uge clusters of fruit-pods that hung from beneath them. Each
of these would have weighed nearly an hundred-weight! There was food
for hundreds. These plants grew by the water's edge, in a damp soil--
their natural habitat. Their leaves drooped over the stream. Another
plant, equally interesting, was seen farther back, in a dry place.
There were many of these ten or fifteen feet high, and as thick as a
man's wrist. This was the _yucca_ plant (_Jatropha manihot_). All of
them knew it. They knew that its roots produced the far-famed cassava.
Cassava is bread. Hurrah! the staff of life was secure!

But, more than this, there were fruits in abundance: there were mangoes
and guavas, oranges and the celebrated cherimoya--the favourite of Peru.
There were shaddocks and sweet limes; and see! yonder is a clump of
sugar-canes, with their thin silken leaves and yellow tassels waving in
the wind. Oh, look here! Here is a coffee-shrub, with its ripe,
aromatic berries; and here is the cacao-tree (_Theobroma cacao_).
Coffee and chocolate--there was a choice of beverages! Ha! what have we
here--this plant like an orange-tree? It is a species of holly. As I
live, it is the _yerba mate_, the "Paraguay tea" (_Ilex Paraguensis_).
What shall we light upon next?

And so the delighted travellers went on, over the ground, through the
thick-tangled weeds and convolvuli, making new discoveries at every
step. Even Guapo's favourite, the coca-shrub, was found growing among
the rest, and the eyes of the old Indian sparkled at the sight of it.

Don Pablo's first conjecture had been right. They had arrived at the
ruin of some old missionary station, long since deserted. Some zealous
monk had planted all these plants and trees; had for years, no doubt,
tended them with care; had dreamt of establishing around this lonely
spot a great hierarchy, and making the "wilderness blossom as the rose."
An evil day had come--perhaps during the revolt of Juan Santos, or
maybe in the later revolution of Tupac Amaru. The hand of the savage
had been turned against the priest, who had fallen a victim, and his
roof--the mission-house--had been given to the flames. Not a vestige of
building was to be seen--neither stick nor stone--and had it not been
for the curious variety of vegetation collected on the spot, this once
cultivated and flourishing garden might have been taken for part of the
primeval forest.

It must have been a long time since the p