If you leave a memory there and go to take it up again some time after, you will find it more covered with moss and more swarming with palmer-worms and vile insects than a stone laid on the damp floor of a cavern. Do not try to pass through its dark forests; they are more impassable than the virgin forests of America and the jungles of Java; creepers strong as cables run from tree to tree; all the paths are obstructed by bristling plants as sharp as lance-heads; the very turf is covered with a stinging down like that of the nettle. From the arches of the foliage, gigantic bats of the vampire species hang by their nails; beetles of enormous size wave their horns threateningly, and thrash the air with their four-footed wings; monstrous, fantastic beasts, like those we see in nightmares, come clumsily forward, crushing the reeds before them. There are troops of elephants, who crush flies in the wrinkles of their flabby skin and rub their sides against the rocks and trees, rhinoceroses with their rough, uneven hides, hippopotami with their swollen snouts bristling with hair, who knead the mud and the débris of the forest with their huge feet. In the clearings, where the sun insinuates a luminous beam like a wedge of gold through the damp atmosphere, you will always find, on the spot where you propose to sit, a family of tigers lying at their ease, sniffing the air, winking their sea-green eyes, and polishing their velvet coats with their blood-red, papilæ-covered tongues; or else it is a tangled knot of boas, half asleep, digesting the last bull they have devoured. Be suspicious of everything; grass, fruit, water, air, shade, sunlight, all are deadly. Close your ears to the chattering of the little paroquets with golden beaks and emerald necks, that fly down from the trees and perch on your finger, with fluttering wings; for the little paroquets with the emerald necks will end by gently pecking your eyes out with their pretty golden beaks, just as you bend to kiss them.--So it is.