Among other remarkable inhabitants of the Brazilian wilderness, we may name the lofty Moira-tingu,[153] the Samaüma,[154] and the Massaranduba or Cow tree.[155] The Eriodendron Samaüma, or Silk-cotton tree, holds in the New World the same position as the Bombax in the Old. It rises to an enormous stature without branches, and then spreads out a glorious mass of foliage. The bark is light in colour; and the capsule pod contains a large quantity of down, of a brown tint, and exquisite silky softness. The Massaranduba is also called the Palo de Vacca, the Arbor de Lacte, the Galactodendron utile, or the Cow tree. Its bark furnishes an abundant supply of milk as pleasant to drink as that of the cow. If exposed to the air it thickens into a glue, which is excessively tenacious, and often employed to cement broken crockery. The tree has a wild, strange appearance, owing to its deeply scored, reddish, and rugged bark, a decoction of which is used as a red dye for cloth. Did our readers ever hear of the Pashiúba, or bulging-stemmed palm?[156] It is not one of the tallest kinds, for its height, when full grown, seldom exceeds forty feet; the leaves are somewhat less drooping, and the leaflets broader, than in other species; but if less beautiful, it is, perhaps, far more remarkable. Its roots grow above ground, radiating from the trunk at an elevation of ten or twelve feet, so that the tree seems to be supported on stilts; and when it is old, a person can stand upright amongst the roots with the perpendicular stem wholly above his head! About midway, this stem bulges out in a circular swelling, which gives it its distinctive name. The roots closely resemble straight rods, but they are studded with stout thorns, whilst the trunk of the Pashiúba is perfectly smooth. It is in the vast primeval forests of Central and Southern America, and in the leafy wildernesses of the great East Indian islands--Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Madagascar--that man may still contemplate in all its savage majesty the prodigious Flora of the Tropics. These, too, are the haunts of many remarkable animals--mammals, and birds, and reptiles--which are there comparatively safe from the pitiless persecution of the hunter and the trapper. To obtain an idea--which, however, can only be very vague and imperfect--of the strange and imposing spectacle and the unexpected scenes which at every step astonish the traveller in the great Tropical woodlands, we must study the descriptions of those few but richly endowed adventurers who, after exploring them with the enlightened curiosity of science, have been able to embody the results in language worthy of the subject.