Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

232 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
while the hassocks shelter in their bosom purple
Lycopodia and other plants.
Having passed Sanancajas, we descend to the
sandy plain of Riobamba, whose general character
is the same as that of Ambato, save that cactus-
hedges often replace
those of aloes.
In Riobamba I remained three days with my
hospitable countryman Dr. James Taylor,
and then
proceeded on my way, going the first day only as
far as Miraflores, a farm six leagues away from Rio-
bamba, and near the village of Guamote. On the
way we had to climb over a small space of paramo,
where we got the benefit of a storm of hail and
sleet. The vegetation was scanty, and I gathered
only
a minute Umbellifer which was new to me.
Miraflores is what is called a cold farm, consisting
chiefly of pasture and barley fields. A short ascent
from it brought us upon the Paramo de Tiocajas,
which is full six leagues across. Anything more
desolate than this paramo I have nowhere seen. It
is one great desert of movable sand, in which the
distant patches of Cacti, Hedyotis,
and a succulent
Composita only render its nakedness more apparent.
Where there is a little moisture, solitary plants of a
silky-leaved Plantago struggle for existence. The
altitude is about the same as that of Sanancajas, and
it may be imagined how cheerless was a slow ride
of nearly 20 miles over such a waste, rendered
all the more gloomy by a leaden sky overhead, and
a piercing wind which came laden with mist and
fine sand. I was obliged to go nearly at the pace
of my loaded beasts, the unsettled state of the
country, and the number of deserters from the
" "
constitutional
army roaming about, rendering it