ON THE PACIFIC COAST 329 
to southward of the cape, at the mouth of a small stream, the 
houses stand mixed with Coco palms and Plantains, and steep 
wooded declivities rise at the back. Yet on rounding the point 
to northward, we come again to a half-open country at the village 
of Manta and the town of Monte Cristo, a few miles inland ; or, 
as Funnell says of it, "the land hereabout is very barren, 
producing only a few shrubby trees and some small bushes."^ 
A little farther northward, on the river Chones, there is real 
forest, from which much timber is obtained for Guayaquil. The 
Chones falls into the Bay of Caraques, which was an important 
harbour in the early days of Spanish rule, but has now become 
useless to navigators through the gradual accumulation of sand at 
the mouth of the river. The northern extremity of this bay is 
Cape Pasado, whereof Funnell says : " This Cape Passao is a high 
round cape, with but few trees on it. It lies in the latitude of 
0° 8' S. . . . within the cape the land is pretty high and moun- 
tainous and very woody." 
From Cape Pasado to Cape San Francisco would seem to be 
the real neutral ground, the heavy rains which prevail every year 
from April to November along the coast of New Granada and 
Mexico, up to latitude 23° 30' N., reaching to southward in some 
years as far as Cape Pasado, and in others stopping short at Cape 
San Francisco. 
The coast we have been considering stretches out to westward, 
and recedes from the western ridge of the Andes at least 150 miles ; 
but if we return to Guayaquil and descend the gulf or estuary 
along its left or eastern bank, we find that at a very few miles 
inland the ground begins to swell, and rapidly rises to the lofty 
ridges of the Andes, having the frigid paramo of Azuay to the 
north. From these mountains descend several streams to the 
gulf, and the atmosphere is highly charged with humidity, in con- 
sequence of which this coast is clad with lofty continuous forest. 
At Tumbez, the southern entrance of the gulf, where the shore 
again trends to westward and recedes from the Cordillera, the 
intervening plain becomes wider, drier, and barer of vegetation as 
we advance to southward, save where a broad verdant band marks 
the course of the river Tumbez, whose sources lie in the paramo 
of Saraguru and other highlands to northward of Loja. 
The coast continues to extend to westward until reaching Capes 
Blanco and Parina, the westernmost land in South America; then 
turns southward, and in latitude 4° 55' S. the river Chira enters 
the bay of Payta, which, although a mere open roadstead, affords 
the most secure and commodious anchorage of any port along the 
whole coast of Peru. Beyond Payta is the mouth of Piura and 
the town of Sechura, which sometimes gives its name to the whole 
^ A Voyage Round the World, by W. Funnell, mate to Capt. Dampier. 
