Once up the steep and slippery bank, we found the land level, and in the dense forest there was no undergrowth. It always seems odd to a stranger in the tropics,—this entire absence of sod; but so dense is the upper foliage that there is no chance for small plants below, except such as can, like the sarsaparilla, climb up into the light above, or orchids, like the vanilla, which cling to, if they do not draw a part of their sustenance from, the tree-stems. The cohune palm (_Attalea cohune_, Martius.) was abundant, and by its presence confirmed the testimony of the dark chocolate soil to the exceeding fertility of the land. This palm seems to have three names applied to as many stages of growth. When young and stemless, it is _manàca_; in middle age, when the bases of the old leaves still cling to the trunk, it is _cohune_; and when age removes these scales, the smooth stem is _corozo_. I have never seen the manàca in flower or fruit, but I believe the three are but one species. Other palms were intermingled with these,—some in blossom, some in fruit,—but none so common nor so large, both in stem and leaf. Later on we shall see a picture of the cohune and its very valuable fruit. In one place along the bank I measured fourteen feet of soil of the best quality; nor was this surprising, since the valley through which the Rio Chocon flows is a catch-basin for the detritus of the limestone ranges of the Sarstun and Santa Cruz mountains, and its form guards against torrential floods which might wash away the rich deposit. When the summer rains flood the banks, as we found later, the water subsides in a few hours, owing to the wide-open lower course of the river. [Illustration: Barbecue at Benito.] A gigantic ceiba-tree (_Eriodendron_) stood not far from the river, and two of its great buttresses enclosed a semicircle thirty feet in diameter, while the projections themselves were not half a foot thick. Trees of very various kinds throw out these supports. I have even seen a goyava (_Psidium_), which usually has a rather slender trunk, expand most astonishingly into these buttresses when growing in a rich loose soil. It will, not unnaturally, occur to the reader that this must greatly increase the difficulty of felling such trees in clearing land. The difficulty is met by the woodmen in this way. A platform—called, strangely enough, a “barbecue”—is built of slim poles, often to a height of fifteen feet; and balanced on these frail supports, the cutter swings his long-handled axe. Of course he leaves a stump as high as his barbecue; but the ants (_comajen_) soon reduce this to dust. I have since then watched the cutters, and have wondered how they so speedily fell (they call it “fall”) a hard-wood tree, with no better vantage than two poles for their bare feet to cling to.