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262 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
The Bark grounds, which still continue to be worked, form
part of five contiguous farms, called respectively El Morado,
Matiavi, Si'nchig, Talagua, and Salinas, whereof the two former
belong to the church of Guaranda, and the three latter (which
extend upwards to the paramos of Chimborazo and downwards
to the plain of Guayaquil) are the property of General and ex-
President Juan Jose Floras, who, after a banishment of fifteen
years, has lately returned to take the chief part in the recovery of
Guayaquil from a faction who would have given it up
Only the high lands of those farms, where there is natural pastur-
to Peru.
age and ground suitable for the cultivation of potatoes and cereals,
have been turned to any account by the proprietors. The middle
part is dense, unbroken forest, and in the lower part, which produces
the Red Bark, a good many poor people of mixed race from
the sierra, and a few liberated slaves from the plain, have formed
little cane-farms, without asking leave of the owners or paying
any rent. The farms belonging to General Flores have been for
some years leased to a Senor Cordovez, who resides at Ambato ;
and Dr. Francisco Neyra, notary public of Guaranda, rents the
farms of the church, but only so far as respects the bark they
produce. With these two gentlemen I had, therefore, to treat
for permission to take from the bark woods the seeds and plants
I wanted. At first they wr ere unwilling to grant me it at any price,
but, after a good deal of parley, I succeeded in making a treaty
with them, 'whereby, on the payment of 400 dollars, I was allowed
to take as many seeds and plants as I liked, so long as I did not
touch the bark. They also bound themselves to aid me in procuring
the necessary workmen and beasts of burden. Through
the intervention of Dr. Neyra, who has throughout done all he
could to favour the enterprise, I engaged with his cascarilleros
(who all inhabit the village of Guanujo, adjacent to Guaranda)
that whilst they were procuring bark for him, they should also
seek seeds and plants for me.
From Dr. Neyra I ascertained that a site called Limon would
be the most suitable for the centre of my operations. ... At
Limon existed formerly the finest manchon of Red Bark ever
seen. It was all cut down many years ago, but I was informed
that shoots from the old roots had already grown to be stout little
trees, large enough to bear flowers and fruit, and that the squatters
(who are many of them cascarilleros of Guanujo), since they got
to know the value of the bark, had carefully preserved such trees
as were standing in their chacras or clearings. Messrs. Cordovez
and Neyra have made their depot for the bark about four leagues
lower down the valley, where a stream called Camaron, running
down the next transversal valley to the northward, joins the
Chasuan.
The intestine war still continued to rage, and the country was