April 1, 1865.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



NORTHERN PERU. 407 



where in the world. The flowers fire followed by pendulous flattish 

 yellow pods, 6 to 8 inches long, about a finger's breadth and half 

 as thick, containing several thin flat rhombic seeds, immersed in a 

 sweetish mucilaginous compactly spongy but brittle substance, which is 

 the nutritive part. These pods are greedily devoured by horses, cows, 

 and goats, but especially by asses, which are more numerous than any 

 other domestic animals. It is a very concentrated and heating kind of 

 food, and I have seen horses after eating it chew the leaves of the cas- 

 tor-oil plant, or any kind of rubbish, to counteract its stimulating pro- 

 perties. It is also a Very strong aphrodisiac, and in the month of April, 

 when the first crop is ripe, and the pods which the wind shakes off in 

 great quantities are picked up by animals as they fall, one cannot walk 

 in the potreros without risk of being run over by the amorous donkeys 

 that career madly about. I am assured that a similar effect is produced 

 on the Indians by eating a sort of porridge which they call llupishin, 

 made of mashed algarrobo pods and maize flour. The seeds pass through 

 the intestines of animals uninjured, and are to be seen in vast quanti- 

 ties blown about the country by the winds. From their shape and size 

 they look exactly like the articulations of a Mimosa pod. 



The algarrobo secretes an inflammable gum-resin, which exudes from 

 cracks in the bark and coagulates into a blackish mass. Advantage is 

 taken of it to prostrate the trees by fire, when it is required to clear the 

 ground for cultivation. Cutting them down is scarcely ever resorted to, 

 the timber being so hard as soon to render useless the best-tempered 

 axe. The method employed is this : — A truncheon of wood, alight at 

 one end, is laid on the ground with that end touching the tree to wind- 

 ward. The trunk soon takes fire, and (especially if the wind be strong) 

 is in a few hours burnt right through nearly horizontally, the part de- 

 stroyed rarely exceeding from half a foot to a foot in breadth ; and 

 being thus prostrated its still burning end is covered with earth to ex- 

 tinguish the fire. There is no better material for fuel than algarrobo 

 wood, and its very great hardness and durability would make it a most 

 desirable timber for any kind of construction, were it not that it grows 

 so crooked and is so intractable to work. 



Potreros from which animals have been long excluded sometimes 

 grow so thick, from two kinds of lianas which fill up the intervals of the 

 trees, as to be impassable. A species of Rhamnus, called " Lipe," armed 

 with formidable decussate spines, and producing minute 4r-5-merous 

 flowers, followed by small edible black berries, supports itself against 

 the algarrobos and climbs high among their branches. When it grows 

 alone and has room to spread, it forms large round bushes, each many 

 yards in diameter, and 12 to 15 feet high. Bushes of lipe, scattered 

 over the bare ground, look at a distance not unlike the small groves of 

 hollies or other evergreens that stud the sanded or gravelled surface of 

 an English shrubbery. In these bushes hide by day numerous foxes, 

 which come out by night in quest of food. They are as fond of melons as 



