The peculiar charms of a tropical primeval forest are enhanced by the mystery of its impenetrable thickets; for however grand its lofty vaults, or lovely its ever-changing forms of leaf or blossom, fancy paints scenes still more beautiful beyond, where the eye cannot penetrate, and where, as yet, no wanderer has ever strayed. But imagination also peoples the forest with peculiar terrors; for man feels himself here surrounded by an alien, or even hostile, nature: the solitude and silence of the woods weigh heavily on his mind; in every rustling of the falling leaves a venomous snake seems ready to dart forth; and who knows what ravenous animal may not be lurking in the dense underwood that skirts the tangled path? In Europe there is no room for such feelings; for in our part of the world there are no woods that may not be visited, even in their deepest recesses: no thorny bush-ropes stretch their intricate cordage before the wanderer; no masses of matted shrubs block up his way. But it is very different in the boundless forests of tropical America. Here the jaguar sometimes loses himself in such impenetrable thickets that, unable to hunt upon the ground, he lives for a long time on the trees, a terror to the monkeys; here the _padres_ of the mission-stations, which are not many miles apart in a direct line, often require more than a day’s navigation to visit each other, following the windings of small rivulets in their courses, as the forest renders communication by land impossible. Even the more open parts of the forest are full of mysteries. In our woods the summits of the highest trees are accessible; there is no blossom that we are not able to pluck--no plant that we are not able to examine, from its root to its topmost branches; but in the Brazilian forest, where the matted bush-ropes wind round the trunks like immense serpents waiting for their prey or stretch like the rigging of a ship from one tree to another, and blossom at a giddy height, it is frequently as impossible to reach their flowers as it is to distinguish to which of the many interlacing stems they may belong. If any one should be inclined to tax this description with exaggeration, let him try to pluck the flowers of the lianas, or to ascend by climbing their flexible cordage. The tiger-cat and the monkey, perhaps also the agile Indian, may be able to accomplish the feat; but it would be utterly hopeless for the European to undertake it. Nor is it possible to drag down these inaccessible creepers; for, owing to their strength and toughness, it would be easier to pull down the tree to which they attach themselves than to force them from their hold. Here two or three together twisting spirally round each other form a complete living cable as if to bind securely the monarchs of the forest; there they form tangled festoons, and covered themselves with smaller creepers and parasitic plants, hide the parent stem from sight.