160 TRAVELS A3I0NGST THE GREAT ANDES, chap. vni. 



in some alluring and deceitful ground. In this country (and it 

 may perhaps be said of the slopes of mountains in general) any 

 spot that is especially verdant is sure to be swampy. In Ecuador, 

 this is no doubt an indication that the earth in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of such spots is not fissured ; water is unable to 

 drain away, and the soil becomes saturated.^ 



After all hands had extricated Louis and his beast from the 

 morass^ Cevallos (our principal arriero) took the lead. He was 

 a capital horseman, and, unlike the majority of his class, had no 

 objections to his animals going to great heights. AVe pushed on 

 hard, and in two hours and a quarter rose three thousand feet, — 

 half-way up coming suddenly upon three deer, gambolling about. 

 These lower slopes, though steep, were easy to ride over, and 

 up to 14,000 feet and higher were rather luxuriantly covered 

 with grasses. 



At about the height of 14,800 feet our animals could go no 



farther, and were left in charge of Cevallos. This spot was 



just above the clouds which are underneath the summit in the 



engraving on the opposite page. All the grass land was below, 



and we w^ere confronted with crags, precipitous enough for any 



one, crowned by fields of snow and ice, the birthplace of a fine 



hanging-glacier which crept down almost perpendicular cliffs, 



^ The scarcity of rills aiul streams upon most of the Great Andes of the Equator 

 was continually remarked, and we frequently had trouble in obtaining- a supply of 

 water. It seems not improbable that the surface drainag-e infiltrates to great depths, 

 and supplies much of the steam that escapes from the active volcanoes. Little of it 

 reappears on the surface in springs. The only warm s})ring of any size that I saw 

 in the interior was near Machachi, about fifty yards from the Avest (left) bank of the 

 Rio (irande, and about fifteen feet above that river. It bubbled up freely in a 

 considerable volume in a pool, twelve by ten feet across, with a quantity of gas 

 escaping. The temperature of this spring at mid-day was 69° Faht., and of the air 

 65° "25. It was said that in the early morning the temperature of the water was 

 JdgJier. It was scarcely necessary to investigate the accuracy of this statement. 

 The air temperature in the morning was generally below 55° Faht.; and, if the 

 warmth of the spring remained constant, the contrast between the two temperatures 

 would be greater then than at mid-day. People come both to drink at and to bathe 

 in this i)Ool, Its taste was compared to Vichy water. 



