.
Tropical vegetation is of fresher verdure, more luxuriant and succulent,
and adorned with larger and more shining leaves than the vegetation of
the north. The leaves are not shed periodically--a character common, not
only to the equator, but also to the whole southern hemisphere. Yet
there is a variety of tints, though not autumnal. The leaves put on
their best attire while budding instead of falling--passing, as they
come to maturity, through different shades of red, brown, and green. The
majority of tropical trees bear small flowers. The most conspicuous
trees are the palms, to which the prize of beauty has been given by the
concurrent voice of all ages. The earliest civilization of mankind
belonged to countries bordering on the region of palms. South America,
the continent of mingled heat and moisture, excels the rest of the world
in the number and perfection of her palms. They are mostly of the
feathery and fan-like species; the latter are inferior in rank to the
former. The peculiarly majestic character of the palm is given not only
by their lofty stems, but also in a very high degree by the form and
arrangement of their leaves. How diverse, yet equally graceful, are the
aspiring branches of the jagua and the drooping foliage of the cocoa,
the shuttlecock-shaped crowns of the ubussu and the plumes of the
jupati, forty feet in length. The inflorescence always springs from the
top of the trunk, and the male flowers are generally yellowish. Unlike
the oak, all species of which have similar fruit, there is a vast
difference in the fruits of the palm: compare the triangular cocoa-nut,
the peach-like date, and grape-like assai. The silk-cotton tree is the
rival of the palm in dignity; it has a white bark and a lofty flat
crown. Among the loveliest children of Flora we must include the mimosa,
with its delicately pinnated foliage, so endowed with sensibility that
it seems to have stepped out of the bounds of vegetable life. The
bamboo, the king of grasses, forms a distinctive feature in the
landscape of the Napo, frequently rising eighty feet in length, though
not in height, for the fronds curve downward. Fancy the airy grace of
our meadow grasses united with the lordly growth of the poplar, and you
have a faint idea of bamboo beauty.

The first day of winter (how strangely that sounds under a vertical
sun!) was Sunday; but it was folly to attempt to rest where punkies were
as thick as atoms, so we floated on. It was on