neither more nor less than
preparing _vanilla_.

Some days after arriving in the valley, while exploring a wood that lay
at the back of the cultivated ground, Don Pablo discovered that every
tree carried a creeper or parasite of a peculiar kind. It was a small
creeper not unlike ivy, and was covered with flowers of a
greenish-yellow colour, mixed with white. Don Pablo at once recognised
in this parasitical plant one of the many species of llianas that
produce the delicious and perfumed vanilla. It was, in fact, the finest
of the kind--that which, among the French, is called _leq_ vanilla; and,
from the fact that every tree had a number of these parasites, and no
other climbing vines, Don Pablo came to the conclusion that they had
been planted by the missionaries. It is thus that vanilla is usually
cultivated, by being set in slips at the root of some tree which may
afterwards sustain it.

In the course of the summer, these vanilla vines exhibited a different
appearance. Instead of flowers, long bean-like capsules made their
appearance. These capsules or pods were nearly a foot in length, though
not much thicker than a swan's quill. They were a little flattish,
wrinkled, and of a yellow colour, and contained inside, instead of
beans, a pulpy substance, surrounding a vast quantity of small seeds,
like grains of sand. These seeds are the perfumed vanilla so much
prized, and which often yield the enormous price of fifty dollars a
pound! To preserve these, therefore, was the work of Dona Isidora and
Leona; and they understood perfectly how to do it.

First, they gathered the pods before they were quite ripe. These they
strung upon a thread, taking cane to pass the thread through that end
nearest the foot-stalk. The whole were next plunged for an instant into
boiling water, which gave them a blanched appearance. The thread was
then stretched from tree to tree, and the pods, hanging like a string of
candles, were then exposed to the sun for several hours. Next day, they
were lightly smeared with an oiled feather, and then wrapped in oiled
cotton of the _Bombax ceiba_, to prevent the valves from opening. When
they had remained in this state for a few days, the string was taken
out, and passed through the other ends, so that they should hang in an
inverted position. This was to permit the discharge of a viscid liquid
from the foot-stalk end; and in order to assist this discharge, the pods
were several times li