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IN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 273
trees being cut down and the roots dug out, the bark is stripped
off much in the same way as oak bark in England, but no other
tool than the machete is used. .
3
. . For drying the bark a stage
feet high is erected, called a tendal. Care must be taken
that the flame from the fire beneath the tendal does not reach
the bark, and if rain be apprehended the whole has to be roofed
over. When the bark is perfectly dry, they have only to convey
it to the depot at Camaron and receive their twenty dollars per
quintal, which is the price usually paid them by Messrs. Cordovez
and Neyra ; or rather, they have generally received the value in
advance, according to the custom of the country.
In the valleys of the Chasuan and Limon I saw about 200
trees of Red Bark standing. Out of the whole number, only two
or three were saplings which had not been disturbed ; all the rest
grew from old stools, whose circumference averaged from 4 to 5
feet. I was unable to find a single young plant under the trees,
although many of the latter bore signs of having flowered in
previous years. This was explained by the flowering trees growing
uniformly in open places, either in cane-fields which had been
frequently weeded or in pastures where cattle had grazed and
trodden about. The young plants, which I had been assured I
should find abundantly, proved to be either stolons or seedlings
(very few of the latter) of the worthless Cinchona magnifolia,
which grows plentifully at Limon, and must have fruited during
the rainy season, as the capsules were all burst open when I
arrived there.
Cinchona siiccintbra is a very handsome tree, and, in looking
out over the forest, I could never see any other tree at all com-
parable to it for beauty. Across the narrow glen below our hut,
and at nearly the same altitude, there was a large old stool from
which sprang several shoots, only one of which rose to a tree,
while the rest formed a bush at its base. This tree was 50 feet
high, branched from about one-third of its height, and the coma
formed a symmetrical though elongated paraboloid. It lud
never flowered, but was so densely leafy that not a branch could
be seen ; and the large, broadly oval, deep green and shining
leaves, mixed with decaying ones of a blood-red colour, gave the
tree a most striking appearance. C. inagnifolia, called here
Cascarillo macho (male bark), grows rapidly to be a large tree.
I saw one which must have been over 80 feet high, and I cut
down a young tree which measured 60 feet. Saplings of 15 to 20
feet have a very noble appearance, from the large heart-shaped
leaves, little short of a yard long; but in full -ro\vn trees the
ramification is so sparse and irregular, and the leaves are so much
mutilated by caterpillars, that all is beauty lost. This species
sends out stolons from the root, which sometimes form a matted
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