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#39 Grove of Brazilian
evergreens in the province of Minas
Gerais.
Latin translation by
Ben Hennelly
We have stated often that a characteristic feature of the forests in Brazil is
that they are not composed of some one species of trees or a few associated
species, but of a varied group of many species. From these forests differ
only a few palm-groves, which we saw were Mauritia
vinifera or Mauritia
flexuosa, or Attalea
phalerata, or Copernicia
ceriferaform, as well as groves of Araucaria [evergreens], one of which I offer in this etching in a copy of the
original image by our most distinguished artist, Maurice Rugendas. We
are led back in this picture to the southern part of the province of Minas. We
call this grouping of the exceedingly magnificent Araucaria a grove, not a forest, because it seems a sacred place... a great, august
temple supported on one hundred columns, as it were.
 
Mauritia flexuoso
Etching 39 Araucaria, the Brazilian pine tree
As many times as I entered a grove of Araucaria,
shady and often thickly scented in the morning, I was without fail affected
in a remarkable way and delightfully soothed.They were not only my fatherland's
pine groves, my memory of which then grew fresh again, but the tree
itself, with its very large trunk that rises like a column, its far-stretched
branches, now bent upwards and now sinking all the way to the ground,
which are bare at the bottom but at their ends bear numerous (10-30),
short (1-3 feet), thickly foliated little branches, so that the tree
looks like a kind of huge candelabrum,
its scaly, dark-brown bark, its stiff needles, then the black shade
underneath the trees, often sufficient for only sparse growth of grasses
or for scattered bushes-- all these things move my spirit passionately
and compel me to be mindful of the serious, though trifling and empty,
affairs of humankind.
Now from afar this tree, with a form much different from tropical forms,
resembles, so to speak, a sorrowful, morose, surly human being. You
would believe that this singular species is a relic preserved and handed
down from earlier ages of our world, over which the order of the Coniferae -- now attested in Brazil by only this one species -- reigned freely across unbounded stretches
of forest, and today is a mash that has been transformed into cheap
coal.The deeper you have passed into the shadows of the forest, the
more forcefully that thought will occupy you, while your trailing fellow
travelers tread one after another on a narrow, unused path that winds
around powerful trees, while at one moment the horses' hooves clatter
against roots that run out a long way, and at another everything is
silent, since they are passing across ground made smooth by fallen,
needle-shaped leaves.
Southernsky
But nighttime travel affected me most of all, when the pale moon can
be seen through the breaks in the clouds or the stars burn in the black depths of the sky, the whole surrounding region lies still, while you
do not know if a hospitable roof will receive you, a foreigner desiring
rest, or if you will have to pass the night awake under the open sky.
Then the field stretches out cloaked in darkness wherever the prospect
lies open, then the grove's recesses frighten, secrets disclose secrets.
The trees stand motionless between the radiant white of the moon and
shadow. All life withdraws and death holds sway, unless a surprised
boar starts suddenly or a vulture cries, aloft on full wings, or those
nocturnal flying creatures screech and clamor, which with their strange,
broken voices strike now terror, now amazement into a foreigner.
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