fell’ 
Heliconia Bihai, L. (the wild Plantain) but it is probably a 
different species. Its leaves are used for thatching temporary 
dwellings, and for tying up the food of the Indians. Maize is 
grown as one of the principal food supplies. It is very 
prolific and ripens at several periods of the year. It is now and 
has been apparently from the most ancient times, the principal 
food of the inhabitants of Central America. On the coast of Peru, 
Darwin found heads of it^ along with eighteen recent species 
of Marine shells, in a raised beach eighty-five feet above the level 
of the sea ; and in the same country it has been found in tombs 
apparently more ancient than the times of the Incas.f ^*In 
Mexico it was known from the earliest time of which we have any 
record in the picture writings of the Toltecs, and that ancient 
people carried it with them in all their wanderings. In Central 
America the stone grinders with which they bruised it down are 
almost invariably found in the ancient graves, having been buried 
with the ashes of the dead as an indispensable article of outfit for 
another world.” X We did not disturb any places of sepulchre, but 
had the good fortune to find in situ, a similar stone to those spoken 
of in the above quotation in a clump of bush during the earlier part 
of our journey. The method of bruising the maize spoken of 
by Belt, and quoted by Mr. Morris in his work on British Tlon- 
duras, did not come under our observation, but I saw some pre- 
pared food which had been made in an entirely different manner, 
and on enquiry among the Indians themselves by aid of an inter- 
preter, I learnt that this method of preparation was in general 
use among the Indians of the district. The method appeared to 
be, to simply bruise the maize — without any previous boiling to 
remove the skin of the grain as described by Belt — and then to tie 
it up tightly in the leaves of the Waaha” and boil it until it 
becomes a solid and somewhat glutinous mass, which is then car- 
ried with them on their journeys, and is eaten cold, or warmed up 
by another slight boiling. It is therefore probable, that the Mex- 
ican method of preparing the grain into cakes called tortillas, 
though stated by Belt to be common to Central America, did 
notin reality extend so far South as the Province of Yeragua; or 
that a more careless method of preparation has been adopted 
since the time he wrote, (1874.) The preparation is called ‘^Bou- 
you” in Spanish and Saa” in the Indian vernacular. I saw 
some of it in the hands of the Indians, but to me it did not look 
particularly inviting, as the outer skin of the grain rendered it to 
all appearance somewhat chaffy. During the afternoon I had an 
* “Geological Observations in South America, 1846,” p. 49, and “Animals and 
Plants under Domestication,” vol. 1, p. 320. 
t Von Tschudi, “Travels in Peru,” English Ed., p. 177. 
t “ The Naturalist in Nicaragua,” p, 65. 
