most varied hues, so closely together that you cannot understand where all their roots find room. You see, perhaps, twenty varieties of the oak, among which the burrel oak is the handsomest and largest; it is eight feet in diameter, and its stem measures forty feet to the first branches, while its crown attains a height of one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet. On the river banks cypresses stand side by side for miles, so close together that there is hardly room for a man to pass between them. The black walnut, the tulip tree, the peca-nut, several sorts of elms, the mulberry, maples, ashes, planes, poplars, &c., press against each other, and wherever death makes a gap and restores one of these giant trees to the earth, young shoots start up from its dust in the opening through which the blue sky is visible, and soon fill up the room. Countless varieties of smaller trees flourish in this gloom, and force their way between the colossi of vegetation, for instance, the wild cherry, wild plum, a small chestnut, and several species of nut trees; beneath these the bushes and cactuses spread with an incredible variety, and relieve the gloom with their magnificently coloured perfumed flowers, which seem to maintain an eternal rivalry with the blossoms of the llianas swinging from tree to tree in the airy height. Finally, the earth itself, beneath the darkest bushes, is covered with a dense carpet of delicate plants, which, although hidden from every sunbeam, are not the less worthy of being sought by the fervent admirer of the masterpieces of nature; they gleam like subterranean fires in the shade, and diffuse their perfume far around in this palace of foliage. The queen of the whole virgin forest, however, is the magnolia. It raises its haughty head one hundred and fifty feet above a silver grey, smooth trunk, spreads its branches regularly far around, and is so closely covered with its broad, dark green, smooth and shining leaves, that its branches are rarely illumined by a sunbeam. Among this dark mass of foliage, which is unchanged throughout the year, it puts forth in spring its large snow-white roses, with orange petals, in such profusion that you can hardly see whether white or green is the fundamental colour. Far around it spreads a perfume of vanilla which is so strong that it is dangerous to sleep under the tree unless a breeze be blowing. The flowers last a long time, and as the pearls fall one by one on the ground, their place is taken by a bunch of berries, redder and more fiery than any colour on an artist's palette. They gleam far and wide through the majestic forest like candelabra in a cathedral.