Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

xxil ON THE PACIFIC COAST 329
to southward of the cape, at the mouth of a small stream, the
houses stand mixed with Coco palms and Plantains, and steep
wooded declivities rise at the back. Yet on rounding the point
to northward, we come again to a half-open country at the village
of Manta and the town of Monte Cristo, a few miles inland; or,
as Funnell says of it, "the land hereabout is very barren,
producing only a few shrubby trees and some small bushes.''
A little farther northward, on the river Chones, there is real
forest, from which much timber is obtained for Guayaquil. The
Chones falls into the Bay of Caraques, which was an important
harbour in the early days of Spanish rule, but has now become
useless to navigators through the gradual accumulation of sand at
the mouth of the river. The northern extremity of this bay is
"
This Cape Passao is a high
Cape Pasado, whereof Funnell : says
round cape, with but few trees on it. It lies in the latitude of
o S' S. . . . within the cape the land is pretty high and moun-
tainous and very woody."
From Cape Pasado to Cape San Francisco would seem to be
the real neutral ground, the heavy rains which prevail every year
from April to November along the coast of New Granada and
Mexico, up to latitude 23 30' N., reaching to southward in some
years as far as Cape Pasado, and in others stopping short at Cape
San Francisco.
The coast we have been considering stretches out to westward,
and recedes from the western ridge of the Andes at least 150 miles ;
but if \ve return to Guayaquil and descend the gulf or estuary
along its left or eastern bank, we find that at a very few miles
inland the ground begins to swell, and rapidly rises to the lofty
ridges of the Andes, having the frigid paramo of north.
A/uay to
From these mountains descend several streams to
the
the
gulf, and the atmosphere is highly charged with humidity, in connence
of which this coast is clad with lofty continuous forest.
At Tumbez, the southern entrance of the gulf, where the shore
again trends to westward and recedes from the Cordillera, the
intervening plain becomes wider, drier, and barer of vegetation as
we advance to southward, save where a broad \erdant band marks
' the course of the ri\ r fumbez, whose sources lie m the paramo
of Saraguru and other highlands to northward of Loja.
The coast continues to extend to westward until reaching Capi
I'.lanco and Pariha, the westernmost land in South America : then
turns southward, and in latitude 4 55'
S. the river Chira enters
the bay of Payta, which, although a mere open roadstead, affords
the most secure and commiidimi-, anchorage of any porl alon^ the
is the moulli of 1'iura and
whole coast of Peru. IJeyond Payta
the town of Sechura, which som< nines -ives its name to the \\hole
, Roiiinl III, //',/ /y YV. l-'unndl, mate 1" <
'apt.
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