63 
a black walnut, the fruit of which furnishes the Indians one of 
their dyes. The mountain sides near town are well cultivated 
for probably a distance of 2,000 feet up, and when we were there, 
in early June, thousands of acres of fine fields of Indian corn and 
bearded wheat were just maturing. Potatoes are common and 
they seem to grow best at 8,000 or 9,000 feet. In the plaza 
and gardens about town a good many peach trees seem to thrive 
but the fruit is of little or no value, I was informed; also a few 
grape vines occur, but these evidently do better at a somewhat 
lower level. Among the numerous native bushes on the hillsides 
near by were two species of Ruédzs, but, although they were 
fruiting abundantly and looked quite tempting, the berries proved 
to be rather dry and tasteless. Fine strawberries are cultivated 
and a few scarcely ripened ones were coming into the market 
just as I left early in October. 
In leaving Sorata, if one could follow down the Sorata River, 
the tropical forests on the tributaries of the upper Amazon would 
soon be reached without further climbing into regions of snow 
and ice, but as it is, in order to avoid the great cafions and preci- 
pices of that river, the main trail to the lower country crosses over 
several high ridges thrown off from the Sorata range, of which 
the highest is in the neighborhood of 16,000 ft. elevation, or 
about the lower limit of perpetual snow. At this height, doubt- 
less, quite a number of species of plants could be found if one had 
the time to look about. As it was I hastily gathered a few things 
at some 15,000 ft. or above, including a small fern in fruiting 
condition, one or two mosses (Grimmias), a handsome flowered 
Blumenbachia, of the Loasaceae, with stinging, nettle-like hairs, 
and one or two composites. 
With the mules traveling at times at a snail's pace over these 
high bare ridges, we were three days out from Sorata before 
reaching Tolapampa, about 11,000 ft. elevation and not much 
above the upper limit of the forests of the eastern slopes. It is 
in coming over and down the ridge just above this place that the 
cloud-masses so frequently hanging over the hot forests beneath 
come into view. There, spread out suddenly before the eye and 
just below one was one level sea of clouds with the bright .sun 
