[57] Freight rates from Coatzacoalcos to San Francisco are already fixed
at $6.50 per ton; by the transcontinental railways they vary from $12 to
$15 per ton.

[58] The entire Cuban crop is comparatively small, being but little more
than one-eighth that of the United States.

[59] Vegetable ivory is the seed or nut of a species of palm
(_Phytelephas macrocarpa_). The kernel of the nut gradually acquires the
hardness and appearance of the best ivory, for which it is employed as a
substitute.

[60] The leaves of this shrub (_Erythroxylon coca_) contain a stimulant
substance that in its effects is much like the active principle of
coffee. They are much used by the native laborers to ward off the
feeling of lassitude that comes with severe labor in a tropical climate.
A native porter will carry a load of one hundred pounds a distance of
sixty miles with no food or rest, but merely chewing a few coca-leaves.
The plant yields the substance _cocaine_, now in demand all over the
world as an anaesthetic in eye and throat surgery.

[61] More than a score of species of the tree from which this bark is
obtained grow in the higher eastern slopes of the Andes, but a very
large part is obtained from the tree, _Cinchona calisaya_. The medicinal
substance, quinine, is extracted from the bark, and in the past
half-century it has become the specific for malarial fevers. So great is
the demand for it, that the cinchona-tree is now cultivated in India,
Java, and Mexico.

[62] Only a very small proportion of the Panama hats in the market are
genuine. Many of the imitations, selling at retail for ten dollars or
more, are serviceable hats; most of them, however, have but little
worth.

[63] Nitre, or "nitrate," is a native nitrate of potash, or nitrate of
soda. The latter, commonly called cubic nitre or Chile saltpetre, is the
kind occurring in Chile. Inasmuch as it is very soluble, a plentiful
rainfall would soon leach it from the ground and carry it to the sea.
The nitrate is thought to be of vegetable origin.

[64] The pod of a shrub (_Caesalpina coriaria_); it contains a
considerable proportion of tannin and is used for tanning leather.

[65] The pericarp or pod contains about twenty-four prismatic-shaped
nuts.

[66] The cattle for Cuba and Brazil must be shipped in open pens in
crossing the tropics. With the exports for Europe the case is different.
If it is summer at the one port it is winter at the other, but it is
alway