A Midsummer Trip to the Tropics.
75
them. The longer you watch them, the stronger this
idea becomes, — the more they seem alive,—the more
their long silver-gray articulated bodies seem to poise,
undulate, stretch. . . . Certainly the palms of a Demerara
country-road evoke no such real emotion as that pro-
duced by the stupendous palms of the Jardin des Plantes
in Martinique. That beautiful, solemn, silent life up-
reaching through tropical forest to the sun for warmth,
for color, for power,—filled me, I remember, with a sen-
sation of awe different from anything which I had ever
experienced. . . . But even here in Guiana, standing alone
under the sky, the palm still seems a creature rather
than a tree,—gives you the idea of personality ;—you
could almost believe each lithe shape animated by a
thinking force,—believe that all are watching you with
such passionless calm as legend lends to beings super-
natural. . . . And I wonder if some kindred fancy might
not have inspired the name given by the French colonists
to the male palmiste,—angelin. . . .
Very wonderful is the botanical garden here. It is
new ; and there are no groves, no heavy timber, no shade ;
but the finely laid-out grounds,—alternations of lawn and
flower-bed,— offer everywhere surprising sights. You
observe curious orange-colored shrubs ; plants speckled
with four different colors ; plants that look like wigs of
green hair; plants with enormous broad leaves that seem
made of colored crystal ; plants that do not look like nat-
ural growths, but like idealizations of plants,—those beau-
tiful fantasticalities imagined by sculptors. All these we
see in glimpses from a carriage - window,—yellow, indi-
go, black, and crimson plants. . . . We draw rein only to
observe in the ponds the green navies of the Victoria
Regia,— the monster among water-lilies. It covers all
the ponds and many of the canals. Close to shore the
leaves are not extraordinarily large ; but they increase