Page:Narrative of a Voyage around the World - 1843.djvu/232

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178
GARRAPATAS.
[1838.

insinuate themselves under the skin, and are a perfect torment. Even for days after they have been entirely removed, sympathetic twitches are experienced, which are perhaps as great an evil as the reality—in some instances greater. It causes one's skin to contract even to write about them.

During this absence of fourteen days we had travelled over a distance of five hundred miles, and I certainly felt my constitution considerably refreshed.

Realejo is failing more from want of capital, and the insecurity of the present government, than from any want or field for speculation.

The timber which might be exported from hence, in addition to those articles enumerated at the towns we visited, is of the best quality, not indeed for the ornamental work of cabinets, but for substantial house and ship services. The following list was prepared by a person well conversant with carpentry, and has been added to by our botanical collector.

Cedar of two kinds, one adapted for furniture, and the other for canoes. They are known to arrive at a diameter of nine feet, and are said to reach twelve. Mahogany, very compact, light and dark-coloured. Roble; in grain resembling oak and mahogany, some very handsome, of which I have the best specimen. Fir, tough, (Pinus serrotina.)

Guiliquisto;—very hard, resists worms; used for underground work in houses, &c.