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NEW PUBLICATION. 273
themselyes by thinking that the produce they might be able to send to Europe
would materiaUv affect the prices.
" We started early next morning, and soon after left the cart-road, which
ever since our departure from Leon we had been able to follow, and which
passed over tolerably level gi'ouud, though round the large volcanoes and over
fields of lava. The road we now took, Cleto informed us, was a short cut, but,
like most short cuts if one is not quite familiar with them, it turned out to be
rather a long one. The whole day we did not see a house or meet a single
human being, and, except two stagnant pools, the only water we found was a
Httle brook. On advancing, the country became more hilly, and we had to
cross valleys full of large boulders, resting on black mould, in the rainy season
one mass of mud. It was very warm indeed, and, as most of the trees were
quite leafless, as ours are in the depth of winter, we suffered very much from
the sun. We soon finislied a few bottles of water which we carried along with
us, and to quench our thu-st ate some Hog-plums and ' uvas ' {Ardisia coriacea).
One of the valleys was full of trees bearing fruits like Oranges ; and Captain
Holman, delighted at the sight, galloped ahead to gather some. To his disappomtment,
though not to mine, these ' Oranges ' turned out to be the fruit of
a Calabash-tree {Crescentia alata), the seeds of which the Nicaraguans make
into a cooling drink, and sell in some of the shops of the towns, whilst the
shell is turned into drinking-cups. After continued travelling in this inhospitable
region, we were glad to perceive, towards simset, a farm, which stood
on the top of a hUl, and rejoiced in the name of Hacienda de Pdon. This
farm struck me as the most tidily kept in the whole of Xicaragua, the principal
dweUing-house being extremely clean and comfortable. An evergreen Fig-tree,
with a crown of gigantic dimensions, was diffusing a dehcioua coolness and
shade around the place."
After leaving Achuapa, a tolerably large village,
" The road passed Las Tablas, where for the first time we found ourselves in
a most delightfully cool temperature, and in a forest of Fir-trees {Pinus tenuifolia,
Benth., known by the name of ' Ocote,' a corruption of the Aztec
(Mexican) ' Ocotl. ') I may, however, add that this is not the most southern
limit of the Pines on the Pacific side of America, but that it is, as far as at
present ascertained, in latitude 12° 40' north, on the Volcan Tiejo, near Chinandega,
at an elevation of three thousand feet above the sea-level, whilst the
most northern hmit, as I have shown in - my Flora of Eskimoland, is on the
banks of the river Xoatak, in latitude 66° 44' 0" north, where Captain Bedford
Pim found a regular forest composed of a species (Abies arotica, A. Murr.)
closely allied to the White Pine. We did not long remain in this deUghtfully
cool atmosphere, but were compelled again to descend into the hot valleys,
passing the village of San Juan de la Maya."
The journey thence led to the farm of Bonbon.
" We left Bonbon early the next morning, and travelled about three leagues
more in the liot valleys, the vegetation of which was very much like that of
the Pacific coast of the Isthmus of Panama, many of the species being identically
the same in both countries. Again ascending some mountam-ridges, we
were once more greeted by the Pine-trees and a dehghtfidly cool breeze. Here
I found a species of Oreopanax with large palmate leaves, new to me ; a
pui-ple Salvia, a pink Melastomacea, and Pteris aquilina ; a species of Rhipsalis
grew on the Pine-trees. Saw no snakes, and only one monkey, some
luacaws, and that beautiful bird with two long feathers in tail, the Trogon re-
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