252 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



imaginary, for Riobamba was sacked some time 

 afterwards (it is only a week ago to-day) by the 

 troops stationed there. Not a shop or a warehouse 

 was spared, and eight or nine private houses shared 

 the same fate. 



. . . Your sanitary and social reformers seem 

 much occupied with devising suitable habitations- 

 for the poor and industrious classes. They would 

 be much shocked could they see the promiscuous 

 way in which people sleep here, even in the 

 wealthiest houses. The other day I remonstrated 

 with my landlord one of the best men in the place 

 -for allowing a number of people of both sexes to 

 sleep together in the same room some in beds, 

 some on the floor. " I assure you," replied he, 

 " we throw open both doors and windows at day- 

 break ! ' He had no idea, poor man, of any 

 possible vitiation of the moral atmosphere. I 

 thought of the fair (but frail) Pauline Buonaparte, 

 who, when an English lady asked her, " How 

 could you sit so naked to that sculptor ? ' made 

 answer, " My dear madam, you forget I had a fire 

 in the room ! ' 



In January last I spent three weeks with the 

 Cura of Puela a small village at the western foot 

 of Tunguragua. The parsonage -house consisted 

 of but two rooms, the one a small dormitory occu- 

 pied by the Padre, and where he had barely room 

 to turn himself; the other a much larger room, 

 where the rest of his family worked and ate during 

 the day, and slept at night. I append a diagram of 

 this main apartment, wherein i, 2, 3 represents 

 a raised stage made of wild canes (called a 



