276 THE ADVENTURES OF 



bottles half full of water, and assert that the animal predicts 

 good or bad weather by either coming up to the top or 

 keeping under the water. The tree-frog, like all its fellows, 

 buries itself in the mud daring winter, and remains torpid. 

 This lethargy, "which in glacial climates has the effect of 

 preserving it from hunger, must in Mexico have some other 

 cause, for in the latter country it can find food all the year 

 round. The skin of the tree-frog secretes a poisonous 

 matter." 



" Come here and look at an apple-tree !" cried Lucien, 

 suddenly. 



I hastened to the spot, and found a shrub about thirteen 

 or fourteen feet high, covered with berries of a yellowish 

 color, spotted with red. I recognized what is called in the 

 Antilles the soap-tree. This discoveiy came just in the 

 nick of time, and Sumichrast helped us in gathering some 

 of the useful fruit which would assist us to give our clothes 

 a thorough wash. Lucien tasted the little apples, which 

 were as transparent as ai'tificial fruit made of pure wax; 

 but he did not like their astringent flavor, and threw them 

 away with every expression of disgust. 



A quarter of an hour later, we were all kneeling on the 

 banks of the stream and trying who could perform the 

 greatest amount of washing, the fruit of the soap-tree af- 

 fording us a plentiful supply of lather. In the Terre-Tem- 

 peree, a root called amoli is a substitute for soap ; in the 

 Terre- Chaude a bulb named amolito is used for the same 

 purpose; lastly, in the Mistec province of Oajaca, the poor 

 find a natural soap in the bark of the Quillaja saponaria, a 

 tree belonging to the rose tribe. Even in Europe, a vege- 

 table soap is also found the soap-wort a little plant allied 

 to the pinks, and which adorns with its unpretending flow- 

 ers the edges of ditches, and is employed by housewives for 

 cleaning silk stuffs and reviving their faded colors. 



