Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

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NOTES OF A BOTANIST
and bread is brought to Banos from Ambato,
Pillaro, and other towns. It is rather dear, and
when I arrived from the forest half-famished, and
my thin face nearly
hidden under a beard of three
months' growth I could easily demolish sixpenny-
worth a day. Beef and mutton can mostly be had
at 2^d. the pound. In fact, good solid eatables
are not scarce, and as my troubles had not taken
away my appetite, I assure you I have gone deep
into them. I have now got up my strength again,
and I don't think I was ever so stout in my
life as
I am at this moment. At first I suffered much
from the cold. Think of the thermometer 485- at
sunmse, when even at 70 on the Amazon I (and
everybody else) used to shiver with cold but I
;
am gradually becoming inured to it.
We are still (September 14)
in the " tiempo de
las nevadas " -the snowy time on the summits of
the Eastern Cordillera and the snow has been
very low down, even into the forests on the flanks
of Tunguragua.
Earthquakes begin to find a place in my Journal.
We had one here on the 7th of August, a little
before seven in the morning. I was sipping my
chocolate when it came on at first with a gentle
undulatory movement, then with a brisk shaking, and
then gradually subsiding, its whole duration being
about three-quarters of a minute. I was trying to
ascertain its direction and the number of vibrations
per second (about four), when a piece of plaster fell
from the wall at my back, whereat I snatched up
my chocolate and walked to the door, thinking it
quite as safe to continue my observations outside.
Whilst, the shock lasted, the ground, the trees,