The Essequibo, called by the Indians the "younger brother of the Orinoco," first claims attention. The mouth has rather the appearance of a vast lake than a river, its shores bordered by thick groves of that tree of curious structure, the mangrove, whose roots or seeds, borne on the ocean wave, strike wherever they can find a muddy soil, throughout every part of the tropics. Rising upwards on the roots, which it shoots downwards as it grows, the base of its stem is often six or eight feet from the ground--the stem itself seldom more than a foot in diameter, and from fifteen to twenty feet in height. Its thick stiff ribs, about eight inches long and nine inches wide, are of a dark sombre hue. This broad estuary, extending inland for thirty miles or more, with numerous picturesque islands covered by tropical vegetation rising out of it, is joined by the united streams of the Masaruni and Cuyuni, its own and their romantic waterfalls making a continuous navigation up them impossible. Yet, notwithstanding its impediments, these rivers afford the only means of communication, except along the foot-tracks of the Indians, through the dense forests, into the far-off interior. These forests commence in many parts close to the ocean, spreading often for thousands of square miles, broken sometimes by swamps, and at others by wide savannahs, open spaces covered with grasses, and here and there clumps of trees. Even the sand-hills of moderate height bordering the Atlantic are clothed by the superb vegetation of the tropics,--the forest extending to, and even climbing up the sides of the Rocky Mountains. Vast timber trees, the purple and green heart, the stately mora, the locust-tree, raise their heads above their smaller brethren, conquering in the struggle for room to allow their foliage to expand; while below, the moist carpet of fallen leaves, fungi, and moss, increases the richness of the vegetation. Here also are numerous graceful palms,--the cocorite, from which the Indians form their poisoned arrows; the troali, with broad and long leaves, used for thatching their huts. The graceful manicol, rising to a great height, bends, like the weeping willow, its slender stem over the stream; and, with several other species of palm, it affords the succulent cabbage. Beautiful parasites hang in every direction from the trunks and boughs-- sipos ascending and clinging in intricate network, interlacing the trunks and branches, and often supporting the remnants of the trees they themselves by their fatal embrace have destroyed; indeed, the same style of forest here exists as throughout the Valley of the Amazon.