IiV VARIOUS PARTS OF THE GLOBE. 191 



1300 yards; but the Quinquinas accompanied me as far as the 

 borders of the forests, which appeared to me to rise higher here 

 than in any other part of Bolivia which I had seen ; this arises, 

 perhaps, from the slielter due to the position of the mountains. 

 Several of these trees were in full flower, and perfumed the air 

 to such an extent that I was enabled to find them by their scent 

 alone. A little higher up I found a few houses and some fields 

 of barley ; from this place the mountain rises still more rapidly, 

 and the Coro'ico becomes a furious torrent, scarcely contained by 

 its rocky bed. On the banks are thickets bathed with perpetual 

 dew, and under them grow three or four species of Fuchsia and 

 a magnificent climbing 7l!fM)!?*m; there too I found a red flowered 

 Loasa and a blue and yellow flowered frutescent Milkwort; 

 several species of liubus and a Buddleia with sweet-scented 

 golden yellow panicles were a little higher up. The next day 

 the picture changed ; the Coro'ico, which I still followed, was 

 reduced to a murmuring brook ; and higher still it was lost 

 amongst the many streamlets produced by the melting of the 

 snow with which the top of the mountain was covered. I had 

 left all vegetation far below, and was surrounded by nothing 

 but granite rocks, the grey black colour of which was only con- 

 trasted with a few patches of red or yellow Lichens growing 

 upon them. Here and there might, perhaps, be found a few 

 tufts of a hard rush-leaved grass {Deyetixia rigidd), which con- 

 trived to exist in spite of an almost perpetual frost. This was 

 the last flowering plant I saw on this side the Andes : I was 

 considerably above the limit of perpetual snow, but the plant 

 was still to be seen clinging to the rocks where the snow itself 

 could not lodge.* As the day broke, the haze which at first 

 covered the mountains cleared away, and their rugged snow-clad 

 summits shone with so much brilliancy that the eye could hardly 

 bear to look at them. The thermometer stood at +15° C. when 

 I passed the snowy region. The ridge passed, I came upon an 

 extensive sandy plain in w'hich is a number of small lakes or 

 marshes, the sources of the Rio de la Paz. On this side of the 

 mountain the road follows the course of the latter river, as it did 

 that of the Coroico on the other side ; both these rivers spring 

 from the same glaciers, and after following very different routes 

 again come together in the bed of the Rio Beni. 



As far as La Paz, situate on one of the highest points of the 

 Bolivian table-land, 3,720 yards above the sea, the descent from 

 the Cordillera is gradual and oflfers nothing which demands 

 special notice ; it is one great Puna, covered with the scanty and 



* The last woody plant I saw in this ascent was a Buckwheat, MiiMen- 

 heckia riipestris, N. 



