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302 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
the nearest port to Limon, where a negro car-
penter put together the Wardian cases, and a raft
was purchased to take them down to Guayaquil.
The construction of this raft was interesting, and
the description of it and of the dangerous voyage
down the river will complete the essential portions
of this Report.
I .will first give, however, a short letter written
while Spruce was delayed in the city.]
To Mr. John Teasdale
GUAYAQUIL, Nov. 6, 1860.
The town of Guayaquil extends about half a
league along the margin of the river, which is here
two miles broad. The principal street, called the
Malecon (or Mole), runs by the river throughout that
distance ; but
the town is narrow, and at the back
stretches a wide, and what is now an arid, plain ;
but
in the rainy season (which will shortly set in) all this
plain is water and mud. Beyond the plain a salt
creek impedes further progress in that direction.
The houses are built of a framework of timber, neatly
overlaid with
and without.
bamboo-cane, and plastered within
The rooms are mostly papered and
painted, and are often elegantly and even richly
furnished although sparsely, as befits a hot climate.
The upper rooms project so far over the lower
that they form a broad covered footway, which has
a boarded floor, and affords a welcome shade in the
heat of the day. A town built of such combustible
materials is constantly exposed to conflagrations,
and although there are several fire-engines, two of
which are manned entirely by foreigners, the fires