242 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



food for cattle, and were there made fast for the 

 night. Here we slept tranquilly, save that we 

 were occasionally aroused by the snuffing of bears 

 around us ; and before daylight Bermeo and his 

 companion were on foot, and making their way 

 through the forest in quest of Cinchona trees. 

 They returned at 7 o'clock, having found only 

 a single tree standing, and from that one the bark 

 had been stripped near the root, so that it was 

 dead and leafless. We breakfasted, and then I 

 accompanied them into the forest. We followed 

 the track they had already opened, and then 

 plunged deeper in, meeting every few minutes with 

 prostrate naked trunks of the Cinchona, but with 

 none standing. Bermeo several times climbed 

 trees on the hill-sides, whence he could look over 

 a large expanse of forest, but could nowhere get 

 sight of the large red leaves of the Cinchona. At 

 length we began to tire, and we decided on return- 

 ing towards our hut, making a detour along a 

 declivity which we had not yet explored. We 

 went on still a long time with the same fortune, 

 and were beginning to despair of seeing a living 

 plant, when we came on a prostrate tree, from 

 the root of which a slender shoot, 20 feet high, was 

 growing. My satisfaction may well be conceived, 

 and my first thought was to verify a report that 

 had been made to me by every one who had 

 collected Cascarilla, namely, that the trees had 

 milky juice, which to me was strange and incredible 

 in the Rubiaceae. Bermeo made a slit in the bark 

 with the point of his cutlass, and I at once saw 

 what was the real fact. The juice is actually 

 colourless, but the instant it is exposed to the air 



