What I saw on the west coast of South and North America, and at the Hawaiian Islands.: By H. Willis Baxley, M.D.

ESMERALDAS.
The Indian vender, attracted by the light, and the popular
miusic of all countries, comes to sell, and asks four times as
much for his goods as he intends to take. The purchaser offers
less than the actual value, which, being refused, he increases by
decimals until it gradually reaches one-fourth of the price
demanded, when the bargain is closed. An Indian considers
himself a good salesman to have obtained a greater price than
the purchaser first offered; and the buyer would undoubtedly
be entitled to a foo's cap instead of a Jipijapa hat, who would
give the price originally asked.
A sufficient time is usually afforded by the detention of the
steamer at the port of Manta to allow passengers an opportunity
to ride over to Monte Christi. Several Guayaquil hat merchants landed at Manta, and having taken in freight and gone
aboard, we hove anchor, and again bore away northerly one
hundred and fifty-eight miles, which brought us, the succeeding
day at two P. M., to the mouth of the river Esmeraldas; just
within which, on the south bank (latitude 1~ 4' north), is the
small town of the same name, with a population of about three
hundred, Indians and mixed breeds.
When not turbid from heavy rains the water of this river is
of a deep green, hence its name, as explained by some persons;
while others refer it to a mine of emeralds on the south side and
not remote from the river, which once yielded a large number
of these gems-the pure waters,
"As on they flow,
Catching the gem's bright color, as they go."
But the superstition of the natives, who believe that it is
guarded by a dragon dealing in thunder and lightning, has for
a long time deterred them from working it, and even from
guiding the more courageous into its neighborhood. Las Esmeraldas might derive its name also from the rich green of its
picturesque hills, which lift above and around their terraces
clad in unchanging verdure, from the perpetually alternating
sunshine and shower of an endless summer. The contrast between the seacoast of Ecuador north of Mlanta and of New
Granada, and that of Peru-, Bolivia, and Chile, is very marked.
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