ON THE MYROSPERMUM OF SONSONATE. 
143 
the whole tract, excepting a few parts on the borders of the ocean, 
is so much broken up by spurs and branches thrown off from the 
main eminence, and so thickly covered by forest as to be nearly 
impassable to a traveller on horseback ; from this cause, it is so 
rarely visited, that very few residents, either of Sonsonate or Sal- 
vador, have ever entered it. Within this space are situated some 
five or six villages, inhabited solely by Indians, who are so jeal- 
ous of their possessions, that they will not suffer any of a different 
race to live among them. They cultivate so little ground for 
maize, frixoles, plantains, and other necessaries for subsistence, 
besides a very small quantity of cocoa, that they are not unfre- 
quently forced to purchase these articles from adjoining parts. 
They have their own municipalities and chief men, governing 
themselves pretty much as they please, being, in fact, almost inde- 
pendent of every other authority. In some of the villages there 
is a church, but in no one a resident curate, who, when his minis- 
try is deemed indispensable on festivals or other occasions, is at- 
tentively conveyed by them to and from Guayacoma or Ateas, to 
which curacies they nominally are dependant. Strictly speaking, 
they hold no other intercourse with other towns than what is neces- 
sary for carrying on their peculiar traffic. 
" They support themselves by the produce of the balsam trees 
and cutting cedar timber, of which they furnish large quantities 
in plank and scantling to Sonsonate and San Salvador for build- 
ing purposes and carpentering, with occasionally some pieces of 
more valuable wood, fit for cabinet work. Their chief wealth is 
the balsam, of which they take to market from fifteen to twenty 
thousand lbs. weight annually, yielding from four thousand seven 
hundred, to six thousand three hundred dollars. It is sold in 
small portions at a time in the before-mentioned towns to persons 
who purchase for exportation. The trees yielding this commodity 
are very numerous on this pr ivileged spot, and apparently limited 
to it, for on other parts of the coasts, apparently identical in soil 
and climate, rarely an individual of the same species is here and 
there met with. 
" The balsam is extracted by making an incision in the tree, 
whence it gradually exudes, and is absorbed by pieces of cotton 
rags, inserted for the purpose. These, when thoroughly saturated, 
