That, he will say, is Fiddlewood; {133g} that a Carapo, {133h} that a Cedar, {133i} that a Roble {133j} (oak); that, larger than all you have seen yet, a Locust; {133k} that a Poui; {133l} that a Guatecare, {133m} that an Olivier, {133n} woods which, he will tell you, are all but incorruptible, defying weather and insects.

He will show you, as curiosities, the smaller but intensely hard Letter wood, {133o} Lignum vitae, {133p} and Purple heart.

{134a} He will pass by as useless weeds, Ceibas {134b} and Sandbox-trees, {134c} whose bulk appals you.

He will look up, with something like a malediction, at the Matapalos, which, every fifty yards, have seized on mighty trees, and are enjoying, I presume, every different stage of the strangling art, from the baby Matapalo, who, like the one which you saw in the Botanic Garden, has let down his first air-root along his victim's stem, to the old sinner whose dark crown of leaves is supported, eighty feet in air, on innumerable branching columns of every size, cross-clasped to each other by transverse bars.

The giant tree on which his seed first fell has rotted away utterly, and he stands in its place, prospering in his wickedness, like certain folk whom David knew too well.