The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 46, August, 1861. Various
Magnolias, and other broad-leaved evergreens, mark the equatorial and tropical regions. The deciduous trees belong properly to the temperate zones, and constitute, indeed, the most interesting of all arborescent vegetation.
With regard to the age of forests, it may be affirmed that there are some undoubtedly in existence which are coeval with the earliest history of nations; but no individual trees are of such antiquity. Like nations, the assemblage may be perpetual, while the members that compose it are constantly perishing, and leaving their places to be supplied by others of more recent origin. Probably the earth does not contain forests in which any tree exceeds a thousand years of age, though the oldest forest extant may be as ancient as the Chinese Empire; for the oldest trees are not found in dense assemblages, but are probably such as have grown singly in isolated situations. As soon as a tree in a forest begins to feel the infirmities of age, its place is usurped by some young and more vigorous neighbor, and it is gradually deprived of subsistence in this unequal contest. The tempests and tornadoes, it may be added, which occasionally sweep over a country, commonly make the oldest and tallest trees their victims; for events seem to follow the same course in a forest as in human society. The most vigorous growers at any period continue to flourish a certain length of time at the expense of others; but when they have risen above the common level, they become marks for destruction,—they fall before certain inimical forces that do not reach their more humble companions.
It was the opinion of Humboldt, that, if any tract of wooded country deserves to be considered a part of the great "primeval forest", it is "that boundless district which, in the torrid zone of South America, connects the river-basins of the Amazon and the Orinoco." This tract, unequalled in extent by any other forest in the world, occupies an area of more than a thousand miles square. In this vast chaos of teeming vegetation, trees of the largest dimensions are connected by an undergrowth of vines and shrubbery which is almost impenetrable. Immense rivers and their tributaries intersect the forest in all directions, and constitute the only avenues of commercial intercourse. This impervious thicket is like a huge wall, separating near neighbors, rendering them, as it were, inhabitants of distant regions, and obliging them to make long and circuitous river journeys before they can hold communication.
Here the leaves of the trees are always green, and flowers appear in constant succession; but the surface of the ground is without herbage, for the darkness of the wood is fatal to all humble vegetation. The small plants are mostly parasites, thousands inserting their roots into the bark of trees and garlanding them with beauty. Those that take root in the ground show but few leaves or flowers, until they have clambered upwards, through the underwood, into the light of heaven. Almost the only relief afforded the sight, in this vast solitude, comes from the rivers and other collections of water, over whose expanse the eye revels with the delight we feel on emerging from the gloom of a cavern. Every object seems to be struggling to get outside of this chaotic growth, where it can obtain the genial influence of the sun: for near the surface of the ground are perpetual shade and hideous entanglement.
In this primeval forest we must not expect to realize any of our poetical ideas of the primitive residence of the first human family. Here are no Arcadian scenes of peace and rural felicity. On all sides we behold an undying competition for light and life, among both plants and animals. We are reminded here of life in a crowded city, where the excessive abundance of supplies for human wants imported from the surrounding country causes a still greater superfluity of population, and produces a struggle for a livelihood more severe than in a rural district of gravel and boulders. The oases of this great wilderness are those places in which there is an absence of the general fertility: barrenness in such circumstances is a relief,—because it allows both freedom and repose.
This wood is the nursery of all descriptions of monsters, living chiefly in trees. On their branches and in their tangled recesses, adorned with all sorts of foliage and flowers, creatures the most terrible and the most loathsome are seen crowding and crouching in close proximity to the most beautiful forms of living things. They fill the air with their discordant utterances, and allow no permanent silence or tranquillity. Hours of periodical stillness and repose, occurring mostly at noonday, and affecting one with a sensation of awful grandeur, by contrast with the preceding disturbances, are followed, especially in the night, by a tumultuous roar from the legions of contending animals.
"A universal hubbub wild
Of stunning sounds and voices all confused,
Borne through the hollow dark, assaults the ear
With loudest vehemence."
Even the notes of insects are a deafening crash, like the rattling of machinery in a cotton-mill. Except in the hush of noonday, the notes of singing-birds are drowned amidst the howling of monkeys, the whining of sapajous, the roar of the jaguar, and the dismal hooting of thousands of wild animals that riot in these awful solitudes. The sight of the fairest flowers and the most beautiful insects and birds only renders one more keenly sensitive to the frightful discords that startle and the perils that surround him.
Similar contrasts are observed in the vegetation of this region, where the giant trees of the forest are chained in the embraces of vines that contend with them for existence and finally strangle them. Trees and other plants are crowded together so promiscuously, that Nature seems to be striving to collect into one space every possible variety of species. Trees of the most poisonous and deadly qualities grow side by side with the Bread-Fruit, the Cocoa-Nut, and the beneficent Cinchona. Here are the poison and its antidote,—the monster tree and its miniature epiphyte,—the plant that astonishes by its magnitude, and the one that delights us by its minuteness. Here, if anywhere on the face of the earth, may we form some conception of the state of our planet during the Eocene period, before the world had come under the dominion of the human race.
But if Nature in this region has manifested an exuberance of animal and vegetable life, thereby rendering her bounties almost unavailable to man, there are other parts in which she seems to have provided for his particular benefit. In these favored regions, we find the Banana, the Cocoa, and the Date Palm, and other special gifts of Providence to the inhabitants of the equator. Palms are generally found only in small groups and plantations, but there are certain species of this family which are associated in extensive woods, and constitute, in some respects, one of the most charming descriptions of forest-scenery. The Dwarf Palms of the sub-tropical regions are chiefly assembled in masses, of which the Palmetto of Florida and the Chaemerops of the South of Europe are conspicuous examples. The true Palms are likewise sometimes associated in forests, though not generally of a social habit. In one of the most celebrated of these, at the mouth of the Orinoco, composed chiefly of the Mauritian Palms, the wild Guaranos have established a national existence. Like monkeys, they live almost wholly in trees, having their habitations supported either by wooden pillars or by a matting suspended from tree to tree. In the wet season, when the ground is inundated, the inhabitants travel about their village in canoes.
The beauty of a grove of Palms has been a favorite theme of travellers. Humboldt, who saw Nature with the eye of a painter and the feelings of a poet, amidst all the dry details of science, regards them as the most beautiful of vegetable productions. It has always seemed to me, however, that travellers in general have been led to exaggerate the charms of Nature in the tropics, by observing the remarkable beauty of a few individual objects. Their susceptibility to be affected by the scenes presented to their view is likewise exalted by the confinement of their voyage; they are enraptured with the novelty of everything about them, by the voluptuousness of the climate and the abundance of delicious fruits, and always afterwards recur to the scenes of their tropical visit with an excited imagination.
In countries near the equator, many plants which are herbs in our latitude assume arborescent forms. Such are the Tree-Grasses, which form impenetrable forests, equalling some of the Fir woods of the North in extent, if not in beauty and grandeur. In this part of the world we know the Ferns only as a low herbaceous tribe of plants, consisting of mere fronds rising out of the ground. We admire them for their beautifully compounded leaves, and their colors of red, orange, and russet that variegate our meadows in June, their garlands of verdure upon the rocky hills in winter, and the profusion of their frondage in the shady glens in summer. But in certain parts of the equatorial zone the Ferns put off the humble guise in which they appear at the North. They no longer associate with the lowly Violet,