Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

IN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 295
surest-footed beast goes on continually stumbling.
So we made our frames of palm-fronds, our buckets
of bamboos, and invented similar contrivances for
other needful articles. The closed communication
with Guayaquil was felt to be a sore obstacle, as
we might have sent thither for canvas and other
things required for the plants, and also for a little
wine and porter for the invalids.
The mornings were always cool and sometimes
dull, but at 7 o'clock or so the sun would often
come out blazing hot. In the afternoons, when the
fog seemed to have set in for the day,
sometimes clear away for a brief space, and admit
it would
the scorching rays of the sun. On these occasions,
and on the days of sustained heat, the only means
of keeping the plants from withering was to give
and then there was the
them abundance of water ;
risk, on the other hand, of their damping off.
Water was supplied to the trapiche, for the service
of the still and for culinary purposes, by a' small
acequia (canal) carried along the hill-side from the
head of a rivulet about a mile off. We had by this
means generally sufficient water for our plantation,
but as the acequia was ill made and protected by
no fence, the cattle, roaming about, generally trod
and dammed it up at least once every day, when
the Indians had to seek out and repair the damaged
spots. But when the supply of water failed just at
the moment of one of those outbursts of sun, there
was no alternative but for all hands to run with
buckets clown to the deep glen, where there was a
considerable stream, although the steep
ascent In mi
it was very toilsome. In a few weeks the cuttings
began to root, and then they were attacked by