The trees and animals of Guiana afford a more satisfactory subject for
contemplation than the degraded inhabitants. Among them, sin has not
entered. They remain in all their perfection and beauty, as they first
appeared fresh from the hands of the Creator. A large number are so
similar to those found in the Valley of the Amazon, that they need no
separate description. In the upper waters of its streams the
magnificent Victoria Regia, so long unknown to the eyes of civilised
man, was discovered by Schombergh not forty years ago.
Here, too, grows the spotted coryanthes, of the order of the Orchideae--
Coryanthes maculata--hanging from the branches of trees, and suspending
in the air the singular lips of its flowers, like fairy buckets, as if
for the use of the birds and insects that inhabit the surrounding
foliage. In the whole vegetable kingdom a more singular genus than this
does not exist, nor one whose flowers are less like flowers to the eye
of the ordinary observer. The sepals are of the most delicate texture.
When young they spread evenly round the centre, but after a few hours
they collapse and assume the appearance of a bat's wing half closed.
The lip is furnished near its base with a yellow cup, over which hang
two horns constantly distilling water into it, and in such abundance as
to fill it several times. This cup communicates by a narrow channel,
formed of the inflated margin of the lip, with the upper end of the
latter; and this also has a capacious vessel, very much like an old
helmet, into which the liquid that the cup cannot contain runs over.
The cockarito-palm--as it is familiarly called here--grows to the height
of fifty feet, and produces the most delicate cabbage of the palm
species. It is enclosed in a husk in the very heart of the tree, at its
summit. This husk is peeled off in strata until the white cabbage
appears in long thin flakes--in taste like the kernel of a nut. The
inner part is often used as a salad, while the outer is boiled, and
considered superior to the European cabbage. Within such cabbages as
are in a state of decay, a maggot is found--the larva of a black beetle
(urculio), which, growing to the length of four inches, and as thick as
a man's thumb, is called "grogro." This creature, disgusting as it is
in appearance, when dressed is considered a great delicacy--partaking of
the flavour of all the spices of the East.
A curious shrub--if it can be so called--known as the troolies, consists
of large leaves twenty feet long and two broad, of a strong texture, and
straight fibres growing from a small fibrous root; the leaves rising
from the ends of the eight or ten stems which it puts forth. These
leaves are employed chiefly for covering the roofs of buildings.
From the silk-cotton-tree, which grows to the height of one hundred
feet, and is twelve or fourteen in diameter, the Indians form their
largest canoes. The locust-tree grows to the height of seventy feet,
and is often nine feet in diameter. The branches, which only begin to
spread in the higher part of the tree, are covered with leaves about
three inches in length, and of an oval shape and dark green colour. The
blossoms, of the papilionaceous or butterfly form, produce a flat pod,
shaped like the husk of a broad bean, about four inches long, and of a
dark brown colour. When ripe, each pod contains three beans of the same
colour, of a farinaceous consistency, and with a pleasant sweetness.
The silk-grass shrub produces a leaf, the inner substance of which
consists of a number of small strong white fibres running
longitudinally. These the Indians extract by means of a small loop of
cord, through which the leaf is drawn with a jerking motion. They are
then ready for drying and twisting into cord. They make bow-strings of
great elasticity and strength.