In the regions of the equator, on the other hand, whether it be forest or savannah, a sombre green clothes universal nature.

You may journey for hours, and even for days, and meet with nothing to break the monotony.

Flowers are everywhere rare, and anything at all striking is only to be met with at very distant intervals.
The idea that nature exhibits gay colours in the tropics, and that the general aspect of nature is there more bright and varied in hue than with us, has even been made the foundation of theories of art, and we have been forbidden to use bright colours in our garments, and in the decorations of our dwellings, because it was supposed that we should be thereby acting in opposition to the teachings of nature.

The argument itself is a very poor one, since it might with equal justice be maintained, that as we possess faculties for the appreciation of colours, we should make up for the deficiencies of nature and use the gayest tints in those regions where the landscape is most monotonous.
But the assumption on which the argument is founded is totally false, so that even if the reasoning were valid, we need not be afraid of outraging nature, by decorating our houses and our persons with all those gay hues which are so lavishly spread over our fields and mountains, our hedges, woods, and meadows.
It is very easy to see what has led to this erroneous view of the nature of tropical vegetation.

In our hothouses and at our flower-shows we gather together the finest flowering plants from the most distant regions of the earth, and exhibit them in a proximity to each other which never occurs in nature.