i6o NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
and continued till noon. Though not very heavy, 
it had the accustomed effect of putting the forest in 
weeping plight. The track, instead of improving 
as we approached the residences of civilised people, 
was this day decidedly worse than ever, and the 
natural obstructions were multiplied almost tenfold. 
At 8 o'clock we reached the terminus of the beach, 
above which the Pastasa ran close to the barranco, 
so that we could no longer follow its banks. 
And now commenced a series of ascents and 
descents, of which I counted eight from Mapoto to 
Rio Verde. Of these, the first two ridges were the 
highest and most fatiguing. Beyond these was a 
narrow sloppy plain at whose further side we had 
to pass a long puddle- hole called Runa-cocha, in 
which are laid slender poles from one projecting 
stone or tree-stump to another, and as they were 
now covered by water it was difficult to step on 
them. I had, in fact, the pleasure of slipping off 
them into the water nearly up to my waist. As the 
Indians travelled now without cargo, they got much 
ahead of me, and I know not how long they had 
been at the Rio Verde when I came out there, at 
3 P.M., very much wayworn. What a pleasure it 
was to see again a white man's habitation, with plots 
of cultivated land ! The hacienda has only been 
recently established, and the dwelling-house, which 
has an upper story, was unfinished ; but there was 
a cane -mill worked by water-power, and from 
twenty to thirty people at work cutting cane in the 
adjacent cane-piece, distilling brandy, etc. 
The Rio Verde is very little less than the Topo, 
and, like it, is unfordable. We crossed it by two 
stout poles laid from rock to rock at a part where 
