ms crept up their trunks and along their branches, where
it hung in graceful festoons, or drooped back again almost to the ground.
So rich and numerous were these creepers, that in many cases they killed
the strong giants whom they embraced so lovingly. Some of them hung from
the tree-tops like stays from the masts of a ship, and many of them
mingled their brilliant flowers so closely with the leaves, that the
climbing-plants and their supporters could not be distinguished from each
other, and it seemed as though the trees themselves had become gigantic
flowering shrubs.

Birds, too, were there in myriads,--and such birds! Their feathers were
green and gold and scarlet and yellow and blue--fresh and bright and
brilliant as the sky beneath which they were nurtured. The great toucan,
with a beak nearly as big as his body, flew clumsily from stem to stem.
The tiny, delicate humming-birds, scarce larger than bees, fluttered from
flower to flower and spray to spray, like points of brilliant green. But
they were irritable, passionate little creatures, these lovely things,
and quarrelled with each other and fought like very wasps! Enormous
butterflies, with wings of deep metallic blue, shot past or hovered in
the air like gleams of light; and green paroquets swooped from tree to
tree and chattered joyfully over their morning meal.

Well might they gaze with wonder, and smile too with extreme merriment,
for monkeys stared at them from between the leaves with expressions of
undisguised amazement, and bounded away shrieking and chattering in
consternation, swinging from branch to branch with incredible speed, and
not scrupling to use each other's tails to swing by when occasion
offered. Some were big and red and ugly,--as ugly as you can possibly
imagine, with blue faces and fiercely grinning teeth; others were
delicately formed and sad of countenance, as if they were for ever
bewailing the loss of near and dear relations, and could by no means come
at consolation; and some were small and pretty, with faces no bigger than
a halfpenny. As a general rule, it seemed to Barney, the smaller the
monkey the longer the tail.

Yes, well might they gaze and gaze again in surprise and in excessive
admiration; and well might Barney O'Flannagan--under the circumstances,
with such sights and sounds around him, and the delightful odours of
myrtle trees arid orange blossoms and the Cape jessamine stealing up his
nostrils--deem himself the tena