134 RUBBER PLANTING ON THE 



for Santa Rosa, but not over the trail by which I had come in. This 

 time it was over a clear path, through the planted rubber trees, dipping 

 down into the forest, and over a road with a soft carpet of matted leaves 

 two or three feet deep, and as springy as if made of rubber a new trail, 

 and all on La Buena Ventura land. On reaching the railroad, we sent 

 the horses back, and after waiting awhile, hoping for a train which 

 might or might not run that day, we started to walk towards Santa 

 Lucretia, where the new road joins the National Tehuantepec Rail- 

 road. Walking a railroad track under any circumstances is hard work, 

 but that track was certainly not made for tramps or actors. It had been 

 hastily laid in the rainy season so as to make connection at Santa 

 Lucretia, and infrequent and slow though the trains were, it was already 

 a godsend to the planters and travelers. We knew, also, that as soon as 

 the dry season carn it would be straightened, ballasted, and put in 

 shape. But its prospective virtues did not make the walking any easier. 

 It was not altogether because the sleepers were laid at uneven distances, 

 and often not spiked to the rails, or that the grass had grown up and 

 covered both with a slippery tangle, nor was it the clayey mud that 

 often rose flush with the rail tops, but it was the combination of all 

 these that tired us out ere we had gone very far. Still, we had no 

 thought of backing out, and so plodded steadily on, our packs on our 

 shoulders, our feet clogged with mud, and wondering if luck would 

 send the construction train to our assistance. But the trip was not 

 without its compensations. The day was gorgeous, and my companion, 

 botanist and enthusiast as he is, talked of the trees and plants in a way 

 that would make one forget any sort of hardship. 



Speaking of the forest, one of the most conspicuous trees is a sort 

 of a banyan, which has all the idiosyncrasies of that tree of many 

 trunks, and grows to a great size. It is a species of Ficns which has 

 not as yet been identified, but is probably the Ficns Benjamina. On 

 tapping it gives a certain amount of latex, but of a very sticky nature, 

 and probably of no value. There are also a great many mahogany 

 trees, but in the former lumbering operations the larger of them have 

 been cut out, and while there are many of them that would square per- 

 haps twelve or fourteen inches, there are not so many which would go 

 up to eighteen inches, the old time test. However, mahogany is so plen- 

 tiful that many of the bridges across the streams on the forest trails 

 are made of squared mahogany logs, one or two of them laid side by 

 side, and mahogany furniture is very common in the planters' home 

 furnishings. There is considerable lignum vitcc, and on the track we 



