160 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



and continued till noon. Though not very heavy, 

 it had the accustomed effect of putting the forest in 

 weeping plight. The track, instead of improving 

 as we approached the residences of civilised people, 

 was this day decidedly worse than ever, and the 

 natural obstructions were multiplied almost tenfold. 

 At 8 o'clock we reached the terminus of the beach, 

 above which the Pastasa ran close to the barranco, 

 so that we could no longer follow its banks. 



And now commenced a series of ascents and 

 descents, of which I counted eight from Mapoto to 

 Rio Verde. Of these, the first two ridges were the 

 highest and most fatiguing. Beyond these was a 

 narrow sloppy plain at whose further side we had 

 to pass a long puddle -hole called Runa-cocha, in 

 which are laid slender poles from one projecting 

 stone or tree-stump to another, and as they were 

 now covered by water it was difficult to step on 

 them. I had, in fact, the pleasure of slipping off 

 them into the water nearly up to my waist. As the 

 Indians travelled now without cargo, they got much 

 ahead of me, and I know not how long they had 

 been at the Rio Verde when I came out there, at 

 3 P.M., very much wayworn. What a pleasure it 

 was to see again a white man's habitation, with plots 

 of cultivated land ! The hacienda has only been 

 recently established, and the dwelling-house, which 

 has an upper story, was unfinished ; but there was 

 a cane -mill worked by water-power, and from 

 twenty to thirty people at work cutting cane in the 

 adjacent cane-piece, distilling brandy, etc. 



The Rio Verde is very little less than the Topo, 

 and, like it, is unfordable. We crossed it by two 

 stout poles laid from rock to rock at a part where 



