FIRST DAY IN THE ANDES. 



ing, to ride as far as the tunnel at the summit of the 

 pass to Oroya, where I promised myself an ample 

 harvest among the plants of the higher region of the 

 Andes. When morning broke, after a sleepless night 

 with a splitting headache, I found or fancied myself 

 unfit for a hard day's work ; and, my companion being 

 in much the same plight, we sent at an early hour to 

 request that the excursion should be postponed till 

 the following day. By the time, however, that we 

 had dressed and breakfasted, the troubles of the night 

 were all forgotten. A new vegetable world was out- 

 side awaiting us, and we were soon on the slopes 

 above the station, where, in the person of my friend 



W , I had the advantage of a kind and zealous 



assistant in the work of plant-collecting. 



Deferring to a later page some remarks on the 

 vegetation of the Cordillera, I need merely say that 

 of this first delightful day the morning hours were 

 devoted to the steep declivity of the mountain over- 

 hanging the left bank of the stream, while the after- 

 noon was given to the less precipitous but more broken 

 and irregular slopes on the opposite, or right, bank. 



Having soon made the discovery that the supplies 

 at Chicla were very limited, we had taken measures 

 to procure a fev/ creature comforts through the 

 obliging conductor of the train, which left Chicla, 

 in the morning, and was to return from Lima on the 

 following evening. A far more serious deficiency 

 was at the same time apparent. I had quite under- 

 rated the quantity of paper required to dry the 

 harvest of specimens that I was sure to collect here, 

 and no one but a botanist can measure the intensity 



