With every breath of air the great palm leaves flick myriads of drops to the underbrush below, with a sound as of heavy rain. The trunks are black and soaked, and there is not a dry frond for miles. A sudden curve brings another loop of the river into view, with a foreground of scuttling crabs and mangrove seedlings. Here a wave of coarse, salty, marsh smell fills our lungs—not stagnant, but redolent of the distant sea; the smell that makes one’s blood leap. The next quarter-mile is covered with lilies again. From their perfume we enter a zone of recently cut grass—and the incense brings to mind northern hay-fields and the sweet-grass baskets of the Indians. What new pains and pleasures would be ours could we possess the power of scent of some of the “lower” animals! Temperate succeed tropical vistas; we see what at first appears to be a grove of young chestnuts rising from rhododendrons and guinea-grass. A Spotted Sandpiper[22] heightens the illusion, and the picture is complete when a familiar milk-weed butterfly floats by and alights on a red and yellow tansy. But just then a Macaw shrieks from a near-by tree—the road-bed turns and reveals a tangle of palms and scarlet heliconias—a monkey climbs up a leaf large enough to shelter half a hundred of his kind. Strange palm fruits come into view, some like enormous clusters or bunches of grapes—each fruit as large as an orange; or again a huge feathery, dependent frond of dust-brown blossom and fruit protected by an overhanging spathe like a huge umbrella. [Illustration: FIG. 29. LA BREA—THE LAKE OF PITCH.] The jungle never gives up the struggle against the invading rails. Beneath the cars the constant friction only dwarfs the growth, and we find here miniature plants blooming, fruiting, and scattering seed; plants which elsewhere reach a height of five or six feet. It is an interesting case of quick adaptation to unfavorable conditions. The vegetation presses on every inch of the track, striving ever to close up the long scar through the heart of the forest, and only by systematic cutting is the way kept open. The advance of the jungle host is most interesting. Thirty feet from the rails the growth is primeval, a dense mass of entangled and interlaced vines, shrubs, palms, and giant trees, the boles of the latter shooting up and up through the mass and bursting into bloom high overhead. Nearer the track we find a phalanx of green banners and the wonderfully brilliant red and yellow flower stalks of the quick-growing heliconias. In front are the rough scouts, the real advance-guard of strong, thorny vines growing in close entanglement—a living _chevaux-de-frise_, inconspicuous and yet offering the greatest resistance. Under this shelter the larger but slower-growing components of the jungle take root and gather vigor, until, if not cut out with the hardest labor, they soon rear their heads from their nursery of vines and brambles, and the shining rails vanish from view.