Plum-bearing bushes abound from June to September with red, yellow, and wax-colored fruit; the _morus_, or wild mulberry-tree, literally covers the ground with its dark, honey-sweet berries; the crown of the pino-palm is loaded with grape-like clusters, which, struck by a cudgel, discharge a shower of rich acorn-shaped nuts; guavas, alligator-pears, mamayos, chirimoyas, and wild oranges display flowers and fruit at the same time, and under the alternate influence of heat and moisture produce their perennial crops with unfailing regularity; the algarobe (_Mimosa siliqua_), a species of mezquite not larger than an apple-tree, yields half a ton of the edible pods known as carob-beans or St. John's bread; the figs of the gigantic banyan-tree furnish an aromatic syrup; the trunks of the _Robinia viridis_ exude an edible gum; and from the vine-tangle forming the vault of the forest hang the bunches and clusters of forty or fifty varieties of wild grapes, many of them superior to our scuppernongs and catawbas, while the amber-colored _Uva real_ rivals the flavor of the finest Damascene raisin-grapes. A forced march of ten hours through fens and silent virgin woods brought us at last to the hummock region; the plain swelled into mounds, and the currents of the sluggish bayous became more perceptible. The higher levels showed vestiges of cultivation; we crossed dykes and ditches, a neglected fence here and there, and where the larger trees had been felled grapes and liana figs covered even the bushes and hedges in incredible profusion. A troop of capuchin monkeys leaped from a low mango-tree, and two stumbling youngsters who brought up the rear in the scramble for the high timber would have tempted us to a chase if we had not been anxious to reach less malarious quarters before night. The neighborhood of the great swamps still betrayed itself by that peculiar miasmatic odor which emanates from stagnant pools and decaying vegetable matter, and in the recesses of the forest fluttered the slate-colored swamp-moth, the ominous harbinger of the mosquito. The tipulary pests were getting ready for action; their skirmishers, the _sancudos_ and _Moscas negras_, had already opened the campaign, and became sensible as well as audible in spite of the rapidity of our march. One of the twilight species, the _Mosca delgada_, a straw-colored little midge, bites like a fire-ant,--a mischievous and, it seems, unpractical freak of nature, since the superfluous virulence of its sting must certainly interfere with the business facilities of a suctorial insect. [As evening descended the travellers reached a cotton plantation, and hastened to take refuge from the rising cloud of mosquitoes.]