62 BOTANY OF THE VOYAGE OF THE SULPHUR. 
only a very varied scene, but one which really embraces a very considerable tract 
of country. This too is greatly varied by the broken surface and irregular direc- 
tion of the masses of land, whence arise certain conspicuous changes in the 
vegetation, and these diversified again by the different shadows and lights, which 
also receive their modifications with the distance. The whole offers a scene 
which arrests the attention even of the exhausted traveller, and the reminiscences 
of after times are apt to be rich even to the minute concomitants which attend 
them. Man seems but a little being when moving through such a wilderness, and I 
remember that it was on one occasion quite ludicrous to hear the very insignifi- 
cant shouts our greatest efforts could raise to recall a truant fellow-traveller. 
At Realejo the accession of the rains is deferred till April. In the vicinity 
the continuity of the Andes is interrupted, and the surface is flat and with a very 
trifling general elevation; a few volcanic mountains are spread about. The 
mahogany forests stretch towards the Pacific, and a few stragglers are found on 
its shores. Our visits to the Gulfs of Nicoya and Fonseca were not productive, 
indeed the sameness of an unbroken but dreary and profitless forest was nowhere 
more forcibly felt. Many of the upper lands are rather densely clothed with 
Pinus occidentalis, The dry season at Acapulco is rich in the great variety of 
Bauhinia ; the oaks approach the low lands, and take their lower station at about 
fifteen hundred feet. A great part of the country is occupied by small forest 
growth; the summits of the mountain ranges often display bare brown spaces, 
piled with naked masses of granite. In the elevated lands a different vegetation 
obtains to what is noticed lower down. Leguminoseé abound, and in general dif- 
ferent from those of the plains. 
San Blas. In the immediate neighbourhood, and covering a large tract of 
‘country, an insipid maritime vegetation prevails, attributable in great part to 
inundations from the sea. A pathway of some miles long at length leads to a 
more promising scene. . The road to Tepic traverses some very fine forest, but 
When this ascends the hills, the country is more open, and some magnificent views — 
are spread around. Many of the Mimosa of the forest furnish specimens of remark- 
cin ee ae en eae minutely divided foliage has a very light and 
bene aR “a Pa iar delicate green; those of the elevated lands 
vistto is clbelly atsiien Re Be may here be seen where the Chamerops pal- 
secsivich nly Cane : giant arms of the protean figs, and which has 
a ctancidie ya e from the published figures of Mirbel and Decan- 
: : Tar greater physiological value was seen in a full-grown 
-_ which presented midway up its trunk a fork of two branches of equal 
- tepic itself is picturesquely situated in a plain sur- 
