plantation of fir trees into the jungle of the tropics, full of Indian figs, palms, lancewood, and great mahagua1 trees, all knotted together by endless creepers and parasites; while the parrots kept up a continual chattering and screaming in the tree-tops. The moment we left the narrow strip of tropical forest that lined the stream we were in the pine wood. Here the first two or three feet of the trunks of the pine trees were scorched and blackened by the flames of the tall dry savannah-grass, which grows close round them, and catches fire several times every year. Through the pine forest the conflagration spreads unobstructed, as in an American prairie; but it only runs along the edge of the dense river-vegetation, which it cannot penetrate.
The Baños de Santa Fé are situated in a cleared space among the fir trees. The baths themselves are nothing but a cavity in the rock, into which a stream, at a temperature of about 80°, continually flows. A partition in the middle divides the ladies from the gentlemen, but allows them to continue their conversation while they sit and splash in their respective compartments.