44 
GUATEMALA. 
ered. Nothing could be seen beyond the river, for we 
were in a green lane bordered by all the tropics can 
produce of vegetable life j and as the day wore on we 
felt the weariness of seeing. A little white passion¬ 
flower (P. Brighami ), with curiously clipped leaves, three 
kinds of morning-glory, a crimson abutilon, and a host 
of plants whose family alone was known to us, had been 
consigned to the plant-press. At first there were no 
palms ; but as we ascended the stream, which was in 
flood, the banks at last appeared, growing gradually 
higher, and only on solid ground could the palms find 
foothold. The cohune (Attalea cohune ), with its long 
clusters of hard oily nuts, came first; then a small pin¬ 
nate-leaved, graceful, but unknown species ; then an 
astrocarya, with dreadful spines and hard but edible 
nuts; and finally, on the rocky banks, slender, long¬ 
stemmed species, and a climbing palm that, like the rat¬ 
tan, attained a length of several hundred feet. Our first 
glimpse of the family in full force was at the junction of 
the two mouths of the Chocon. Here there is an en¬ 
largement of the river into a lagoon, and the eastern 
branch looks as large and easily navigable as that we had 
entered. At another time we found this was the case. 
Bambus bent their graceful stems in clusters over the 
water, and here and there tall reeds in blossom waved 
their light plumes against the dark-green trees behind 
them. 
With the drift floating down stream we noticed queer 
green things which were evidently vegetable; but what 
else ? At last we came to some sapoton-trees ( Pachira ); 
and it was their fruit, now ripening, — like in size and 
appearance to a husked coconut,—that furnished our 
