PERUVIAN REGIONS. l95 



4. The Peruvian Paramera, or Grassy Subalpine Region. 



From the time of our first proposing a visit to the Andes, we heard 

 accounts of the dreaded Paramera, " uninhabitable on account of the 

 cold;" and, in all instances, owners declined sending their mules 

 "into the Paramera and over the mountains." 



In ascending the Andes, the Chilian order of aridity was found to 

 be reversed; moisture increasing, until at length the soil was entirely 

 concealed by herbage. The result is, that in Peru, the crest of the 

 Andes is no longer a barrier and political boundary between nations ; 

 but barely separates the two portions of a pastoral district, that serves 

 as a bond of union between the population on either slope. 



On the 19th of May, w^e passed the hamlet of Culuay, at lOi A. m. ; 

 and a little beyond, the large shrubs and gaudy flowers very abruptly 

 ceased ; the soil, hitherto left partly bare, becoming thickly covered 

 with low herbage, everywhere green and grassy. Cultivation having 

 also ceased ; cattle were seen grazing on the heights around, together 

 with donkeys, lamas, and numbers of sheep and goats. 



Whether snow ever falls as low down in the Paramera as the com- 

 mencement or lower margin, we did not ascertain. The following 

 Observations of the temperature were made by us at two stations on 

 this margin : 



May 22(1, at Bafios (in the Chancay Valley); near sunset, in the open air, 50° Fahr. 

 " " at night within doors, ...... 50° Fahr. 



28d, " frost observed this morning, ..... 



25th, one league above Culuay (in the Canta Valley); at 7 a.m., . 47° Fahr. 



As we continued ascending, Grasses predominated everywhere, to 

 the exclusion often of all other kinds of herbage; conspicuous flower- 

 ing plants occurring only singly at wide intervals, besides being 

 reduced almost entirely to Senecionece and dwarf Lv,pines. The ave- 

 rage height of the herbage seemed about six inches, and the extreme 

 height rarely a foot ; the shrubs that were occasionally intermingled, 

 conforming in dimensions; but beyond the depressed harmonizing 

 species of Baccharis, shrubs in the Paramera were almost entirely con- 

 fined to the crevices and shelter of rocks. 



The vegetable growth was soon found to consist mainly of the 

 genera of the extreme North : the grasses, almost all of them, belonging 



