44 



and stumble badly, running great risk of breaking a limb or 

 throwing the riders over their heads. About such spots, however, 

 some charming flowers were obtained. One of these was Criick- 

 shanksia Geisseana, Ph , an elegant plant, covered with masses of 

 showy yellow flowers, very fragrant, and remarkable for its in- 

 volucral, long-stiped sepals. Another was a Bignoniaceous 

 species, named Argylia, which has long, finely dissected radical 

 leaves, and a scape ten or twelve inches high, having a large 

 cluster of yellow trumpet-shaped flowers at the summit. Still 

 another plant of much interest, growing in clumps, was an Um- 

 bellifer called Eremocharis, a tall almost naked stemmed under- 

 shrub, with long internodes and curious subbipinnatifid leaves, 

 which emit the odor of apples when first plucked or bruised. 



Along this route also grew some of the most peculiar Cacti 

 that I had ever seen. The most noticeable of all belongs to a 

 genus created by Philippi, and is, I believe, confined to this 

 desert, named Eidychnia brevijlora. It throws up from a clus- 

 ter of roots numerous columnar stalks about as large in diameter as 

 a man's arm, and armed with innumerable long, unequal, needle- 

 like spines. The flower is on the summit of the stalk, not unlike a 

 large cup in aspect, the lower part of which is covered with 

 crinkly velvet hairs of a lavender hue, above which rises a single 

 row of stiff white petals, including a host of delicate stamens. 

 Another Cactus of the melon variety, not over eight inches high, 

 and not unlike a pineapple in shape, has its spines twisted about 

 the stem so that they resemble a bird's nest, inside of which the 

 small red flowers hide like eggs. 



When we reached the Quebrada, we found it to be a very 

 rocky ravine running up the hillside between two eminences, 

 along the slopes of which were heaped many boulders, as if car- 

 ried down there by floods in former ages. Among the rocks 

 trickled a small stream of water, which soon lost itself in the sand 

 at the bottom of the ravine. As the day was quite warm, and I 

 was heated and tired with my long ride, it sounded very pleas- 

 ant to hear the gurgling of water, and as I have often done on 

 sucli occasions in the White Mountains, I hastened to scoop up 

 a drink in the hollow of my hand. My companion, a native 

 Chileno, laughed at my motions, and with good reason, for I had 



