Page:Guatimala or the United Provinces of Central America in 1827-8.pdf/255

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and abundantly to satisfy curiosity. The warrior ants, (as they are termed) are very numerous in some of the provinces. They are about the size of the common ant, red, and singularly powerful. In the order of their movements, and the regularity of their internal government, they may fairly be placed in competition with those of Africa, and like them they are eminently useful in the destruction of other vermin.

On the shores of the Pacific the conchologist will find shells of incomparable beauty, besides numerous marine substances, sponges, and lithophytes, both curious and beautiful; in short every branch of the animal kingdom of Guatimala is abundant in objects of interest.

Nor is the vegetable less productive. Of plants remarkable for their flowers or their fruits, for their roots, leaves, shape, or wood, as well as those useful for their resin, gum, or medicinal properties; perhaps a greater variety cannot be found in any part of the world. The mountains and plains are covered all the year with the most beautiful flowers expanding themselves in wild profusion, and “wasting their sweets upon the desert air;” forty genera of fruits are reckoned to grow spontaneously upon the different hills; the most valuable woods, enormous both in circumference and in height, are lost in the thick forests, and resins and balsams, with innumera-