If the entrance to the Rio Dulce was well concealed, that to the Rio Chocon was still harder to find; and but for the rock island, one might try several apparent openings in the hedge-like border of the stream before entering the canal that sweeps in a semicircle into the actual river. Two alligators sat, like the porters at an Egyptian palace, opposite each other at the entrance, but dropped incontinently into the stream before our rifles were ready,—giving us an unpleasant reminder of what we might expect should we take a bath in the cool river. From animal to vegetable was but a glance; and the musky odor of the reptiles faded into the fragrance of a large purple passion-flower, which hung so low that we slipped into the _cayuco_, Frank and I, and paddled from bank to bank in the little mahogany dug-out, pulling down branches and vines, shaking out lizards and beetles, while humming-birds of almost every bright color, and butterflies of hues seldom seen in cooler climates, would hardly leave the fragrant flowers we gathered. Nothing could be seen beyond the river, for we were in a green lane bordered by all the tropics can produce of vegetable life; and as the day wore on we felt the weariness of seeing. A little white passion-flower (_P. Brighami_), with curiously clipped leaves, three kinds of morning-glory, a crimson abutilon, and a host of plants whose family alone was known to us, had been consigned to the plant-press. At first there were no palms; but as we ascended the stream, which was in flood, the banks at last appeared, growing gradually higher, and only on solid ground could the palms find foothold. The cohune (_Attalea cohune_), with its long clusters of hard oily nuts, came first; then a small pinnate-leaved, graceful, but unknown species; then an astrocarya, with dreadful spines and hard but edible nuts; and finally, on the rocky banks, slender, long-stemmed species, and a climbing palm that, like the rattan, attained a length of several hundred feet. Our first glimpse of the family in full force was at the junction of the two mouths of the Chocon. Here there is an enlargement of the river into a lagoon, and the eastern branch looks as large and easily navigable as that we had entered. At another time we found this was the case. Bambus bent their graceful stems in clusters over the water, and here and there tall reeds in blossom waved their light plumes against the dark-green trees behind them. With the drift floating down stream we noticed queer green things which were evidently vegetable; but what else? At last we came to some sapoton-trees (_Pachira_); and it was their fruit, now ripening,—like in size and appearance to a husked coconut,—that furnished our puzzle. The fruits split while on the tree, and drop the nuts, which are about as large as a hen’s egg, into the water, where they soon germinate, and float about with expanded cotyledons until caught on some shoal, or at the bank, where they take root.