252 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
imaginary, for Riobamba was sacked some time 
afterwards (it is only a week ago to-day) by the 
troops stationed there. Not a shop or a warehouse 
was spared, and eight or nine private houses shared 
the same fate. 
. . . Your sanitary and social reformers seem 
much occupied with devising suitable habitations 
for the poor and industrious classes. They would 
be much shocked could they see the promiscuous 
way in which people sleep here, even in the 
wealthiest houses. The other day I remonstrated 
with my landlord — one of the best men in the place 
— for allowing a number of people of both sexes to 
sleep together in the same room — some in beds, 
some on the floor. " I assure you," replied he, 
we throw open both doors and windows at day- 
break ! " He had no idea, poor man, of any 
possible vitiation of the moral atmosphere. I 
thought of the fair (but frail) Pauline Buonaparte, 
who, when an English lady asked her, " How 
cottld you sit so naked to that sculptor ? " made 
answer, My dear madam, you forget I had a fire 
in the room ! " 
In January last I spent three weeks with the 
Cura of Puela — a small village at the western foot 
of Tunguragua. The parsonage -house consisted 
of but two rooms, the one a small dormitory occu- 
pied by the Padre, and where he had barely room 
to turn himself ; the other a much larger room, 
where the rest of his family worked and ate during 
the day, and slept at night. I append a diagram of 
this main apartment, wherein i, 2, 3 represents 
a raised stage made of wild canes (called a 
