ack or white.

However, an expert would remark that they were more remarkable for
their quality than for their height. Here, it was the "banhinia," or
iron wood; there, the "molompi," identical with the "pterocarpe," a
solid and light wood, fit for making the spoons used in sugar
manufactories or oars, from the trunk of which exuded an abundant
resin; further on, "fusticks," or yellow wood, well supplied with
coloring materials, and lignum-vitaes, measuring as much as twelve feet
in diameter, but inferior in quality to the ordinary lignum-vitaes.

While walking, Dick Sand asked Harris the name of these different trees.

"Then you have never been on the coast of South America?" Harris asked
him before replying to his question.

"Never," replied the novice; "never, during my voyages, have I had
occasion to visit these coasts, and to say the truth, I do not believe
that anybody who knew about them has ever spoken to me of them."

"But have you at least explored the coasts of Colombia, those of Chili,
or of Patagonia?"

"No, never."

"But perhaps Mrs. Weldon has visited this part of the new continent?"
asked Harris. "Americans do not fear voyages, and doubtless----"

"No, Mr. Harris," replied Mrs. Weldon. "The commercial interests of my
husband have never called him except to New Zealand, and I have not had
to accompany him elsewhere. Not one of us, then, knows this portion of
lower Bolivia."

"Well, Mrs. Weldon, you and your companions will see a singular
country, which contrasts strangely with the regions of Peru, of Brazil,
or of the Argentine Republic. Its flora and fauna would astonish a
naturalist. Ah! we may say that you have been shipwrecked at a good
place, and if we may ever thank chance----"

"I wish to believe that it is not chance which has led us here, but
God, Mr. Harris."

"God! Yes! God!" replied Harris, in the tone of a man who takes little
account of providential intervention in the things of this world.

Then, since nobody in the little troop knew either the country or its
productions, Harris took a pleasure in naming pleasantly the most
curious trees of the forest.

In truth, it was a pity that, in Cousin Benedict's case, the
entomologist was not supplemented by the botanist! If, up to this time,
he had hardly found insects either rare or new, he might have made fine
discoveries in botany. There was, in profusion, vegetation of all
heights, the existence of which in the tropical forests