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does duty in great part as a sewer, besides furnishing the only 
water supply. From Tacna, the route lay seven days by mule, 
to La Paz. At nine thousand feet, 17 0 south latitude,* the veg¬ 
etation is sufficient to afford pasturage for the llama. At twelve 
thousand feet we are upon the table-land, which is, in part at 
least, volcanic, and at first thickly covered with loose rounded 
stones. Farther on it becomes sandy and rocky by turns. We 
cross many superimposed small ranges, and skirt the bases of 
much greater ones. The landscape is much like that of our own 
south-western plateau, except that there is less grass. What fre¬ 
quently appears like a grassy plain, proves to be covered with 
plants like dwarf Hypochceris or Perezia , only an inch or two in 
height, and presenting a green cushion of needles in the form of 
spines terminating the erect linear leaves. Numerous species 
of Adesmia , rarely rising above a foot from the ground, and often 
very closely prostrate, cover much of the country. 
Near the eastern verge of this tabie-land, in a basin two 
thousand feet deep, with nearly vertical walls of clay or gravel, 
is situated La Paz, at an elevation of about eleven thousand feet. 
Here I spent some two weeks during the months of February, 
March and April, collecting one hundred and fifty or more species. 
This was during the latter half of the rainy season, when the 
walls of the basin, and the gravelly and rocky hills along the La 
Paz River to the south, were richly clothed with plants in flower. 
The remainder of the time during this period was passed across 
the range in Yungas. Returning early in April to the coast, I 
proceeded to Valparaiso, where three months were spent. Here 
the season is earlier, and winter was just setting in when I arrived. 
A winter there is about the same as in northern Florida, the 
orange surviving, but not thriving. Some twenty-five or thirty 
stray specimens were found in flower before I returned to La 
Paz. It being then early in June, I found a dry and wintry 
season prevailing, with a most dreary prospect for a collector. 
Fora longtime business detained me in the city, save for a few 
short excursions across the mountains, and one long stay in the 
province of Yungas, made, unfortunately, at an unfavorable season 
for collecting. Just as the rains were beginning the next Janu- 
* Distances, latitudes and altitudes a,re given approximately. 
