CHAPTER VI.
"Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, Turns his necessity to glorious gain." WORDSWORTH.
"Jack," said Charlie, "listen!" He was reading bits out of the numbers to me, whilst I was rigging a miniature yacht to sail on the dam; and Mrs.Wood's husband was making a plan of something at another table, and occasionally giving me advice about my masts and sails.

"It's about the South American forests," said Charlie.

"'There every tree has a character of its own; each has its peculiar foliage, and probably also a tint unlike that of the trees which surround it.

Gigantic vegetables of the most different families intermix their branches; five-leaved bignonias grow by the side of bonduc-trees; cassias shed their yellow blossoms upon the rich fronds of arborescent ferns; myrtles and eugenias, with their thousand arms, contrast with the elegant simplicity of palms; and among the airy foliage of the mimosa the ceropia elevates its giant leaves and heavy candelabra-shaped branches.

Of some trees the trunk is perfectly smooth, of others it is defended by enormous spines, and the whole are often apparently sustained by the slanting stems of a huge wild fig-tree.