302 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap. 
the nearest port to Limon, where a negro car- 
penter put together the Wardian cases, and a raft 
was purchased to take them down to Guayaquil. 
The construction of this raft was interesting, and 
the description of it and of the dangerous voyage 
down the river will complete the essential portions 
of this Report. 
I will first give, however, a short letter written 
while Spruce was delayed in the city.] 
To Mr. John Teasdale 
Guayaquil, Nov. 6, i860. 
The town of Guayaquil extends about half a 
league along the margin of the river, which is here 
two miles broad. The principal street, called the 
Malecon (or Mole), runs by the river throughout that 
distance ; but the town is narrow, and at the back 
stretches a wide, and what is now an arid, plain ; but 
in the rainy season (which will shortly set in) all this 
plain is water and mud. Beyond the plain a salt 
creek impedes further progress in that direction. 
The houses are built of a framework of timber, neatly 
overlaid with bamboo-cane, and plastered within 
and without. The rooms are mostly papered and 
painted, and are often elegantly and even richly 
furnished — although sparsely, as befits a hot climate. 
The upper rooms project so far over the lower 
that they form a broad covered footway, which has 
a boarded floor, and affords a welcome shade in the 
heat of the day. A town built of such combustible 
materials is constantly exposed to conflagrations, 
and although there are several fire-engines, two of 
which are manned entirely by foreigners, the fires 
