The residents of Comayagua are chiefly the owners of haciendas situated in the neighborhood, or small tradesmen, with four or five thousand lazy and worthless half-breeds, who live upon _tortillas_, or corn-cakes, and the fruits in which the country abounds. The most conspicuous feature of their life is the filth that surrounds them, and the freedom with which their pigs and chickens enjoy the shelter of the dwelling. A few stone jars of native make, a few rude calabashes, a couple of hammocks, and a few broken articles of furniture, constitute the equipment of a peon’s house. The man of the house swings in a hammock while his spouse brings water from the stream in a large stone jar upon her head, and the pigs and chickens and children lie upon the floor indiscriminately mixed. The pigs take the tortillas out of the mouths of the children, and the compliment is returned, while the chickens forage upon every article of food within their reach. Both cotton and silk grow upon trees, the vegetable silk being of very fine and soft fibre, and frequently used by the natives in the manufacture of robosas, serapas, and other articles of wear, while the product of the cotton-tree is utilized in a similar manner. [Illustration: HARVESTING ONE OF THE STAPLES.] There is said to be a greater variety of medicinal plants in Honduras than in any country on the globe, and the botany of the country contains nearly every tree and shrub and flower that is known to man. They are all of spontaneous growth, and might be made a prolific source of wealth, but are entirely neglected. There is one famous weed, called by the natives _el agrio_, which is a certain cure for sunstroke, or for prostration from exposure to the sun or over-exertion, and is used for both men and animals. As it is excessively bitter, the leaf of the plant is wound about the bit of the bridle of a sunstruck horse, and the animal gradually sucks the juice from it. The leaves are dried in the shade, and a tea made of them by the natives to cure sunstroke and other diseases of the brain or blood. The interior of the country is beyond the reach of markets, because of the absence of transportation facilities. In this respect the people are no further advanced than they were two hundred years ago. The only wagon-roads in the country are one built by a party of Americans near San Pedro, in the west, and a few miles of a national highway that a century ago was begun for the purpose of connecting Amapala, the Pacific port, with Tegucigalpa. [Illustration: THE FLOATING POPULATION.]