’To reach the Chorro, or Cascade, you strike to the right into a “path” that brings you first to a cacao plantation, through a few rice or maize fields, and then you enter the shade of the virgin forest.  Thousands of interesting objects now attract your attention:  here, the wonderful Norantea or the resplendent Calycophyllum, a Tabernaemontana or a Faramea filling the air afar off with the fragrance of their blossoms; there, a graceful Heliconia winking at you from out some dark ravine.  That shrubbery above is composed of a species of Boehmeria or Ardisia, and that scarlet flower belongs to our native Aphelandra.  In the rear are one or two Philodendrons—­disagreeable guests, for their smell is bad enough, and they blister when imprudently touched.  There also you may see a tree-fern, though a small one.  Nearer to us, and low down beneath our feet, that rich panicle of flowers belongs to a Begonia; and here also is an assemblage of ferns of the genera Asplenium, Hymenophyllum, and Trichomanes, as well as of Hepaticae and Mosses.  But what are those yellow and purple flowers hanging above our heads?  They are Bignonias and Mucunas—­creepers straying from afar which have selected this spot, where they may, under the influence of the sun’s beams, propagate their race.  Those chain-like, fantastic, strange-looking lianes, resembling a family of boas, are Bauhinias; and beyond, through the opening you see, in the abandoned ground of some squatter’s garden, the trumpet-tree (Cecropia) and the groo-groo, the characteristic plants of the rastrajo.

’Now, let us proceed on our walk; we mean the cascade:—­Here it is, opposite to you, a grand spectacle indeed!  From a perpendicular wall of solid rock, of more than three hundred feet, down rushes a stream of water, splitting in the air, and producing a constant shower, which renders this lovely spot singularly and deliciously cool.  Nearly the whole extent of this natural wall is covered with plants, among which you can easily discern numbers of ferns and mosses, two species of Pitcairnia with beautiful red flowers, some Aroids, various nettles, and here and there a Begonia.  How different such a spot would look in cold Europe!  Below, in the midst of a never-failing drizzle, grow luxuriant Ardisias, Aroids, Ferns, Costas, Heliconias, Centropogons, Hydrocotyles, Cyperoids, and Grasses of various genera, Tradescantias and Commelynas, Billbergias, and, occasionally, a few small Rubiaceae and Melastomaceae.’

The cascade, when I saw it, was somewhat disfigured above and below.  Above, the forest-fires of last year had swept the edge of the cliff, and had even crawled half-way down, leaving blackened rocks and gray stems; and below, loyal zeal had cut away only too much of the rich vegetation, to make a shed or stable, in anticipation of a visit from the Duke of Edinburgh, who did not come.  A year or two, however, in this climate will heal these temporary