No European is able to penetrate the intricate network of a forest thus matted together: astonished and despairing, he stands before the dense cordage that impedes his path, and, should he attempt to force his way through the maze, the strong thorns and hooks with which the tropical creepers are generally armed would soon make him repent of his boldness. The Brazilian planter never thinks of entering the forest without a large knife, or without being accompanied by slaves, who with heavy scythe-like axes attached to long poles, clear the way by severing the otherwise impenetrable cordage. The enormous climbing trees, that stifle the life of the mightiest giants of the forest, offer a no less wonderful spectacle. At first, these emblems of ingratitude grow straight upwards like any feeble shrub, but as soon as they have found a support in other trees, they begin to extend over their surface; for, while the stems of other plants generally assume a cylindrical form, these climbers have the peculiarity of divesting themselves of their rind when brought into contact with an extraneous body, and of spreading over it, until they at length enclose it in a tubular mass. When, during this process, the powers of the original root are weakened, the trunk sends forth new props to restore the equilibrium; and thus the tough and hardy race continually acquires fresh strength for the ruin of its neighbours. [Illustration: POLANARRUA.] Several species of the fig-tree are peculiarly remarkable for this distinctive property, and, from the facility with which their seeds take root where there is a sufficiency of moisture to permit of germination, are formidable assailants of ancient monuments. Sir Emerson Tennent mentions one which had fixed itself on the walls of a ruined edifice at Polanarrua, and formed one of the most remarkable objects of the place, its roots streaming downwards over the walls as if their wood had once been fluid, and following every sinuosity of the building and terraces till they reached the earth. On the borders of the Rio Guama, Von Martius saw whole groups of Macauba palms encased in fig-trees that formed thick tubes round the shafts of the palms, whose noble crowns rose high above them; and a similar spectacle occurs in India and Ceylon, where the Tamils look with increased veneration on their sacred pippul thus united in marriage with the palmyra. After the incarcerated trunk has been stifled and destroyed, the grotesque form of the parasite, tubular, cork-screw-like, or otherwise fantastically contorted, and frequently admitting the light through interstices like loopholes in a turret, continues to maintain an independent existence among the straight-stemmed trees of the forest--the image of an eccentric genius in the midst of a group of sedate citizens.