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1839.] obtained. The water, which is procured from wells, is sweet when drawn, and very bright, but is impregnated with muriate of soda and nitre, which pervade the soil. It consequently soon putrifies on board. Cattle are fine, varying in price from five to eight dollars, and ships of war calling or passing en route for San Blas or Mazatlan, will do well to take their bullocks here, as the Mexican beef is very inferior, and does not afford as much nourishment even as the salt provision now supplied to her Majesty's service. Wood is about the same price as at San Blas. The cheese is good, at times excellent, and may be procured at any age; it is the refuse of this market, and at treble price of that which is met with at Mazatlan or San Blas.

The country about Cape San Lucas is mountainous, and probably granitic; as that found in the peaks in our neighbourhood, which we ascended, as well as that on the sea border, was a close-grained granite, very much disturbed or upheaved, and in immense blocks.

The plains, as well as the hills, are very abundant in cacti, fourteen species of which were found in one spot. Mr. Barclay remarks, "a handsome species of loranthus here grows upon the cylindrical cactus, ænothera spectabilis, and a species of gossypium, the bark of which is used for making thread. The vegetation differs but little in generic productions from Magdalena, a circumstance which enabled me to procure ripe seeds of several plants,