DR. C. DORAT'S SKETCHES. 303 



copalchi and a few quina trees, with sarsaparilla. About the 1863. 

 year 1780, this town, then very large, was nearly destroyed by a 

 flood of liquid mud, that issued suddenly from a small hill 

 opposite; a great portion of the inhabitants fled to the upper 

 lands, and settled the present pueblo of Ateos, on the main road 

 to San Salvador. The whole of these lands are volcanic, and 

 form part of the volcanic group of Santa Ana and Izalco. 



These are the principal towns trading in balsam ; there are, 

 however, many small villages and cliacras, or farms, having trees 

 and working them, with whose names I have not become 

 acquainted. The Indian name of the balsam is Hod ski-it, or Od 

 sheet ; in Spanish it is called Balsamo negro. 



The drawings I inclose you are first, a sketch of the process 

 of extracting the balsam ; second, a Tecomate with its covering, 

 and the open bag used as a press ; thiid, sketch of a tribute jar 

 representing tine pajutf-. 



In addition to the sketches here referred to, and which are 

 produced in the woodcuts of this paper, Dr. Dorat has favoured 

 me with specimens of the balsam-tree, Myroxylon Pereirce, Kl. ; Specimens of 

 and as I have also received it from three other independent t e t f e g m 

 collectors, I do not feel the least hesitation in regarding it as the 

 source of the whole of the Balsam of Peru of commerce. 

 Dr. Dorat is himself of this opinion ; and the late Mr. Sutton 

 Hayes, who was an excellent botanical observer, and who gathered 

 specimens of the tree at Cuisnagua and in other places, assured 



le that so far as he knew, no other species of Myroxylon occurs 



>n the balsam coast or in Guatemala. 



Although there is some evidence to show that the balsamic 

 exudations of one or two other species of Myroxylon or Myro- 

 mm were formerly collected in other parts of tropical 



Linerica and sent to Europe as Balsam of Peru, it is hardly importation 



n that account the less certain that for nearly three centuries of the Balsam. 



he great bulk of the drug imported has had the same origin as 

 that of the present day. At the period of the Spanish conquest 

 the balsam was an important production of the very region 

 where it is still obtained, as is evidenced by its forming part of 

 the tribute carried by the aborigines of the coast to the chiefs in 

 e interior. It appears, moreover, that the estimation in which 



t was held by the Indians was soon shared by their invaders ; 



