A VISIT TO RUBBER PLANTATIONS IN NICARAGUA. 



ON BOARD THE SUNBEAM DECEMBER HEAT MEETING A WATER SPOUT 

 ARRIVAL AT BLUEFIELDS UP THE ESCONDIDO MORNING GLORY VINES AMONG THE 

 RUBBER TREES DEVASTATION OF CASTILLOA BY HEAVY RAINS INTERESTING 

 EXPERIMENTS IN TAPPING THE MANHATTAN PLANTATION VISITS TO OTHER 

 RUBBER GROWERS DISEASES OF THE CASTILLOA ON A FRUITER TO NEW ORLEANS. 



WE three, the Importer, the Manufacturer, and the Editor, left 

 Port Lirnon, Costa Rica, at 1.30 in the afternoon on a hot, 

 tropical December day. The short voyage from Port Limon 

 to Bluefields, something like one hundred and fifty rniles, was to be 

 taken on a small, fifty-two-ton schooner owned by Belanger's, Incorpor- 

 ated, of Nicaragua, and used in trading up and down the coast. The 



WHARF AT BFXANGER S. 



schooner was equipped with a gasoline auxiliary which took up most of 

 the room aft, and made the rest of it so thick with gasoline fumes that 

 it was difficult to stay in the cabin ten minutes at a time, so we lived 

 on deck. The vessel was called the Sunbeam and was manned by a 

 mixed crew of negroes from the Fortune Islands, San Bias Indians, 

 and one Englishman, and was commanded by a Cayman Islander. 



Starting out against a head wind, our gasoline "kicker" put us 

 along at the rate of about four miles an hour, and we sat scorching on 

 deck until finally the sun set and we turned in, still on deck, sleeping 



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