REPORT OF EXPLORATIONS IN CENTRAL AMERICA. 421 



occupied with a, dictionary of tlie ]Mayfi language, giving tlie dialect actually 

 spoken in the district of Bacalar, Yucatan, and in some recent settlements of 

 Yucatan Indians in the territory of the colony. Having been engaged myself 

 for a number of years in the "work of reproducing from old and rare manuscripts 

 the Maya language as spoken and written in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 

 turies, I derived both information and ]>leasnre from the intercourse with this 

 learned missionary. The collections of specimens of natural history made in 

 and near Belize consisted almost exclusively of birds, shot and prepared by my 

 assistant, and have been forwarded to the Smithsonian Institution. Unfortu- 

 nately circumstances beyond my control obliged me to part in Belize with this 

 assistant, very much to my regret, as his dexterity and expediency in skinning 

 and preserving specimens would have added a far greater value to the collections 

 subsequently made. Another unlucky accidetat was the loss of a trunk con- 

 taining a. number of instruments belonging to the Institution and mj^self, and 

 several articles of travelling apparel, stolen from the loaded boat in the night 

 before my intended departure from Belize, during a temporary absence of the 

 watchman. Part of the most necessary implements was within a few months 

 kindly replaced by the Institution. 



After having lost a few days in fruitless endeavors to recover the stolen prop- 

 erty, of which no traces have as yet been found, I left Belize the 12th of January, 

 ISGG, pursuing the course of the Belize river upwards as far as it is navigable 

 for larger canoes, and reached, after eleven travelling and two resting days, San 

 Pedro Buenavista, the farm of a mestizo from Yucatan, on the western branch 

 of the Belize river, a few miles above its confluence with the southern branch, 

 or Rio Macal. The Belize river has its head-waters in the wide plains limited 

 to the north by the Chaltuna, or Peten lake, and to the south by the Passion 

 river, (Rio de la Pasion.) The country through which it winds to the coast is 

 alluvial, with sandy tracts between the tributar}^ rivers and the main channel 

 called pine ridges. Specimens were collected from three species of pines and of 

 two oaks, which are almost the solitary vegetable production of these sandy plains ; 

 and also, among a few other birds, a woodpecker which, like the Melanerpcs Form i- 

 cU'orus, in California, preserves acorns in neat round excavations pecked into 

 the soft barks of the pines. This is for the purpose of feeding on the '\\orms 

 ■which soon appear within the nuts, leaving the trunks of the pine trees perforated 

 with many holes resembling those produced by musket balls. Rocky ridges 

 of a calcareous stone intersect now and then the course of the river, causing a 

 number of rapids, of which, in time of high Avater, the passage is rather dangerous. 

 Little could be done during the boat voyage besides a careful rectification of 

 the river's course in the maps, and the entering in their proper ])laces of names 

 of existing settlements along the river banks. While on the Rio Hondo and 

 Rio Nuevo, as well as on the coast of the British colony, a number of well-con- 

 ducted agricultural settlements exist, there are on the Belize river only wood- 

 cutting establishments belonging to merchants in Belize. These are either 

 being actually worked under the direction of a foreman, (usually a mulatto,) or 

 abandoned, the buildings being occupied by negroes, who make a scanty living 

 cutting logwood on their own account, which they sell in Belize, bringing back 

 brandy and dry provisions, their only food, as they are too indolent to plant 

 anything in the fertile grounds around their decaying huts. Only where Yucatan 

 Indians have settled among them, a cornfield, a l^anana plantation, or fruit-trees 

 arc to 1)0 found. Whenever it was possible to make short excursions without 

 too jnuch delaying my voA'age, I examined the country along the river. Some 

 spcciniens of petrifactions from the calcareous ridges, when broken by the cur- 

 rent of rivulets, were prociu'ed ; also a number of land and fresh water shells, 

 and some birds. When no convenient settlement of Belize merchants or Indian 

 houses could be reached, we AA^ere wont to camp in the forest, using the leaves 

 of the corossa or cahoon palm for shelter and protection. 



