Were this not the case, "bark-hunting" would be a very troublesome
operation. The labour of finding the trees would not be repaid with
double the price obtained for the bark. You may be thinking, my young
friend, that a "cascarillero," or bark-hunter, has nothing to do but
find a wood of these trees; and then the trouble of searching is over,
and nothing remains but to go to work and fell them. So it would be, did
the cinchona-trees grow together in large numbers, but they do not. Only
a few--sometimes only a single tree--will be found in one place; and I
may here remark that the same is true of most of the trees of the Great
Montana of South America. This is a curious fact, because it is a
different arrangement from that made by nature in the forests of North
America.

There a whole country will be covered with timber of a single, or at
most two or three species; whereas, in South America, the forests are
composed of an endless variety. Hence it has been found difficult to
establish saw-mills in these forests, as no one timber can be
conveniently furnished in sufficient quantity to make it worth while.
Some of the palms, as the great _morichi_, form an exception to this
rule. These are found in vast _palmares_, or palm-woods, extending over
large tracts of country, and monopolising the soil to themselves.

Don Pablo, having spent the whole of a day in examining the cinchonas,
returned home quite satisfied with them, both as regarded their quantity
and value. He saw, from a high tree which he had climbed, "_manchas_,"
or spots of the glistening reddish leaves, nearly an acre in breadth.
This was a fortune in itself. Could he only collect 100,000 lbs. of this
bark, and convey it down stream to the mouth of the Amazon, it would
there yield him the handsome sum of 40,000 or 50,000 dollars! How long
before he could accomplish this task he had not yet calculated; but he
resolved to set about it at once.

[Illustration: GUAPO AND THE 'NIMBLE PETERS.']

A large house had been already constructed for storing the bark, and in
the dry hot climate of the high Montana, where they now were, Don Pablo
knew it could be dried in the woods, where it was stripped from the
trees.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A PAIR OF SLOW GOERS.

At length, all things being ready, Don Pablo and party set out for a
day's work among the cinchonas. As it was the first day of
bark-gathering all went along to enjoy the novelty of the thing. A
"mancha"