now and again by the movements of their fronds he caught stray glimpses of unfamiliar stars. There were red stars, and blue ones, and once he caught sight of a clearly distinguishable double star, of which each component was visible to the naked eye.
Here also are tree-ferns, and the small, delicate, climbing ferns which gracefully festoon trunks and boughs. And here also is the last specimen of a species of sandalwood which, wonderful to relate, has found its way hither from its home in Asia. A couple of hundred years ago it grew profusely on the island, but now it has been nearly exterminated by man's cupidity.
The hill on the slope that we descended was covered with a forest resembling that around Santo Domingo, though the trees were not so large; but tree-ferns, palms, lianas, and broad-leaved Heliconiae and Melastomae were again abundant.
The next day he was worse, but he kept it to himself, laughing it off when they noticed that he did not eat his breakfast, and, to avoid further questioning, he went out after a time to wander up the valley into the shady woodland and among the tree-ferns, hoping that the rest and cool shadowy calm of the primaeval forest would prove restful and refreshing.
At about 7,500 feet we came to another hut of open bamboos, at a place called Kandang Badak, or "Rhinoceros-field," which we were going to make our temporary abode. Here was a small clearing, with abundance of tree-ferns and some young plantations of Cinchona.
In the foreground was the long slope, strewn with rocks and dotted with tree-ferns; farther off in the middle distance, looking over the saddle-back hill, I could just see the yellow and green mass of bamboos through which we had passed; and then, gradually, the vegetation increased until it formed the huge forest which extended as far as the eyes could reach, and for a good two thousand miles beyond.
Towards the lower part, in a swamp where the salt-water must enter at high tides, were a number of elegant tree-ferns from eight to fifteen feet high. These are generally considered to be mountain plants, and rarely to occur on the equator at an elevation of less than one or two thousand feet.
Even crumbling dead trees, and decaying tree-ferns, did not look dead, because some beautiful moss, or lichen, or little ferns had clung to them, and made them more beautiful than when alive.
Their Indian lad has discovered that a gold-train is going down from Santa Fe toward the Magdalena; and they are waiting for it beside the miserable rut which serves for a road, encamped in a forest of oaks which would make them almost fancy themselves back again in Europe, were it not for the tree-ferns which form the undergrowth; and were it not, too, for the deep gorges opening at their very feet; in which, while their brows are swept by the cool breezes of a temperate zone, they can see far below, dim through their everlasting vapor-bath of rank hot steam, the mighty forms and gorgeous colors of the tropic forest.
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