I have already stated that the natural productions of the tropics did not at first realise my expectations. This is principally owing to the accounts of picture-drawing travellers, who, by only describing the beautiful, the picturesque, and the magnificent, would almost lead a person to believe that nothing of a different character could exist under a tropical sun. Our having arrived at Pará at the end of the wet season, may also explain why we did not at first see all the glories of the vegetation. The beauty of the palm-trees can scarcely be too highly drawn; they are peculiarly characteristic of the tropics, and their varied and elegant forms, their beautiful foliage, and their fruits, often useful to man, give them a never-failing interest to the naturalist, and to all who are familiar with descriptions of the countries where they most abound. The rest of the vegetation was hardly what I expected. We found many beautiful flowers and climbing plants, but there are also many places which are just as weedy in their appearance as in our own bleak climate. But very few of the forest-trees were in flower, and most of them had nothing very peculiar in their appearance. The eye of the botanist, indeed, detects numerous tropical forms in the structure of the stems, and the form and arrangement of the leaves; but most of them produce an effect in the landscape remarkably similar to that of our own oaks, elms, and beeches. These remarks apply only to the immediate vicinity of the city, where the whole surface has been cleared, and the present vegetation is a second growth. On proceeding a few miles out of the town into the forest which everywhere surrounds it, a very different scene is beheld. Trees of an enormous height rise on every side. The foliage varies from the most light and airy to the darkest and most massive. Climbing and parasitic plants, with large shining leaves, run up the trunks, and often mount even to the highest branches, while others, with fantastic stems, hang like ropes and cables from their summits. Many curious seeds and fruits are here seen scattered on the ground; and there is enough to engage the wonder and admiration of every lover of nature. But even here there is something wanting that we expected to find. The splendid Orchideous plants, so much sought after in Europe, we had thought must abound in every luxuriant tropical forest; yet here are none but a few small species with dull brown or yellow flowers. Most of the parasitic plants which clothe the stems of every old or fallen tree with verdure, are of quite a different character, being ferns, Tillandsias, and species of Pothos and Caladium, plants resembling the Ethiopian lily so commonly cultivated in houses. Among the shrubs near the city that immediately attracted our attention were several Solanums, which are allied to our potato. One of these grows from eight to twelve feet high, with large woolly leaves, spines on both leaves and stem, and handsome purple flowers larger than those of the potato. Some other species have white flowers, and one much resembles our bitter-sweet (Solanum Dulcamara). Many handsome convolvuluses climb over the hedges, as well as several most beautiful Bignonias or trumpet-flowers, with yellow, orange, or purple blossoms. But most striking of all are the passion-flowers, which are abundant on the skirts of the forest, and are of various colours,purple, scarlet, or pale pink: the purple ones have an exquisite perfume, and they all produce an agreeable fruitthe grenadilla of the West Indies. There are besides many other elegant flowers, and numbers of less conspicuous ones. The papilionaceous flowers, or peas, are common; cassias are very numerous, some being mere weeds, others handsome trees, having a profusion of bright yellow blossoms. Then there are the curious sensitive plants (Mimosa), looked upon with such interest in our greenhouses, but which here abound as common wayside weeds. Most of them have purple or white globular heads of flowers. Some are very sensitive, a gentle touch causing many leaves to drop and fold up; others require a ruder hand to make them exhibit their peculiar properties; while others again will scarcely show any signs of feeling, though ever so roughly treated. They are all more or less armed with sharp prickles, which may partly answer the purpose of guarding their delicate frames from some of the numerous shocks they would otherwise receive.
The immense number of orange-trees about the city is an interesting feature, and renders that delicious fruit always abundant and cheap. Many of the public roads are lined with them, and every garden is well stocked, so that the cost is merely the trouble of gathering and taking to market. The mango is also abundant, and in some of the public avenues is planted alternately with the Mangabeira, or silk cotton-tree, which grows to a great size, though, as its leaves are deciduous, it is not so well adapted to produce the shade so much required as some evergreen trees. On almost every roadside, thicket, or waste, the coffee-tree is seen growing, and generally with flower or fruit, and often both; yet such is the scarcity of labour or indolence of the people, that none is gathered but a little for private consumption, while the city is almost entirely supplied with coffee grown in other parts of Brazil.
Turning our attention to the world of animal life, what first attract notice are the lizards. They abound everywhere. In the city they are seen running along the walls and palings, sunning themselves on logs of wood, or creeping up to the eaves of the lower houses. In every garden, road, and dry sandy situation they are scampering out of the way as we walk along. Now they crawl round the trunk of a tree, watching us as we pass, and keeping carefully out of sight, just as a squirrel will do under similar circumstances; now they walk up a smooth wall or paling as composedly and securely as if they had the plain earth beneath them. Some are of a dark coppery colour, some with backs of the most brilliant silky green and blue, and others marked with delicate shades and lines of yellow and brown. On this sandy soil, and beneath this bright sunshine, they seem to enjoy every moment of their existence, basking in the hot sun with the most indolent satisfaction, then scampering off as if every ray had lent vivacity and vigour to their chilly constitutions. Far different from the little lizards with us, which cannot raise their body from the ground, and drag their long tails like an encumbrance after them, these denizens of a happier clime carry their tails stuck out in the air, and gallop away on their four legs with as much freedom and muscular power as a warm-blooded quadruped. To catch such lively creatures was of course no easy matter, and all our attempts utterly failed; but we soon got the little Negro and Indian boys to shoot them for us with their bows and arrows, and thus obtained many specimens.
Next to the lizards, the ants cannot fail to be noticed. They startle you with the apparition of scraps of paper, dead leaves, and feathers, endued with locomotive powers; processions engaged in some abstruse engineering operations stretch across the public paths; the flowers you gather or the fruit you pluck is covered with them, and they spread over your hand in such swarms as to make you hastily drop your prize. At meals they make themselves quite at home upon the tablecloth, in your plate, and in the sugar-basin, though not in such numbers as to offer any serious obstruction to your meal. In these situations, and in many others, you will find them, and in each situation it will be a distinct kind. Many plants have ants peculiar to them. Their nests are seen forming huge black masses, several feet in diameter, on the branches of trees. In paths in woods and gardens we often see a gigantic black species wandering about singly or in pairs, measuring near an inch and a half long; while some of the species that frequent houses are so small as to require a box-lid to fit very closely in order to keep them out. They are great enemies to any dead animal matter, especially insects and small birds. In drying the specimens of insects we procured, we found it necessary to hang up the boxes containing them to the roof of the verandah; but even then a party got possession by descending the string, as we caught them in the act, and found that in a few hours they had destroyed several fine insects. We were then informed that the Andiroba oil of the country, which is very bitter, would keep them away, and by well soaking the suspending string we have since been free from their incursions.