AN EXCURSION TO OBYDOS 79 
name — we entered on a wide bend of the river to 
southward, whose coast was mostly a steep cliff, 
at that time, when the water was at its lowest level, 
rising to a height of near 200 feet, and with a good 
deal of stratified rock exposed at its base. Here 
we found a few interesting plants, especially a 
handsome Rubiad (Calycophylhtm coccineum, D. C), 
with long rampant stems, rufous bark peeling off 
in thin flakes, large opposite leaves, and flowering 
peduncles one to two feet long, thickly beset with 
cymules of small yellow flowers, the outermost 
flower of each cymule subtended by a large leafy 
bract, near 3 inches long, scarlet above, red 
beneath, and with its stalk so united to the calyx 
as to seem a continuation of one of the teeth of the 
latter. Some parts of the cliff appeared from below 
in a perfect flame from the abundance of these 
gorgeous bracts, to which the plant owes its Indian 
name Coruse-caa or Sun-leaf With it grew a fine 
Bignonia, with downy flowers of the deepest purple ; 
and on the top of the cliff, under the shade of trees, 
there was good store of a fern (^Gymnogramine rufay 
Desv.), whose pinnate fronds were marked on the 
underside with numerous close reddish streaks 
(rows of capsules). 
The cultivation of the Cacao was far more inter- 
esting to me than the indigenous vegetation. The 
Cacao tree {Theobroma — Food of the Gods) has 
been so often described, as have also these very 
plantations of Santarem and Obidos, that it is use- 
less to describe them further ; but as I have since 
seen the Cacao plantations of Guayaquil — perhaps 
the most important in the world — a comparison of 
