startled by a quiet remark that the tree close by us was the Seringa, or India-rubber-tree. We rushed to it, axe in hand, cut off a piece of bark, and had the satisfaction to see the extraordinary juice come out. Catching a little in a box I had with me, I next day found it genuine India-rubber, of a yellowish colour, but possessing all its peculiar properties. It being some saint’s day, in the evening a fire was lit in the road in front of our house, and going out we found Isidora and Vincente keeping it up. Several others were visible in the street, and there appeared to be a line of them reaching to the city. They seemed to be made quite as a matter of business, being a mark of respect to certain of the more illustrious saints, and, with rockets and processions, form the greater part of the religion here. The glorious southern constellations, with their crowded nebulæ, were shining brilliantly in the heavens as the fire expired, and we turned into our hammocks well satisfied with all that we had seen during the day. _July 4th._—The vegetation now improved in appearance as the dry season advanced. Plants were successively budding and bursting their blossoms, and bright green leaves displaced the half-withered ones of the past season. The climbers were particularly remarkable, as much for the beauty of their foliage as for their flowers. Often two or three climb over one tree or shrub, mingling in the most perplexing though elegant confusion, so that it is a matter of much difficulty to decide to which plant the different blossoms belong, and should they be high up it is impossible. A delicate white and a fine yellow convolvulus were now plentiful; the purple and yellow trumpet-flowers were still among the most showy; and some noble thick-leaved climbers mounted to the tops of trees, and sent aloft bright spikes of scarlet flowers. Among the plants not in flower, the twin-leaved _Bauhinias_ of various forms were most frequently noticed. The species are very numerous: some are shrubs, others delicate climbers, and one is the most extraordinary among the extraordinary climbers of the forest, its broad flattened woody stems being twisted in and out in a most singular manner, mounting to the summits of the very loftiest forest-trees, and hanging from their branches in gigantic festoons, many hundred feet in length. A handsome pink and white _Clusia_ was now abundant, with large shining leaves, and flowers having a powerful and very fragrant odour. It grows not only as a good-sized tree out of the ground, but is also parasitical on almost every other forest-tree. Its large round whitish fruits are called “cebola braba” (wild onion), by the natives, and are much eaten by birds, which thus probably convey the seeds into the forks of lofty trees, where it seems most readily to take root in any little decaying vegetable matter, dung of birds, etc., that may be there; and when it arrives at such a size as to require