Your guide walks on with a sneer.

But he stops with a smile of satisfaction as he sees lying on the ground dark green glossy leaves, which are fading into a bright crimson; for overhead somewhere there must be a Balata, {134d} the king of the forest; and there, close by, is his stem--a madder-brown column, whose head may be a hundred and fifty feet or more aloft.

The forester pats the sides of his favourite tree, as a breeder might that of his favourite racehorse.

He goes on to evince his affection, in the fashion of West Indians, by giving it a chop with his cutlass; but not in wantonness.

He wishes to show you the hidden virtues of this (in his eyes) noblest of trees--how there issues out swiftly from the wound a flow of thick white milk, which will congeal, in an hour's time, into a gum intermediate in its properties between caoutchouc and gutta-percha.