SAN MIGUEL. 213 



A little more than half-way up the slope of the Cor- 

 dilleras lies nestled among the hills the picturesque valley 

 of Chimbo. We had scarcely left Caraino Ileal, and 

 turned the summit of Pizcurcu, before we were brought 

 in full view of that truly mountain-picture. The sight of 

 cultivation was refreshing, after our having passed over 

 the forest-trail which leads from the coast. We antici- 

 pated scenes wild and grand among the Andes, but our 

 imagination had never placed there the repose and beauty 

 of such a vale. The sierras, shaded about their base 

 with dark forests, encircled it, as if to guard against all 

 approach, little villages clustered amid the fields, check- 

 ered by cultivation, and hedged by lines of aloes, or cen- 

 tury-plants. Descending from the ridge of Pizcurcu, we 

 stopped for the night at the little village of San Miguel. 

 The houses are more firmly and warmly built than those of 

 the coast, the walls being two or three feet in thickness, 

 and constructed of adobes, large mud-bricks dried in the 

 sun ; the roofs are thatched with p^Ja, the long grass af- 

 forded by the paramos. It was here that we first slept upon 

 beds, which, we think, and sincerely hope, are confined to 

 the Andes. They consisted of narrow, mud projections, 

 about eighteen inches in height, running around the sides 

 of the room. We were musing what earthly purpose they 

 could subserve, when our host came in and intimated that 

 they were to be our bed. We have seen better sleeping 

 arrangements. In the court-yard of the building was a 

 black bear, an animal found on the high slopes of the 

 Andes, but which seldom descends to the tierra caliente. 



A short ride through the valley of Chimbo brought us 

 to Guaranda, a town of two thousand inhabitants, and the 

 half-way station between Guayaquil and Quito, where the 

 traveller must exchange his mules for others ; as those 

 coming from the coast ai'e not allowed to enter the colder 

 heights of the sierras. This village lies at an altitude of 



