Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

. . . Since
IN THE ECUADOREAN ANDES 213
RlOBAMBA, NOV. 2, 1858.
I last wrote to you I have several
times done the 40
miles from Ambato to Riobamba
in one day, and the distance begins to seem much less
than at first. But my back is just now aching con-
siderably from having
ridden 112 miles in three
clays, for the most part along steep and dangerous
declivities. I left Quito in September and came
straight on to Riobamba, and then 60 miles farther,
in a south-westerly direction, crossing the summit
of the Cordillera at an elevation of 12,500 feet, and
then descending to the valley of Pallatanga at 5000
to 6000 feet. This pass, called the Paramo de
Naba,
is far lower than that over the shoulder of
Chimborazo (14,000 feet) on the way from Quito
and Ambato to Guayaquil. I scarcely suffered
from the cold on Naba, although
I was buffeted
I gathered there some very
by a hail-storm and ;
interesting plants, including the beautiful Gentiana
cernua found by Humboldt and Bonpland on Chimborazo.
It is great pity that these fine Andine
Gentians have proved so difficult to cultivate in
England. Anderson, the famous nurseryman of
Edinburgh, has succeeded in raising a great main
plants of the Professor
Andes, from seeds
Jameson of Quito, but
sent to him by
I am told that
none of the Gentians have survived. It is difficult
to imitate the conditions of their growth ;
for some
of them endure frost nearly every night of their
lives, yet so light is the pressure of air upon them
die when
that the frost injures them not ; yet they
frozen in the dense atmosphere of the plains.
have seen epiphytal Orchids Oncidiums, Odonto-