186 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
son of a noxious climate, had tried to overcome these obstacles by 
walking across, sleeping in the woods, eating quantities of fruit, and 
exposing themselves, unprotected by proper clothing, to the powerful 
rays of the mid-day's sun,—a sun that not unfrequently raises the 
temperature to 124? Fahr., forming a striking contrast to the snow- 
clad fields of Pennsylvania and Ohio, which they had just left. These 
causes tended to produce a cholera of the worst description, and it was 
for this reason that the * Herald? communicated with Panamà merely 
through the Consulate, and that botanical excursions on my "part were 
impracticable 
While eee I made the acquaintance of Mr. Von Warsewitch, a 
Polish botanist, who, enjoying the patronage of Alexander Von 
Humboldt, had been travelling seven months in the provinces of 
Panama and Veraguas. From Panama he went to Guayaquil in 
Ecuador, to a his researches from thence to Cuzco, the ancient 
capital of the Inca: 
Not being able to remain at Panamà, we spent several days at 
Taboga, the most delightful island in the bay. In its centre rises a 
hill about 1,000 feet high, eultivated with useful fruit and vegetables 
nearly-to the summit, sending down little streams to the valley, where 
between palms and tamarind trees, the habitations of the natives are 
almost hid. Walking amongst the Mammee and orange groves, seeing 
the Nispero, the Alligator-pear, and the Mango-trees, leaded with fruit, 
or admiring the extensive Pine-apple plantations on the side of stony 
hills, fancy transports the stranger into the garden of the Hesperides ; 
but however gratifying to the senses such a place appears, a collector is 
little benefited by it, and I was, therefore, glad to exchange Taboga 
for the coast of Veraguas, a more profitable field for botanical investi- 
gation. 
I disembarked at Remedios, a large village, and the first thing is saw 
there were some men making ropes. The cordage generally used in 
the Isthmus is obtained from different plants belonging to iene 
The best and whitest rope is made of the fibre of “ Corteza” (Apeib 
Petowmo, Aubl). A brownish-looking rope, easily affected by FRE 
(probably because the tree it is taken from contains much 
saline principle) is manufactured of “ Majagua de playa" (Hibiscus 
arboreus); and a third kind is obtained from ** Barrigon,” an undescribed 
tree, which I have called Bombas Barrigon. The Xylopia sericea, St. 
