240 SOUTH AMERICA— TIIE ANDES EEGIONS. 



effects of the east winds bringing their regular burden of rains and vapours to the 

 eastern slopes of both Cordilleras. Summits like those of Sara-Urcu and Illiniza, 

 which lie near the aerial regions of conflicting clouds, are nearly always shrouded 

 in dense aqueous vapours ; the observer may reside months together at their foot 

 without obtaining a single glimpse of their crests. " The mountain lives thus 

 during the whole year," replied a native to the geologist Stiibel asldng whether 

 the veil of clouds would presently be rent. 



In those upper combes storms are very frequent, and often accompanied by 

 hail. At Quito the stormy days average as many as three hundred in the year. 

 Usually the sky remains longest free from clouds at the epoch of the solstices, in 

 July and December ; consequently during those months explorers have the best 

 chance of successfully scaling the snowy heights. At all other tiaies the evening 

 storms recur so regularly that preparation is made for them, as for the return of 

 astronomic phenomena. The blue sky generally lasts till one or two o'clock, 

 after which the vapours begin to rise, the clouds bank up on the horizon and 

 then discharge their torrential downpours. Towards six o'clock nature resumes its 

 peaceful mood.* 



Flora. 



The two cis- Andean and trans-Andean forest zones of Ecuador rival those of 

 Brazil itself in richness and variety. In fact, the thickets traversed by the tracks 

 descending to the Napo and the Pastaza valleys are mere extensions of the great 

 Amazonian woodlands. The Ecuadorean forests have already yielded several 

 valuable species, and hold many others in reserve. It was in the province of 

 Esmeraldas that La Condamine procured from the natives the first samples of 

 caoutchouc gums ever sent to Europe. 



The first barks reduced to febrifugal powders by the European chemists were 

 those of cinchona macrocahjr and cinchona 2)uhescens, which in the seventeenth cen- 

 tury were procured exclusively in the Ecuadorean forests of Loja and surrounding 

 districts. The efficacy of the bark of cinchona, arhol de calenfuras, the " fever 

 tree," was well known to the natives when Juan de Vega ventured to use it in 

 1638 to cure the chuchu, or endemic ague contracted by the Countess de Chin- 

 chon. Henceforth the polvoH dc la condem (" countess's powders "), later called 

 " Jesuit's powders," " Jesuit's bai-k," or " Peruvian bark," entered into the 

 European pharmacopoeia. 



The ratanhia, much used in the case of dysentery and htemorrhages, was also 

 a member of the Ecuadorean flora. The " cinnamon " discovered by Gonzalo 

 Pizarro in the eastern forests is a ncctandra, one species of which yields the 



* Meteoroloi^ical conditions of Ecuador : — 



