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Updated: May 31, 2025
Don Pablo at once recognised in this parasitical plant one of the many species of llianas that produce the delicious and perfumed vanilla.
Climbers, chiefly papilionaceous, and llianas, bigger than the biggest boa-constrictor, coiled and writhed round the great gloomy trees which rained their darkness below.
This fire had been kindled near the centre of a little glade, but its flame cast a red glare upon the trees at a distance, until the grey bark of the button-wood, the pale foliage of the acacias, and the scarlet leaves of the sumac, all appeared of one colour: while the darker llianas, stretching from tree to tree, encircled the little glade with a series of festoons.
Immediately after the Butabué influent on the right bank the bed bends abruptly east, and we reached the far-famed rapids of that name. Here the whole surface, as far up as the eye can see, is a mass of rocks and of broken, surging water. The vegetation of the banks, bound together by creepers, llianas, and rattans, is peculiarly fine.
During that day they had found the road in several places choked up with underwood, and Guapo had to clear it with his machete a sort of half-sword, half-knife, used throughout all Spanish America, partly to cut brushwood and partly as a weapon of defence. Where the ridge ended, however, what had once been a road was now entirely overgrown vines and llianas of large size crossed the path.
During that day they had found the road in several places choked up with underwood, and Guapo had to clear it with his macheté a sort of half-sword, half-knife, used throughout all Spanish America, partly to cut brushwood and partly as a weapon of defence. Where the ridge ended, however, what had once been a road was now entirely overgrown vines and llianas of large size crossed the path.
Tramp, tramp; splash, splash; on they trudged, stumbling over the roots of trees, tripping over the long, tough, straggling creepers which crossed their path, sometimes brought-up "all standing" and half-strangled by the cord-like llianas which hung festooned from tree to tree, their naked feet and legs torn by thorns and stabbed by the spines of the wild cactus in thick impenetrable darkness for a couple of hours, and then the clouds suddenly vanished away on the wings of the land-breeze, the stars reappeared, the soft silvery rays of the moon streamed down once more through the gaps in the foliage, and the weary fugitives flung themselves down upon the sodden ground for a short breathing-space.
Here they were met by a shower of sticks, pieces of bark, half-eaten "peaches," and something that was far less pleasant to their olfactory nerves! All these came from the tops of the trees the very tallest ones to which the monkeys had retreated, and where they were now hidden among the llianas and leaves. You may fancy that it is easy to pursue a troop of monkeys in a forest.
Tiburcio continued in a voice still softer and more marked by emotion: "I have not forgotten the flowers of the llianas which I gathered for you, and that seemed to give forth a sweeter perfume when mingled with the tresses of your hair. Ah! it was a subtle poison that was entering into my heart, and which has resulted in filling it with an incurable passion. Ah! fool that I have been!
Not a filament, not a ribbon, however thin they might be, but kept as straight as a rod of iron. The fuci and llianas grew in rigid perpendicular lines, due to the density of the element which had produced them. Motionless yet, when bent to one side by the hand, they directly resumed their former position. Truly it was the region of perpendicularity!
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