VOL. I. ] Mexican Notes. 217 
lands around the modern town are adapted to tropical fruits. Cocoa- 
nuts are largely raised, also bananas, zapotes, quijotes, pine apples, 
and, in the hills, chirimoyas and many others. Oranges appear not 
to do well‘in the alkaline soil near the sea, nor cane nor coffee, but 
these do well in the interior high lands. The export price of ban- 
anas is $4 per 100 bunches; of pine apples, $5 per 100. The best 
bananas are never exported; they are small, cream colored, and very 
delicate in flavor. : 
One day at the landing I saw a canoe which had just come down 
the river, landing a cargo of india-rubber. It was black as tar, and 
looked very sticky and filthy. Its price at the landing is $16 per 
100 pounds. Quite a large quantity of rubber is collected and sold 
here. The canoes used in this business, as, indeed, for most all other 
native traffic, are dug out from cedar logs, some of them being very 
large. The people, never very eager to adopt modern articles, are 
further restricted to the use of primitive things by the policy of gov- 
ernment, which taxes to death all articles of manufacture or of mod- 
ern use or convenience. Certainly government must exist, and as 
there are no land or property taxes, the expense must be borne by 
- duties, and of such, on imports, exports internal traffic, there is no 
lack. If a planter has anything to sell he pays tax before he can 
vend it; every bag or basket of fruit or vegetables that comes to mar- 
ket is first of all taxed; so that, Iam told, the poor man has no heart 
to raise anything more than for his own use. Truly, a poor man’s 
paradise! Every inducement is offered to prevent him from doing 
anything. ‘Sun yourself and wait” should be the national maxim. 
My first day’s trip was toward the hills to the north, along the 
high road to Tepec. The morning was not very favorable, being 
overcast with thin clouds, but warm, about go’, and at noon nearly 
100°. The day was allotted to plants and incidental butterflies and | 
beetles. Along the street fences and climbing over bushes were 
~ some pretty flowering vines, and in front of one thatched hut full of 
brown skinned natives was a vine running over a small tree that had 
the most lovely flower that I saw in Mexico. I managed to get only | 
a few little bunches of them. Cypress vine here grew wild and stout 
and hardy enough to fight its own battles for life. Some acacias” 
were in bloom, and many other plants and bushes, and flitting about 
were a few butterflies, of which I got specimens, mostly of worn, _ 
hardy winter species. Beetles also were rare, and I only got a few” 
