XI 
SAN CARLOS 
361 
in flower or fruit, I could not refer with certainty to 
their genus or order. None of these rose above 
12 feet high, and they constituted a band of some 
twenty or thirty yards broad, skirting forest of a 
loftier description though still very low compared 
with that of the plain. 
Above this there is a large extent of bare 
swelling rock, quite dry except in two or three 
places where water trickles down shallow furrows. 
At first sight it seems impossible to ascend it, but 
on trial I found that the asperities of the surface 
sufficed to prevent my naked feet from sliding. I 
climbed only so far as to have a clear view of the 
country, for the descent is fearful and can only be 
safely accomplished on both hands and feet with 
the face towards the sky; but my Indians, agile as 
monkeys, climbed up to the next belt of vegetation, 
at about midway of the mountain, and brought me 
down a quantity of the Orchis above mentioned, 
along with two other species of the same order, one 
with large delicate red flowers quite withered by 
heat when they reached me, the other an Epiden- 
drum, with small pink flowers and roundish leaves 
almost as fleshy as those of a Mesembryanthemum. 
They told me that it would be possible to ascend 
the mountain still higher though the rock was very 
steep, but it must be early in the morning ere the 
dew had passed off, for the heat made it slippery, 
besides scorching their feet. 
From the point I attained, where a slight dimple 
in the rock allowed me to sit down, I had a view of 
a range of mountains called Pira-pukil, extending 
from S.S.E. to E., and its prolongation hidden by 
forest at the base of Cocui. . . 
