Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

128 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
visible, and audible only when swollen by rains.
Beyond
the Bombonasa stretched the same sort
of boldly undulating plain I had remarked from
Andoas upwards, till reaching one long low ridge,
perhaps a little higher than Puca-yacu,
of remark-
ably equable height and direction (north to south) ;
this is the water-shed between the Bombonasa and
Pastasa, and the latter river flows along its western
foot ; a little north of west from Puca-yacu, the
course of the Pastasa is indicated by a deep gorge
stretching west from behind the riclge. This gorge
has on each side lofty rugged mountains (5000 to
6000 feet), spurs of the Cordillera ; one of those on
the right is called Abitagua, and the track from
Canelos to Banos passes over its summit. All this
was frequently visible, but it was only when the
mist rolled away from the plain a little after sun-
rise that the lofty Cordillera beyond lay in cloudless
majesty. To the extreme left (south), at no
very great distance, rose Sangahy (or the Volcan
of Macas, as it is often called), remarkable for its
exactly conical outline, for the snow lying on it in
longish stripes,
and for the cloud of smoke almost
constantly hovering over it. A good way to the
is the much loftier mountain called Los
right
Altares, its truncated summit jagged with eight
peaks of nearly equal elevation and clad with an
unbroken covering of snow, which glittered like
crystal in the sun's rays, and made me think how
pure must be the offering on " altars " to whose
height no mortal must hope
to attain. Not far to
the right of Los Altares, and of equal altitude, is
Tunguragua, a bluff irregular peak with rounded
apex capped with snow, which also descends in