west, and shifted my head- quarters to 
Canjas de Tineo, a small town at the foot 
of the high range which separates the As- 
; turias from the kingdom of Leon, and I 
= was not a little surprized to find vegetation 
: more advanced in the vallies of this cold 
region, than it had been in the country I 
: had just quitted. These vallies are so nar- 
by its side. The shelving slopes of the ad- 
| . jacent mountains are cultivated to a consi- 
| derable height, by the poor and industrious 
- Asturians, while the more elevated portions 
and the very summits themselves, being 
incessantly covered by flocks and herds, 
here as elsewhere, offer nothing but a close 
shaven turf, mixed with heath and dwarf 
- Fushes. Thus my harvest was again slen- 
der. Common, however, as the plants 
.  . "were, I was careful to select such as seem- 
ed most characteristic ; and now and then, 
longo intervallo, I found some rare species 
and even had the happiness, occasionally, 
to detect some strange vegetables, of which 
the forms were quite new to me. I con- 
soled myself for what I considered but 
. . very moderate success, by thinking of the 
abundant harvest of rare Alpine species, 
destined for me to gather on the lofty 
mountains, which I saw were still covered 
with snow: and in the commencement of 
July, having hired a guide and a mule, 
. eagerly hastened towards the most elevated 
. point in that chain. Judge of my disap- 
pointment at finding these summits little 
richer than the lower districts! I hardly 
. Saw one of those numerous small species, 
. Which adorn the peaks of our loftier Pyre- 
nees. Myriads of sheep from Leon and 
the two Castilles, devour even the roots of 
 fhose few vegetables which these masses 
of schist produce. Those which I have 
collected, have been obtained with extreme 
difficulty, most of them being procured 
- from perpendicular steeps, inaccessible to 
~ the goats, whose ravenous teeth have even 
 mutilated several of my specimens. The 
Ranunculi, the Potentillas, the Hiera- 
Gums, the Saxifrages, so numerous on 
other mountain ranges, have here few or 
-— 
IN THE MOUNTAINS OF ASTURIAS. 
215 
no representatives. That portion of the 
chain, which I examined, becomes gradu- 
ally lower, and at its highest point is still 
of inferior elevation to the mountains of ` 
Somiedo, on several of whose peaks the 
snow lies all the year round; whereas, on 
the two loftiest summits of the western 
chain, namely that of Arvas and that of 
Canellas, the snow is completely melted 
during the month of July; which gives 
them a height, about equal to that of the 
mountain at the pass of Penasque.! These 
two peaks, distant about nine leagues from 
each other, constitute, the first-named the 
eastern, and the second, the western, limit 
of that portion of this lofty chain which 
I have explored. It was not long ere I 
perceived that these two summits, and the 
mountain-masses from which they rise, are 
richer in plants than the intermediate and 
less elevated region, and to them I there- 
fore particularly directed my attention, 
The peak of Arvas struck me as the most 
interesting of the two, and therefore, though 
lying the farthest from my head-quarters 
at Canjas de Tineo, I gave it the prefer- 
ence. It must not be confounded with the 
mountain of Arvas, frequently mentioned 
y La Gasca, which is situated twenty-five 
leagues further east, and is crossed by the 
road from Oviedo to,Leon. To the peak 
of Arvas I made seven journeys, and re- 
mained there nineteen days; so that I think . 
I may safely consider myself to be well ac- 
quainted with its botanical precast and 
by the specimens which I brought away. 
My last visit was made solely for the 
purpose of gathering the seeds of a beau- 
tiful Genista, with white flowers, which 
would prove a highly ornamental garden 
shrub, and those of a magnificent Eryn- 
which was entirely new to me. My 
journey, however, proved quite a failure, 
the seeds of the Genista were scarcely suf- 
ficiently mature to give me hope of their 
germination ; and those of the Eryngium 
were still less perfect, though both had 
been out of flower full two months. i 
The summit of the cone of the peak of 
! About 7,200 feet. \ 
