t'Vmmm QY THE QUITENTAN ANDEB. 170 



and barley fields. A short ascent from it brought us upon the 

 Paramo de Tiocajas, which is full six leagues across. Anything 

 more desolate than this paramo I have nowhere seen. It is one 

 great desert of moveable sand, in which the distant patches of 

 Cacti, Hedyotis, and a succulent Composita, oidy render its 

 nakedness more apparent. Where there is a little moisture, soli- 

 tary plants of a silky-leaved Flantago struggle for existence. The 

 altitude is about the same as that of Sanancajas, and it may be 

 imagined how cheerless was a slow ride of nearly twenty miles over 

 such a waste, rendered all the more gloomy by a leaden sky over- 

 head, and a piercing wind which came laden with mist and fine 

 sand- I was obliged to go nearly at the pace of my loaded beasts, 

 . the unsettled state of the country, and the number of deserters 

 from the " constitutional" army roaming about, rendering it unsafe 

 to leave my goods a moment. Yet even such an " Ager Syrticus" 

 has its points of interest, for on this place is seen the dividing of the 

 waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. We passed many small 

 streams, some rising on the paramo, and some in the western Cordil- 

 lera, but all running eastward to join the Grreat Eiver, with whose 

 waters and forests I was long so familiar ; when, however, we 

 approached the southern side of the paramo, we came on the E,io 

 de Pumachaca (Eiver of the Bridge of Tigers), a considerable 

 stream rising in the eastern Cordillera and running westward 

 towards the Pacific ; it is in fact one of the sources of the river 

 Yaguachi, which enters the gulf of Guayaquil. Erom the Puma- 

 chaca northward, until very near Quito, all the streams of the 

 central plain between the two branches of the Cordillera flow east- 

 ward, and unite in the gorge of Baiios to form the river Pastusa, 

 which speedily reaches the Amazonian plain, and thence the 

 Atlantic ; but the streams around Quito itself unite to form the 

 river of Esmeraldas, and seek the Pacific. Near the Pumachaca 

 there was rather more vegetation; patches of CyperacecB were dotted 

 with the white flowers of a minute Lobelia, which I have seen in 

 many similar situations, and groups of Cactus were draped over 

 by an Atropa, remarkable for its aromatic leaves. It is singular 

 that in so deadly a genus all the species I have seen in the Qui- 

 teuian Andes have edible though very acid fruit, and that the 

 shoots are cropped by asses and llamas. 



As we descended from the southern side of the paramo, the 

 Hedyotls began to be mixed with a small labiate shrub of very 

 similar foliage, and bearing numerous spikes of lilac or violet 

 flowers ; and farther down the latter grew so abundantly that it 



