2i8 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
hands of the EngHsh race. It should be noted that 
this consummation has also been hindered by our 
unbroken alliance with the most beggarly nation in 
Europe (Portugal) — the nation which most hates 
the English, because they have most interfered 
with her staple trade — the traffic in human flesh ! 
[Among a quantity of loose notes, headed 
" Quitonian Andes," the following, on the Bridge 
of Bafios," seems worth quoting : — ] 
The Pastasa runs in a tortuous course, about 
40 feet broad, between perpendicular walls 150 feet 
high, sometimes much excavated at the base, the 
water foaming against blocks and down cascades 
into deep caverns, whence it issues in a savage 
whirl. Across this chasm the frail bridge is thrown, 
and is higher at its northern side. The adjacent 
rocky ground seems as if it had been shaken into 
irregular rather small fragments, not separated but 
as if the original mass of rock had been crushed 
without much displacement. The ground rises 
abruptly to a great height on the left, but lower 
on the right ; and a col stretches on one side 
towards the other, looking as if it might formerly 
have been the barrier of a lake. 
The view down the Pastasa as one descends the 
hill towards the bridge is savagely sublime. A dense 
grey curtain of Tillandsia — sometimes 30 feet deep — 
hangs from the cliffs and adjacent trees, contrasting 
with the black trachytic rock over which it hangs." 
[The bridge here referred to was probably of 
similar construction to that at Agoyan (described 
at p. 163), which was passed on the route from 
