Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

THE FORESTS OF ALAUSI 233
unsafe to leave my goods a moment.
such an
Yet even
" Ager Syrticus " has its points of interest,
for on this place is seen the
dividing of the waters
of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. We passed
many small streams, some rising on the paramo
and some in the Western Cordillera, but all running
eastward to join the Great River, with whose waters
and forests I was long so familiar ; when, however,
we approached the southern side of the paramo, we
came on the Rio de Pumachaca (River of the Bridge
of Tigers), a considerable stream rising in the
Eastern Cordillera and running westward towards
the Pacific ; it is, in fact, one of the sources of the
river Yaguachi, which enters the Gulf of Guayaquil.
From the Pumachaca northward, until very near
Quito, all the streams of the central plain between
the two branches of the Cordillera flow eastward,
and unite in the gorge of Bafios to form the river
Pastasa, which speedily reaches the Amazonian
plain, and thence the Atlantic ; but the streams
around Quito itself unite to form the river of
Esmeraldas, and seek the Pacific. Near the
Pumachaca there was rather more vegetation ;
patches of Cyperaceae were dotted with the white
flowers of a minute Lobelia, which I have seen in
many similar situations, and groups of Cactus were
draped over by an Atropa, remarkable for its
aromatic leaves. It is
singular that in so deadly
a genus all the species I have seen in the Quitonian
Andes have edible though very acid fruit, and that
the shoots are cropped by asses and llamas.
As we descended from the southern side of the
paramo, the Hedyotis began to be mixed with a
small labiate shrub of very similar foliage, and