CHAP. XVI. LYCOPODIUMS AND OTHER PLANTS. 439 had felt so much interest in the sociable and apparently gentle animal on board our ship, that I should have been glad to have seen some of its species in their own forest homes; but though numbers were evidently near, none of them came within sight. Soon after crossing the first river in the forest, I saw some beautiful lycopodiums growing near the margin of the stream; and I always found them growing more luxuriantly near the water than in any other place. I immediately left my palan quin in order to examine them. They had the habit of L. umbrosum, but more open. I dug up a number of the plants, kneading the clayey soil in which they were growing into a sort of ball, and giving the man who was carrying my plants special charges respecting them. I then walked on for about an hour, when I found large clusters of delicate ferns, very much like Adiantum tenuifolium, but more compact, differ ing also in other respects, and new to me. I gathered as many of the ripe ferns as I could; and soon afterwards found some plants with delicately-pencilled and variegated leaves, and dwarf succulent stems. The leaves greatly resembled those of the echites, though the habit of the plant was herbaceous, and not shrubby. This part of my journey was perfect enjoyment. The slipperiness of the clayey path, or of the smooth, round, inter laced roots of the gigantic trees, and the wet and tangled brushwood, with occasional piles or fragments of rock, were scarcely felt to be impediments, under the influence of the pleasure produced by the frequent appearance of a new plant or flower of beauty or rarity. But by nine o’clock it began to rain; and considering that two of my fellow-travellers were suffering from fever, and that we had sti'l the most dangerous districts to pass, I was obliged, not perhaps without a slight feeling of disappointment, to relinquish my pleasant pursuit, and seek the shelter of the palanquin.