m 



8 TRAVELS AMONGST THE GREAT ANDES. chap. i. 



the caravan whilst passing along ^^the Royal lioad." This is 

 the title which has been given for many generations to the 

 route from Bodegas to Guaranda. Although republican Ecua- 

 dorians have done much levelling, and amongst other things 

 have abolished titles of nobility, they have omitted to level 

 their roads, and cling with curious tenacity to the pompous 

 title of this primitive track. In the matter of mud it did not 

 come up to expectations. It was not so pre-eminently filthy 

 as to be entitled to precedence over all other roads in this 

 country ; though it certainly was, in some parts, what Ecua- 

 dorians call ' savoury.^ The mud is compounded of decaying 

 animal and vegetable matter, churned up with earth, and the 

 product is a greasy and captivating slime. The interesting 

 series of ridges — termed camellones — crossing the track at right 

 angles to its course, are generally considered by travellers to 

 have been originated by the regular tread of animals.^ Typical 

 examples have a furrow of liquid mud upon each side of a ridge 

 of slippery soil, with a difference of level of two feet or more 

 between the top of the ridge and the bottom of the furrows ; 

 and man and beast struggle over the one and wallow in the 

 others upon this grande route to the interior. 



The traffic at this time was considerable both upwards and 

 downwards, and the loads were often very miscellaneous in char- 

 acter. Champagne assorted with iron bedsteads seemed to travel 

 well, while sheets of corrugated iron laid flat across the backs 

 of donkeys gave rise to much bad language in narrow places. 

 Coming down from -the interior, on their way to the coast, we 

 met numerous teams, often twenty or thirty in a troop, bringing 

 huge bales of quinine bark, accompanied by gangs of unkempt 



1 Though they are maintained and deepened by the tread of animals, it is 

 questionable if they were originated by them. Upon some new road which was 

 being made to the south of Otovalo, 1 noticed furrows being dug, and there were 

 already amongst them (without the assistance of traffic) many first-class puddles, 

 which promised to make this, in a short time, a worthy continuation of "the 

 Royal Road." 



