193 



in the midst of frost and snow, and is seldom known to sleep, 

 or neglect his charge. In this instance, a dense mist had 

 filled the valley, and no blame could attach to the watchman; 

 but from the abuse that was lavished upon him, one would 

 have thought that he had been taken in the act of stealing 

 all our mules, instead of merely not having seen one or two 

 of them through the mist on a dark night. 



Mr. M continued very ill, and although 1 felt tolerably 



well when I rose, we had not travelled half a league when 

 the headache returned with increased violence, and it was 

 greatly aggravated by the motion of the mule. Some of our 

 companions, too, were similarly affected in the course of this 

 day's ride. 



The valley, and even the slopes of the hills, were so 

 swampy, that we travelled very slowly for about a league and 

 a half, when we left the valley, and crossed over some high 

 land that brought us to the small river of Palcamayo, three 

 leagues from Casa-cancha. Red sandstone, breccia, and 

 conglomerate prevail as far as Palcamayo, where I observed 

 whitish stratified limestone, and Calc-tuff", with blocks of 

 Lydian-stonei that appeared to have fallen from the hills 

 above ; afterwards, the sandstone and conglomerate, containing 

 large quartzose pebbles, were the only rocks that occurred 

 near the road. From Palcamayo, we passed over a succession 

 of low hills, covered with short grass; the intervening 

 hollows were very swampy, and we were frequently obliged 

 to make a long circuit to avoid them. In such places, there 

 was sometimes a considerable depth of peat, an occasional 

 rupture exposing a thickness of several feet of the decayed 

 roots of the grass, which, mixed with mosses and Lycopodiacece, 

 continues to grow on the surface of the spongy mass. The 

 whole of the district through which we were travelling, 

 including the plain of Bourbon, whither we were bound, 

 and the country for many leagues to the north and south, 

 may be considered as forming an immense basin between two 

 distant Cordilleras ; and from the quantity of rain and snow 

 that falls in winter, and the thawing of the latter on the 

 summits of the hills and sides of the mountains during 



VOL. II. O 



