y groves and gardens,
each one is able to discover his own home, his little nest. Everything
serves as a mark: a tree, that tamarind with its light foliage,
that coco palm laden with nuts, like the Astarte Genetrix, or the
Diana of Ephesus with her numerous breasts, a bending bamboo, an
areca palm, or a cross. Yonder is the river, a huge glassy serpent
sleeping on a green carpet, with rocks, scattered here and there
along its sandy channel, that break its current into ripples. There,
the bed is narrowed between high banks to which the gnarled trees
cling with bared roots; here, it becomes a gentle slope where the
stream widens and eddies about. Farther away, a small hut built on the
edge of the high bank seems to defy the winds, the heights and the
depths, presenting with its slender posts the appearance of a huge,
long-legged bird watching for a reptile to seize upon. Trunks of palm
or other trees with their bark still on them unite the banks by a
shaky and infirm foot-bridge which, if not a very secure crossing,
is nevertheless a wonderful contrivance for gymnastic exercises in
preserving one's balance, a thing not to be despised. The boys bathing
in the river are amused by the difficulties of the old woman crossing
with a basket on her head or by the antics of the old man who moves
tremblingly and loses his staff in the water.

But that which always attracts particular notice is what might be
called a peninsula of forest in the sea of cultivated fields. There
in that wood are century-old trees with hollow trunks, which die only
when their high tops are struck and set on fire by the lightning--and
it is said that the fire always checks itself and dies out in the same
spot. There are huge points of rock which time and nature are clothing
with velvet garments of moss. Layer after layer of dust settles in
the hollows, the rains beat it down, and the birds bring seeds. The
tropical vegetation spreads out luxuriantly in thickets and underbrush,
while curtains of interwoven vines hang from the branches of the trees
and twine about their roots or spread along the ground, as if Flora
were not yet satisfied but must place plant above plant. Mosses and
fungi live upon the cracked trunks, and orchids--graceful guests--twine
in loving embrace with the foliage of the hospitable trees.

Strange legends exist concerning this wood, which is held in awe by
the country folk. The most credible account, and therefore the one
least know