501 



resinous and fragrant plants of the Pejual. The 

 sky became more and more cloudy, and the 

 thermometer sunk below 11°, a temperature at 

 which in this zone people begin to suffer from 

 the cold. Quitting the little wood of alpine 

 plants, we found ourselves again in a savannah. 

 We climbed over a part of the western dome, 

 in order to descend into the hollow of the Silla, 

 a valley which separates it's two summits. We 

 there had great difficulties to overcome, occa- 

 sioned by the force of the vegetation. A bota- 

 nist would not easily guess, that the thick wood 

 covering this valley is formed by the assemblage 

 of a plant of the musaceous family*. It is pro- 

 bly a maranta, or a helicon ia ; it's leaves are large 

 and shining ; it reaches the height of fourteen or 

 fifteen feet, and it's succulent stalks are placed 

 near one another, like the stems of the reeds 

 found in the humid regions of the south of Eu- 

 rope ^. We were obliged to cut our way through 

 this forest of musaceae. The Negroes walked 

 before with their cutlasses, or machettes. The 

 people confound this alpine scitamineous plant 

 with the arborescent gramma, under the name 

 of carke. We saw neither it's fruit nor flowers. 

 We are surprised to meet with a monocotyledo- 

 nous family, believed to be exclusively found in 

 the hot and low regions of the tropics, at eleven 



* Scitamineous plants, or family of the plantains, 

 f Arunrto donax. 



