THE FORESTS OF ALAUSI 235 



could not pass each other without endangering the 

 life of one of them. Fortunately, our beasts were 

 sure-footed and the road was dry ; in fact, from 

 Ticsan, where we fairly began to descend the 

 western slope of the Cordillera, we found we had 

 got into the height of summer, having left mid- 

 winter behind us at Ambato and Riobamba. The 

 hill-sides were well covered with grass, but all 

 completely withered up by nearly two months of 

 dry weather ; so that, except near the streams, 

 where there was a margin of scrub or low forest, 

 the eye rested on nothing green. 



Alausi stands at about the same height as 

 Ambato, but is subject to still more violent winds, 

 so that even the crops of maize are rarely to be 

 seen standing erect. As a town it bears no com- 

 parison with Ambato either for size or neatness, 

 and, like all the other pueblos of the canton (of 

 which it is the chef -lieu}, seems to have been for 

 several years in a state of decadence : the houses 

 begin to fall and are merely propped up, not 

 repaired or rebuilt ; and yet there are all around 

 valuable farms of wheat and maize. 



Throughout the Quitonian Andes a bit of solid 

 rock is rarely seen, save where black, jagged masses 

 of trachyte stand out in the higher peaks, which 

 are all either active or dormant volcanoes ; and on 

 a superficial view most of the hills seem to be made 

 up of debris, either, as around Ambato, of calcined 

 and triturated granite and schists, or, as in descend- 

 ing from Alausi, of stones and rude blocks con- 

 fusedly heaped together. But in one place we 

 saw above us a low cliff of vertical strata, much 

 cracked and bent, as if by some force applied to 



