48 The Andes and the Amazon. 



will yield fifteen hundred pounds of green bark, or eight 

 hundred of the dry. The roots contain the most alkaloid, 

 though the branches are usually barked for commerce. 

 The true cinchona barks, containing quinine, quinidine, and 

 cinchonine, are distinguished from the false by their splin- 

 tery-fibrous texture, the latter being pre-eminently corky. 

 The cascarilleros begin to hunt for bark in August. Dr. Tay- 

 lor, of Riobamba, found one tree which gave $3600 worth 

 of quinine. The general yield is from three to 'G.ye pounds 

 to a quintal of bark. The tree has been successfully trans- 

 planted to the United States, and particularly to India, 

 where there are now over a million of plants. It was in- 

 troduced into India by Markham in 1861. The bark is 

 said to be stronger than that from Ecuador, yielding twice 

 as much alkaloid, or eleven per cent. The quinine of 

 commerce will doubtless come hereafter from the slopes 

 of the Himalayas instead of the Andes. In 1867 only five 

 thousand poimds of bark were exported from Guayaquil. 

 The Indians use the bark of another tree, the Maravilla, 

 which is said to yield a much stronger alkaloid than cin- 

 chona. It grows near Pallatanga. 



We left Guaranda at 5 a.m. by the light of Yenus and 

 Orion, having exchanged our horses for the sure-footed 

 mule. It was a romantip ride. From a neighboring stand- 

 point Church took one of his celebrated views of "The 

 Heart of the Andes." But the road, as aforetime, was a 

 mere fiirrow, made and kept by the tread of beasts. For 

 a long distance the track runs over the projecting and jag- 

 ged edges of steeply-inclined strata of slate, which nobody 

 has had the energy to smooth down. At many places on 

 the road side were human skulls, set in niches in the bank, 

 telling tales of suffering in their ghastly silence ; while here 

 and there a narrow passage was blocked up by the skeleton 

 or carcass of a beast that had borne its last burden. At 



