Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

xix IN THE ECUADOREAN ANDES 185
and the houses oscillated to and fro, in a way to
quite upset one's notions of the earth's stability.
I cannot walk abroad in any direction without
seeing evidence of former earthquakes, far more
violent than this one, and some of them of not very
ancient date.
A short time after this earthquake, I was talking
about it to a neighbour, when he remarked, " It is
seven years ago since we had an earthquake that
did any damage, and then only a single house was
destroyed, and it stood exactly where yours does,
which was built on its ruins." This was startling,
but I was reassured when I learnt that the house
overthrown was built of adobes, and therefore
easily thrown down, whereas the new one was of
wooden pillars and wattles, the interspace being
filled with earth, and both inside and outside
plastered
being
and whitewashed and that the ; pillars,
of " helechos "
(trunks of tree-ferns), were
so tough as to sway backwards and forwards
without ever breaking. All the other houses in
the village had the uprights also of tree-fern.
[On January 16, 1858, Spruce removed to the
town of Ambato, situated on the highroad from
Guayaquil to Quito, and about midway between
the two cities. This town continued to be his
head-quarters for two and half years, when he finally
quitted the higher Andes.
A series of extracts (made by Spruce himself)
from letters to his friend Teasdale carry on the
narrative of his more general observations and
experiences during the year 1858. In this period
he visited Riobamba and Quito, as well as Banos,
several times, and made numerous excursions to