After the wet season the woods appear in their full beauty. Before the first showers, the long-continued drought had withered their leaves, and dried up many of the more delicate parasites, and during its continuance the torrents of rain despoiled them of all ornament; but when the clouds disperse and the animals come forth from their retreats to stretch their stiffened limbs in the warm sunshine, then also the vegetable world awakens to new life; and where, a few days before, the eye met only with green in every variety of shade, it now revels in the luxuriance of beautiful flowers, which embalm the air with exquisite fragrance.
At this time of the year the banks of the rivers of Guiana winding through the primitive woods are of magical beauty. Through the underwood which often overhangs wide spaces of the stream, the large white blossoms of the inga shine forth, along with the scarlet brushes of the magnificent combretia. Elegant palms, armed with a panoply of thorns, and bearing a profusion of red fruit, rise above this lovely foreground; and farther on, noble forest trees are seen festooned with creepers and parasites covered with flowers.
These fairy bowers are enlivened by birds of splendid plumage, particularly in the early morning, when the luscious green of the high palm-fronds or the burning yellow of the lofty leopoldinias, touched by the first rays of the sun, suddenly shines forth. Then hundreds of gaudy parrots fly across the river; numberless colibris dart like winged gems through the air; whole herds of cotingas flutter among the blossoms; ducks of brilliant plumage cackle on the branches of submerged trees; on the highest tree-tops the toucan yelps his loud pia-po-ko! while, peeping from his nest, the oriole endeavours to imitate the sound; and the scarlet ibis flies in troops to the coast, while the white egrette flutters along before the boat, rests, and then again rises for a new career.
Yet pick out even the loveliest of these privileged spots where the most gorgeous flowers of the tropics expand their glowing petals, and for every scene of this kind we may find another at home of equal beauty and with an equal amount of brilliant colour.
‘Look at a field of buttercups and daisies,’ says Mr. Wallace, a very competent judge, ‘a hill-side covered with gorse and broom, a mountain rich with purple heather, or a forest glade azure with a carpet of wild hyacinths, and they will bear a comparison with any scene the tropics can produce. I have never seen anything more glorious than an old crab-tree in full blossom, and the horse-chestnut, lilac, and laburnum will vie with the choicest tropical trees and shrubs. In the tropical waters are no more beautiful plants than our white and yellow water lilies, our irises and flowering rush, for I cannot consider the flower of the Victoria Regia more beautiful than that of the Nymphæa alba, though it may be larger, nor is it so abundant an ornament of the tropical waters as the latter is of ours.’