parasitic
plants, with large shining leaves, run up the trunks, while others, with
fantastic stems, hang like ropes and cables from their summits.

Most striking of all are the passion-flowers, purple, scarlet, or pale
pink; the purple ones have an exquisite perfume, and they all produce an
agreeable fruit, the grenadilla of the West Indies. The immense number
of orange-trees about the city is an interesting feature, and renders
that delicious fruit always abundant and cheap. The mango is also
abundant, and on every roadside the coffee-tree is seen growing,
generally with flower or fruit, often with both.

Turning our attention to the world of animal life, the lizards first
attract notice, for they abound everywhere, running along walls and
palings, sunning themselves on logs of wood, or creeping up the eaves of
the lower houses. The ants cannot fail to be noticed. At meals they make
themselves at home on the tablecloth, in your plate, and in the
sugar-basin.

At first we employed ourselves principally in collecting insects, and in
about three weeks I and Mr. B. had captured upwards of 150 species of
butterflies. The species seemed inexhaustible, and the exquisite
colouring and variety of marking is wonderful.

_II.--The Wonderful Forest_

On the morning of June 23rd we started early to walk to the rice-mills
and wood-yard at Magoary, which we had been invited to visit by the
proprietor, Mr. Upton, and the manager, Mr. Leavens, both American
gentlemen. At about two miles from the city we entered the virgin
forest, where we saw giant trees covered to the summit with parasites
upon parasites. The herbage consisted for the most part of ferns. At the
wood-mills we saw the different kinds of timber used, both in logs and
boards.

What most interested us were large logs of the Masseranduba, or
milk-tree. On our way through the forest we had seen some trunks much
notched by persons who had been extracting the milk. It is one of the
noblest trees of the forest, rising with a straight stem to an enormous
height. The timber is very hard, durable, and valuable; the fruit is
very good and full of rich pulp; but strangest of all is the vegetable
milk which exudes in abundance when the bark is cut. It is like thick
cream, scarcely to be distinguished in flavour from the product of the
cow. Next morning some of it was given to us in our tea at breakfast by
Mr. Leavens. The milk is also used for making excellent glue.

Duri