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which also clothed the trunks and stems of the trees and shrubs, 
greatly magnifying their apparent diameter. 
The trail was very narrow. Not a twig, root or stem that was 
possible to climb over or pass around had been disturbed and 
as it became tramped to a lower level than the moisture-laden 
mat of moss at its sides it became a wet and muddy ditch, too 
crooked, rough and steep for a pack-animal to travel; not 
even a dog had passed along it; man was the only being ca- 
pable of doing so. These conditions, with a heavy portfolio, 
clothing saturated with the moisture from dripping foliage on 
the sides and splashing mud below, long before a heavy rain 
which began during the afternoon, an empty stomach and a 
general ignorance as to one’s whereabouts, made this, the 2:d 
of February, my forty-seventh birthday, one of the most tryirg 
days I ever experienced. It was nearly dark when I finally 
reached ‘‘Camp San Benito,’’ where I changed to dry clothing 
and had a supper of bean soup and the usual accompaniments of 
a camp meal. This, with the satisfaction of having completed 
a difficult journey through a very interesting region, together 
with a good night’s rest in my sleeping bag hung upas a hammceck, 
put me in good shape for the next day, the forenoon of which was 
spent in collecting along the ‘‘trocha’’ westward of camp. The 
afternoon was devoted to a trip down the long stream near camp 
and many shrubs not collected by me before were secured along 
its rocky banks. A beautiful blue-flowered Pinguicula occurred 
among the rocks, and epiphytic. members of the same family 
grew upon the bushes overhanging the stream. Back from the 
river, the moss-mulched thickets already described contained a 
few trees over fifteen feet tall and on the banks an occasional 
pine tree rarely over thirty feet was seen. I was unable to get 
any name for this stream, nor could the engineers at the camp 
tell me where it emptied. The camp was situated in a rather 
flat region, at about 3,000 feet altitude. The trail was said to 
‘be twenty-seven miles long, but I afterwards ascertained that it 
was only twelve and one-half miles in a direct line south of the 
coast. Probably twenty men were engaged in running ‘‘trochas” 
and drilling for samples of ore. All their provisions and sup- 
