180 



does duty in great part as a sewer, besides furnishing the only 

 water supply. From Tacna, the route lay seven days by mule, 

 to La Paz. At nine thousand feet, 17° south latitude,* the veg- 

 etation is sufficient to afford pasturage for the llama. At twelve 

 thousand feet we are upon the table-land, w^hich is, in part at 

 least, volcanic, and at first thickly covered with loose rounded 

 stones. Farther on it becomes sandy and rocky by turns. We 

 cross many superimposed small ranges, and skirt the bases of 

 much greater ones. The landscape is much like that of our own 

 south-western plateau, except that there is less grass. What fre- 

 quently appears like a grassy plain, proves to be covered with 

 plants like dwarf Hypoch(2ris or Perezia, only an inch or two in 

 height, and presenting a green cushion of needles in the form of 

 spines terminating the erect linear leaves. Numerous species 

 oi Adesmia, rarely rising above a foot from the ground, and often 

 very closely prostrate, cover much of the country. 



Near the eastern verge of this table-land, in a basin two 

 thousand feet deep, with nearly vertical walls of clay or gravel, 

 is situated La Paz, at an elevation of about eleven thousand feet. 

 Here I spent some two weeks during the months of February, 

 March and April, collecting one hundred and fifty or more species. 

 This was during the latter half of the rainy season, when the 

 walls of the basin, and the gravelly and rocky hills along the La 

 Paz River to the south, were richly clothed with plants in flower. 

 The remainder of the time during this period was passed across 

 the range in Yungas. Returning early in April to the coast, I 

 proceeded to Valparaiso, where three months were spent Here 

 the season is earlier, and winter was just setting in when I arrived. 

 A winter there is about the same as in northern Florida, the 

 orange surviving, but not thriving. Some twenty-five or thirty 

 stray specimens were found in flower before I returned to La 

 Paz. It being then early in June, I found a dry and wintry 

 season prevailing, with a most dreary prospect for a collector. 

 For a longtime business detained me in the city, save for a fe\v 

 short excursions across the mountains, and one long stay in the 

 province of Yungas, made, unfortunately, at an unfavorable season 



for collecting. Just as the rains w^ere beginning the next Janu- 





J 



•Distances, latitudes and altitudes are given approximately. 



