CHAPTER NINE.
SCOUTING IN THE CHAPARRAL.
Between the shores of the Mexican Gulf and the "foot-hills" (_piedmont_) of the great chain of the Andes lies a strip of low lands.

In many places this belt is nearly a hundred miles in breadth, but generally less than fifty.

It is of a tropical character, termed in the language of the country _tierra caliente_.

It is mostly covered with jungly forests, in which are found the palm, the tree-ferns, the mahogany and india-rubber trees, dyewoods, canes, llianas, and many other gigantic parasites.

In the underwood you meet thorny aloes, the "pita" plant, and wild mezcal; various Cactacese, and flora of singular forms, scarcely known to the botanist.