The mahogany is one of the few trees in the tropical forests whose leaves change color with the season, and the Carrib Indians, who are employed to cut them, discover their presence by this peculiarity. They climb the highest tree they can find, sight the mahoganies, locate their position with great skill, and lead the choppers to them with unerring accuracy. When the tree is found, the underbrush around it and the lower limbs are first cleared away before the trunk is attacked. When it falls, the branches are chopped off; then the log is hewn into shape, after which it is dragged by oxen--sometimes a hundred yoke being employed--to the nearest water-course, the choppers going ahead and clearing away with their machetes the underbrush and small trees to make a road. When the timber is rolled into the river, it is branded and allowed to lie there until the rainy season, when the waters rise and carry it down to the sea. There are other trees of great value in the forests, and not for timber alone. The caoutchouc, or rubber-tree--a name which when properly pronounced sounds like the plunge of a frog into the water--kachunk--is very plentiful in the Nicaragua forests, although this resource, like most of the others, is comparatively idle. The Mosquito Indians gather some, however, which is shipped from Blewfields and Greytown in small quantities. The quality is not so good as that which comes from Brazil, as the sap is not reduced with any skill or care. The average North American supposes that the rubber is obtained like pitch, and comes from the exuded gums of the tree, but the process is altogether different, resembling our method of making maple sugar. When the sap begins to rise from the roots to the branches of the tree, expeditions of thirty or forty men are organized, who are furnished by the exporting merchants with an outfit of buckets, axes, machetes, pans, and provisions, and start into the woods. The _uleros_, as the rubbermen are called, from the term _ule_, which is the native name for the tree, are always paid a small sum in advance, ostensibly for the support of their families during their absence, but which is always exhausted in debauchery before they start. When they reach the forest of the ule-trees they build a shanty of palms and brush, if there is not one already standing, on the bank of some stream, as a great deal of water is required for the manufacture of the gum. There they distribute their large cans and buckets through the forest at convenient intervals and proceed to business. When the _ulero_ selects his tree, he clears the trunk of vines and creepers and climbs it to the branches. Then he descends, cutting diagonal channels through the bark with a single blow of his machete, or knife, left and right, left and right, all meeting at the angle. At the bottom of the lowest cut an iron trough about six inches long and four inches wide is driven into the tree, which catches