Every growth on these shores is straining upwards in perpendicular lines, and in fierce competition, towards the light above so necessary to its healthfulness. These upward shoots are of every possible thickness and almost every conceivable hue. The leaves are, for the most part, on the twigs. The number and variety of trees is almost infinite as compared with our northern woods. There are more varieties of palms alone, than all the arboreal species of the New England woods. Among these are the cohune palms with great clusters of hard, oily nuts; another kind with fearful spines but edible nuts; and even climbing, vine-like palms that will reach a length of several hundred feet. Bamboos are present everywhere with their graceful stems, and tall reeds with blossoms in striking contrast with the dark-green leaves of the trees. Great mahogany trees rise straight and with uniform trunks in the forest like the great oaks in our own woods, only higher. Immense ceiba trees sometimes fifteen feet in diameter stand up like veritable monsters of the forests and occasionally throw out great buttresses, as it were, for additional strength. When these trees are cut a platform is built reaching above these buttresses and the cutters stand on this. Even the poor little villages are ennobled somewhat by the noble palms and ceiba trees which they contain. Decaying trees and branches are seldom seen, for the elements quickly destroy or the migratory ants devour them. If a dead trunk or log is found it is so covered with growths of parasites such as orchids, mosses, ferns and flowering plants, that the dead wood can scarcely be seen. One tree drops its nuts, about the size of a hen’s egg, into the water where they germinate and float about until they anchor themselves on a bank or shoal. The absence of sod is very noticeable, for the foliage is so dense that grass will not grow. Rosewood, ironwood, logwood, sapodilla, cedar, cacao and fig trees—all are found within these forests, and the mangrove on the coast lands, or the banks of streams. [Illustration: AN INDIAN WITH HIS MACHETE.]