452 
ON  MYROXYLON  TOLUIFERUM,  ETC. 
almost  ashamed  to  mount  an  animal  not  much  higger  than  my- 
self, which  seemed  to  be  already  well  loaded,  but,  before  the 
day's  journey  was  done,  I  had  been  glad  to  take  occasional 
lifts  on  the  poor  donkey.  We  made  about  eighteen  miles  be- 
fore we  halted  for  the  night,  and  my  guide,  a  man  twice  my 
weight,  rode  every  foot  of  the  way.  What  with  the  burning 
sun,  the  thermometer  at  89°  in  the  shade,  and  the  heavy  load, 
I  did  not  much  envy  his  poor  «  burro." 
We  passed  some  balsam-trees  in  the  afternoon,  each  with  a 
lot  of  calabashes  stuck  on  its  trunk  to  catch  the  drug  which 
trickled  from  the  wounds  in  its  bark.  I  picked  up  a  few  of  the 
fruit  under  one  of  these  trees,  and  on  asking  him  what  they 
were,  he  said  they  were  "ojos  de  algo  palo  de  la  montafia." 
He  did  not  know  them,  although  he  told  me  he  had  been  ac- 
customed to  gather  balsam  since  his  boyhood. 
Our  second  day's  journey  wras  not  so  long  as  the  first, — I 
think  not  more  than  about  twelve  miles.  The  balsain-trees  oc- 
curred occasionally  during  the  whole  way.  We  stopped  at  a 
hut  in  the  forest  surrounded  by  a  small  clearing,  the  owner  of 
which,  like  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  Montana,  makes  part  of 
his  living  by  gathering  balsam.  The  trees  were  very  plentiful 
here,  and  generally  of  a  large  size.  Their  average  height  is 
about  70  feet,  and  the  trunk  is  sometimes  upwards  of  two  feet 
in  diameter  a  yard  from  the  ground,  and  generally  rises  to  a 
height  of  forty  feet  without  branching,  so  that  it  is  impossible 
to  get  at  either  foliage  or  fruit  without  cutting  down  the  tree. 
On  the  day  after  our  arrival,  I  got  the  man's  permission  to  have 
a  tree  felled  ;  he  did  not  charge  me  anything  for  the  tree,  but 
stipulated  that  I  should  pay  two  of  his  sons  a  dollar  each  for 
felling  it.  I  selected  an  old  tree,  nearly  2  feet  in  diameter. 
There  was  a  sprinkling  of  pods  upon  it,  but  it  was  not  by  any 
means  loaded.  The  pods  are  so  loosely  attached  to  the  branches 
and  so  brittle  in  themselves,  that  nearly  all  of  them  were 
shaken  from  the  tree  and  many  broken  to  pieces  by  the  shock 
of  the  fall.  I  found  them  to  be  approaching  maturity,  the 
seeds  being  fully  developed,  but,  I  am  afraid,  not  ripe  enough 
to  grow.  I  had  another  smaller  and  more  vigorous  tree  cut ; 
the  foliage  of  this  was  much  larger  than  that  of  the  older  tree, 
and  also  a  little  different  in  form,  but  it  bore  no  fruit.  The 
