150 
DOTTINGS ON THE ROADSIDE. [Chap. X.— B. S. 
specimen of a fish, which he had originally discovered 
in these parts. The vegetation on shore was hut 
poor; the hulk consisting of a white Plumieria , a leaf¬ 
less Bursera , some spiny Cactuses, Pineapples, Sarsapa¬ 
rilla, and, close to the sea, the poisonous Manchineal- 
tree, with the name of which all Europe has now 
become familiar hy its introduction into Meyerbeer’s 
grand opera of 1 L’Africaine.’ It is a pity, however, 
that Meyerbeer did not choose an Upas-tree (which 
does grow in Africa) instead of the Manchineal-tree, 
which does not extend its geographical limits beyond 
the tropics of the New World. But one would wil¬ 
lingly forgive this geographical blunder,—when even 
Shakespeare’s seaport in Bohemia has to be condoned, 
—if our scene-painters, who certainly can do clever 
things, were but to give faithful portraits of the Man- 
chineal, instead of the fanciful representations they 
favour us with. I for one should have been very 
thankful for such a lesson, for the first time I saw the 
Manchineal, which looks exactly like a Pear-tree in 
leaf, notwithstanding its name (meaning little Apple- 
tree, from the Spanish word Manzanillo), and cut some 
of its branchlets for my herbarium, I was blinded for 
two days by the acrid milk that issued from it, and 
suffered the most acute pain conceivable. 
On the 15th of June the ( Guatemala ’ dropped an¬ 
chor off Plaminco Island in the Bay of Panama, which 
is now the property of the railway company, and will 
become the terminus of the railroad \ the distance be¬ 
tween it and the shore is to be bridged over. This 
will be a vast improvement. Passengers and goods 
