12 TRAVELS A3I0NGST THE GREAT ANDES. chap, i. 



In a dim way, we could make out the buttress on which 

 Tambo Loma was placed ; but, although overlooking the mists, 

 we could see neither the tambo, nor Munapamba at the bottom 

 of the valley, the flat land, the Pacific, nor anything to the west 

 except mist, ^ — light and thin above, dense and black below. 

 Towards the east it w^as nearly clear. A few hundred feet 

 above us, our road led to a gap, or pass in the mountains. We 

 made at once for this place, and in a few minutes left the 

 steaming Pacific slopes behind, and passed, as it were, into 

 another world. The view from this place was a revelation. 



From Bodegas until our arrival at this spot we had not 

 been able to see as much as a mile in any direction. We 

 passed through forest ; the track constantly rose ; the barometers 

 told us we were getting high ; but in what direction our road 

 would lead, whether it would keep to the east, north-east, or 

 south-east, was not known. From the existing maps of Ecuador^ 

 it did not appear that any important mountains intervened 

 between Guaranda and the coast, and until this moment I had 

 supposed that the western slopes of Chimborazo led continuously 

 towards the Pacific. For the best authority upon this parti- 

 cular district, Mr. Richard Spruce, says, '•On the western side '^ 

 (of Chimborazo) "I can find no positive break from the summit 

 down to the plain. There is no intervening salient peak, and 

 no ridge whose origin may not be traced to the peak of Chim- 



' Namely, the map by Don Pedro Maldonado, the map in La Condamine's 

 Voyage., and the ma]) accompanying the work Geografia cle In. RepnhVica del 

 Ecuador., by Manuel Villavicensio, New York, 1858. In the portion of the 

 Maldonado map that I have reproduced (which is placed at the end of this 

 volume), it will be seen there is no suggestion of "an important range of mount- 

 ains to the immediate west of Chimborazo and the valley of the E. Chimbo, 

 and in several places, notably just north of the words R. Yaguachi, the map 

 suggests flat, forest-covered land. On the map of La Condamine this district has 

 evidently been copied from Maldonado, and some of the hill-work given by the 

 latter authority is abolished, making the land appear flatter still ; and in the 

 Villavicensio map this process is still further carried out, and there appears to be 

 nothing except unimportant hills between Guayaquil and Chimborazo. 



