only five or six miles, Harris had calculated wisely.

The weather, however, was very fine. The sun mounted toward the zenith,
spreading in waves his almost perpendicular rays. On the plain this
heat would be unbearable, Harris took care to remark; but, under those
impenetrable branches, they bore it easily and with impunity.

The greater part of the trees of this forest were unknown, as well to
Mrs. Weldon as to her companions, black or white.

However, an expert would remark that they were more remarkable for
their quality than for their height. Here, it was the "banhinia," or
iron wood; there, the "molompi," identical with the "pterocarpe," a
solid and light wood, fit for making the spoons used in sugar
manufactories or oars, from the trunk of which exuded an abundant
resin; further on, "fusticks," or yellow wood, well supplied with
coloring materials, and lignum-vitæs, measuring as much as twelve feet
in diameter, but inferior in quality to the ordinary lignum-vitæs.

While walking, Dick Sand asked Harris the name of these different trees.

"Then you have never been on the coast of South America?" Harris asked
him before replying to his question.

"Never," replied the novice; "never, during my voyages, have I had
occasion to visit these coasts, and to say the truth, I do not believe
that anybody who knew about them has ever spoken to me of them."

"But have you at least explored the coasts of Colombia, those of Chili,
or of Patagonia?"