302 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



the nearest port to Limon, where a negro car- 

 penter put together the Wardian cases, and a raft 

 was purchased to take them down to Guayaquil. 

 The construction of this raft was interesting, and 

 the description of it and of the dangerous voyage 

 down the river will complete the essential portions 

 of this Report. 



I .will first give, however, a short letter written 

 while Spruce was delayed in the city.] 



To Mr. John Teas dale 



GUAYAQUIL, Nov. 6, 1860. 



The town of Guayaquil extends about half a 

 league along the margin of the river, which is here 

 two miles broad. The principal street, called the 

 Malecon (or Mole), runs by the river throughout that 

 distance ; but the town is narrow, and at the back 

 stretches a wide, and what is now an arid, plain ; but 

 in the rainy season (which will shortly set in) all this 

 plain is water and mud. Beyond the plain a salt 

 creek impedes further progress in that direction. 

 The houses are built of a framework of timber, neatly 

 overlaid with bamboo-cane, and plastered within 

 and without. The rooms are mostly papered and 

 painted, and are often elegantly and even richly 

 furnished although sparsely, as befits a hot climate. 

 The upper rooms project so far over the lower 

 that they form a broad covered footway, which has 

 a boarded floor, and affords a welcome shade in the 

 heat of the day. A town built of such combustible 

 materials is constantly exposed to conflagrations, 

 and although there are several fire-engines, two of 

 which are manned entirely by foreigners, the fires 



