XXI 
AMBATO 
261 
Jo Sir William Hooker 
Ambato, March 12, i860. 
• • • • • • 
I have succeeded in hiring the forests producing 
the Cascarilla roja after about ten times as much 
correspondence as would have been necessary in 
any civiHsed country, and I am now getting together 
a staff of workmen (no easy task in these revolu- 
tionary times) with which to enter the forest as soon 
as the rains abate. I am also in treaty with the 
owners of the woods near Loja which produce the 
Cinchona conda^ninea ; but as this species seems to 
flower and fruit exactly at the same time as the 
Cascarilla roja, and the localities of the two species 
are fifteen days' journey apart (under the most 
favourable circumstances), it is plainly impossible 
that I can see with my own eyes the seeds of both 
species gathered, which is the only way to be sure 
of having the right sort. . . . 
REPORT ON THE EXPEDITION TO PROCURE SEEDS 
AND PLANTS OF THE CINCHONA SUCCIRUBRA 
OR RED BARK TREE 
Towards the end of the year 1859, I was entrusted by Her 
Majesty's Secretary of State for India with a commission to pro- 
cure seeds and plants of the Red Bark tree, and I proceeded to 
take the necessary steps for entering on its performance. 
Within the ascertained hmits of the true Red Bark it exists (or 
rather existed up to a recent period) in all the valleys of the 
Andes which debouch into the Guayaquilian plain. Many years 
ago it was obtained in large quantities in the valley of Alausi, 
below an Indian hamlet called Linje, on the northern side of the 
Chanchan (nearly opposite to Puma-cocha, which is on the 
southern side of the same stream), but it has long been exhausted 
there. 
