236 



SOUTH AMEEICA— THE ANDES EEGIONS. 



tions. According to Teodoro Wolf, the Rio Esmeraldas has a drainage area of 

 8,5U0 square miles. 



A few small coast- streams follow southwards as far as the deep inlet at the 

 head of which debouches the copious Rio Guayas, which gives its name to the 

 port of Guayaquil. The Babahoyo, its chief headstream, rises in the Pacific 

 coast ran ere, and, after collecting numerous tributaries on both sides, assumes the 

 proportions of a considerable river below the so-called bodegas, or " stores," at the 

 landino--stao-es, where travellers start for the ascent of the plateau. Even before 

 its junction with the Yaguachi or Chimbo, which collects the running waters from 

 the Chimbo heights, fed by the Chimborazo and Chanchan glaciers, the Buba- 



Fig. 91. — Confluence of the Guayaquil Rivers. 

 Scale 1 : 1,000,000. 



West or Greenwich 



79°20' 



25 Miles. 



hoyo is a large stream, 2,000 feet wide from bank to bank. Lower down it is 

 joined on its right side by the Rio Daule, which, after emerging from an exten- 

 sive forest region, winds through alow-lying plain heiween pajonales ("savannas") 

 and tenibladeras ("quagmires"), expanding to a width of over half a mile as it 

 enters the Guayaquil estuary. This marine inlet, which is here called the Rio 

 Guayas, rapidly broadens out to a width of over a mile at the town of Guayaquil, 

 beyond which it ramifies through a small archipelago and round the large island 

 of Puna at the entrance of the gulf. The Guaj'as catchment basin has an area 

 estimated by Wolf at 14,000 square miles. 



On the Amazonian slope the copious rains, intercepted by the dense vege- 



