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328
NOTES OF A BOTANIST
Andes, which has been upraised from the ocean at no very remote
period, and is still nearly as destitute of vegetation as the Sahara
of Africa. It is, however, watered by a few rivers, some of which
rise in the summits of the Andes, and run with a stream into the ocean, diffusing fertility
permanent
and perennial verdure
in the lower
throughout the valleys they traverse ; others, rising
hills which form an outwork of the great chain, carry a consider-
able volume of water to the sea during the rainy season, but for
the rest of the year the lower part of their course is dry. By far
the most important of these rivers is the Guayaquil, whose
affluents drain the slopes of the loftiest portion of the western
equatorial Ancles (including the mighty Chimborazo), and on
issuing into the plain form a network of navigable streams which
at the city of Guayaquil combine into a noble river.
The northern limit of the Peruvian desert is usually placed
about Tumbez, at the southern extremity of the Gulf of Guayaquil,
in latitude 3 30' S., but I now know, from personal inspection,
that the coast of the Pacific north of the gulf has the same
geological conformation, the same climate, and almost as scanty a
vegetation as it has south of it. At what point to northward the
struggle between barrenness and fertility begins to be equally
balanced, I am unable to say, but I am inclined to it place about
Cape Pasado, at the mouth of the river Chones. Guayaquil itself,
as seen from the river, with its groves of coco palms and fruit
trees, and its picturesque wooded hills, might be supposed a
region of forests ; but the moment we pass the skirts of the city to
westward we find that the country is nearly all savanna, either
open and grassy or scattered over with bushes and low groves,
and that the woods are confined to the hills and to the borders of
salt-creeks. As we descend the river from Guayaquil (i.e. to
southward), the ground on the right margin, beyond the mangrove
fringe, grows more and more open, and at the southernmost point
of the mainland, or the northern entrance to the gulf, where
stands the village of El Morro, at the foot of a steep rounded hill,
the is ground already nearly as bare of vegetation as the coast of
Peru. Throughout this distance, and thence northward along the
shores of the Pacific to beyond Point St. Elena, there is no stream
of fresh water, although there are a few salt-creeks but in latitude
;
i
55' S. we come on the river Manglar-alto, along whose banks
there is vigorous vegetation, as
streams entering at wide intervals
there is also on similar
to northward while the ;
small
intermediate
ground is either nearly desert or is a sort of savanna,
sparsely set with bushes and cactuses, and bare of herbs except
after the rare and exceptional rains.
About Cape San Lorenzo (latitude i
5' S.)
and broken, and almost completely clad with low bushy vegetation.
In the village of the same name, which nestles in the bay
the coast is bold