IN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 305 
The cases were all in readiness, and the raft 
brought down the river and moored in front of the 
farmhouse, but Mr. Cross did not arrive with the 
plants until the 13th of December. Some diffi- 
culty had been experienced in procuring the re- 
quisite number of beasts of burden, and the making 
of cylindrical baskets to contain the plants had 
proved a tedious task ; besides that, the tying up 
each plant in wet moss, and the packing them in 
the baskets, were delicate operations which Mr. 
Cross could trust to no hands but his own. There 
had been not a few falls on the way, and some of 
the baskets had got partially crushed by the wil- 
fulness of the bulls in running through the bush ; 
but the greater part of the plants turned out 
wonderfully fresh. We had the cases taken down 
to the raft, and Don Matias lent us a couple of men 
to carry thither the earth, sand, and dead leaves 
necessary for making the soil to put in the cases. 
Mr. Cross put as many plants into the cases as he 
could possibly find room for, and only rejected a 
few that were so much injured by their journey 
from Limon that they were not likely to survive 
the voyage to India, the whole number put in 
being 637. As we might expect some rough treat- 
ment on the descent to Guayaquil, we did not 
venture to put on the glasses, but in their stead 
canoe and the weight of its cargo. I have never known the lianas to break ; 
and as I have sat in my canoe, anxiously watching its slow upward progress, 
my only care was that the lianas were securely fastened to the prow, or lest 
the sudden bursting of a whirlpool beneath the canoe should tear them from 
the hands of the Indians, as they with difiaculty held their way along the rocky 
shore. 
In the Guayaquil district, as on the Amazon, the aerial roots of various. 
Aroidete and Carludovicae are the common substitutes for string, but Bignonia 
stems are always preferred wherever strength is essential. 
VOL. II X 
