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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.
Now and then we passed more open spots, affording glimpses into the forest, where grew, in the dark shade, slender-stemmed palms and beautiful tree-ferns, contrasting with the great leaves of the Heliconiae. At seven we breakfasted on a sand-bank, and got our clothes and blankets dried.
As we proceeded up the river, the banks gradually became higher and drier, and we passed some small plantations of bananas and plantains made in clearings in the forest, which now consisted of a great variety of dicotyledonous trees with many tall, graceful palms; the undergrowth being ferns, small palms, Melastomae, Heliconiae, etc.
We made several attempts; we tried running, having wrapped the cool leaves of Heliconiae round our feet, but in no way could we step forward many yards. There was no means of getting back to our friends before night, except going round the praia, a circuit of about four miles, and walking through the water or on the moist sand.
It dipped itself, then fluttered its wings and pruned its feathers, and seemed thoroughly to enjoy itself alone in the shady nook which it had chosen a place overshadowed by broad leaves of ferns and Heliconiae. I thought, as I watched it, that there was no need for poets to invent elves and gnomes while Nature furnishes us with such marvellous little sprites ready at hand.
Great broad-leaved heliconiae, leathery melastomae, and succulent-stemmed, lop-sided-leaved begonias are abundant, and typical of tropical American forests. Not less so are the cecropia trees, with their white stems and large palmated leaves standing up like great candelabra.
It seemed to form a finished border to the water scene, where the dome-like, rounded shapes of exogenous trees which constituted the mass formed the groundwork, and the endless diversity of broad-leaved Heliconiae and Palms each kind differing in stem, crown, and fronds the rich embroidery.
Many small and curious species, living in the woods, conceal themselves by day under the broad leaf-blades of Heliconiae and other plants which grow in shady places; others cling to the trunks of trees.
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