50 The Autoes and the Amazon. 



glacier. It is spread out like a broad gravel walk, so that, 

 without exaggeration, one of the best roads in Ecuador has 

 been made by Nature's hand on the crest of the Andes. 



It was interesting to trace the different hypsometrical 

 zones by the change of vegetation from Bodegas to this 

 lofty spot. The laws of the decrease of heat are plainly 

 written on the rapid slopes of the Cordilleras. On the hot, 

 steaming lowlands of the coast reign bananas and palms. 

 As these thin out, tree-ferns take their place. Losing these, 

 we found the cinchona bedewed by the cool clouds of 

 Guaranda ; and last of all, among the trees, the polylepis. 

 The twisted, gnarled trunk of this tree, as well as its size 

 and silvery foliage, reminded us of the olive, but the bark 

 resembles that of the birch. It reaches the greatest eleva- 

 tion of any tree on the globe. Then followed shrubby 

 fuchsia, calceolaria, eupatoria, and red and purple gen- 

 tians ; aroimd and on the Arenal, a uniform mantle of 

 monocotyledonous plants, with scattered tufts of Valeriana, 

 viola, and geranium, all with rigid leaves in the character- 

 istic rosettes of super-alpine vegetation ; and on the por- 

 phyritic and trachytic sides of Chimborazo, lichens alone. 

 Snow then covers the last effort of vegetable life.* The 

 change in the architecture of the houses indicated, like- 

 wise, a change of altitude. The open bamboo huts, shin- 

 gled with banana leaves, were followed by warmer adobe 

 houses, and these, in turn, by the straw hovels of the 

 mountain-top, made entirely of the long, wiry grass of the 

 paramos. 



* According to Sir J. Hooker, among the flowers which adorn the slopes 

 of the Himalayas, rhododendrons occupy the most prominent place, and 

 ])rimroses next. There are no orchids, neither red gentians, but blue. Or- 

 ganic life ceases .3000 feet lower than on the Andes ; yet it is affirmed that 

 flowering plants occur at the height of 18,460 feet, which is equivalent to the 

 summit of Chimborazo in point of temperature ! The polylepis (P. racemosa) 

 is one of the Sanguisorhacem ; in Quichua it is Sachaquinoa. 



