Notes of a naturalist in South America. Ball John

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СКАЧАТЬ direction the traffic was very limited, for since the war the working of the silver mines about Cerro de Pasco has been suspended, and little of the produce of the montaña now makes its way to the coast. But, war or no war, the wants of the inland population, living in a region which produces nothing but food and raw material, must in some measure be supplied. There was nothing very new in seeing goods packed on the backs of mules and donkeys, but the llamas and their ways were a continual source of interest. If the body be somewhat ungainly, the head with its large lustrous eyes may fairly be called beautiful. They vary extremely in colour. The prevailing hues are between light brown and buff, but we saw many quite white, and a few nearly black, with a good many mottled in large patches of white, and dark brown. The legs appear weak, and the animal can bear but a light burthen. On the mountain tracks, the load for a mule is three hundred pounds, that for a donkey two hundred pounds, while a llama can carry no more than a hundred pounds; and when any one attempts to increase the load, the animal lies down and moans piteously. He seems, indeed, not yet thoroughly resigned to domesticity, and there is a note of ineffectual complaint about his bearing and about all the sounds which he emits. One morning I was so much struck by what appeared to be the wailing of a child or a woman in distress, that I followed the sound until, behind a rock, I discovered a solitary llama that had somehow been separated from his companions. The advantage of the llama in the highlands of Peru, where fodder is scarce and must often be carried from a distance, is that he is able to shift for himself. Where the herbage is so coarse and so scanty that a donkey would starve, the llama picks up a living from the woody stems of the dwarf bushes that creep along the surface.

      HABITS OF THE LLAMA.

      Supposing that most of the plants growing on the slopes around Chicla had been collected two days before, I expected to find it expedient to go to some distance from the village on the 23rd. But I had formed an inadequate idea of the richness of the Andean flora. Commencing with a ridge of rocks on the opposite side of the valley, only a few hundred yards from the ground before traversed, I found so many new and interesting forms of vegetation that at the end of three or four hours of steady work I had ascended only four or five hundred feet above the village, and I believe that ample occupation for a week’s work to a collector might be found within one mile of the Chicla station.

      As already arranged, we decided to return to Lima on the morning of the 24th of April. If other engagements had not made this necessary, the condition of my collections would have forced me to retreat. It was certain that without a speedy supply of drying-paper a large portion must be lost. As we were despatching an early breakfast, we were struck by the appearance of a tall, vigorous, resolute-looking man, booted up to the thighs, who had arrived during the previous night. He turned out to be a fellow-countryman, one of that adventurous class that have supplied the pioneers of civilization to so many regions of the earth. This gentleman had settled in the montaña of Eastern Peru, at a height of only about four thousand feet above the sea. His account of the country was altogether attractive, and it was only after entering into some details that one began to think that a man of a less cheerful and enterprising disposition might have given a less favourable report. The place which he has selected is only some twenty leagues distant from the river Ucayali, one of the great tributaries of the Maranon, which is destined hereafter to be the channel for direct water-communication between Eastern Peru and the Atlantic coast. At present the only obstacle to communication is the fact that the country near the river is occupied by a tribe of fierce and hostile Indians, who allow no passage through their country. The climate was described by our informant as quite delightful and salubrious, the soil as most fertile, suitable for almost all tropical produce, and many of the plants of temperate regions, and the supposed inconveniences as unimportant. Jaguars are, indeed, common, but the chief objection to them is that they make it difficult to keep poultry. Poisonous snakes exist, but the prejudice against them is unreasonably strong. No case of any one dying from snake-bite had occurred at our informant’s location.

      THE MONTAÑA OF PERU.

      One drawback he did, indeed, freely admit. There was scarcely any limit to be set to the productive capabilities of the country, but, beyond what could serve for personal consumption, it was hard to say what could be done with the crops. He was then engaged in trying the possibility of transporting some of the more valuable produce of his farming to Lima. The journey had been one of extreme difficulty. In some of the valleys heavy rains had washed away tracks and carried away bridges, and he had been driven back to seek a passage by some other route. About one-half of his train of mules with their loads had been carried away by torrents, or otherwise lost; but our buoyant countryman, now virtually arrived at his journey’s end, seemed to think the experiment a fairly successful one. He had received no news from England since the beginning of the previous November, so that one or two newspapers five weeks old were eagerly accepted.

      The return journey from Chicla to Lima was easy and agreeable, but offered little of special interest. I noticed a curious illustration of the effects of the sea-breeze on vegetation even at a distance of thirty or forty miles from the coast. As we descended, I observed that the acacias which abound in the middle zone of the valley were densely covered with masses of the white flowers of a climbing Mikania, quite masking the natural aspect of the shrub. I thought it strange that this appearance should not have struck me while on my way ascending the valley. On closer attention, I saw that the Mikania was entirely confined to the eastern side of the acacia, so that the same shrub, looked at from the western side, showed no trace either of the leaves or flowers of the visitor. On reaching the Lima station, I was kindly greeted by Mr. Nation, who at once relieved my most pressing anxiety by telling me that I should find two reams of filtering paper awaiting me at my hotel.

      CLIMATE OF THE PERUVIAN ANDES.

      Having given in the twenty-second volume of the Journal of the Linnæan Society a list of the plants collected during my excursion in the Cordillera, it is needless to overload these pages with technical names, and I shall content myself with a few general remarks on the vegetation of this region, amidst which I passed a brief period of constantly renewed admiration and delight. In the first place, the general character of the flora of Chicla differed altogether from my anticipations, for the simple reason that the climate is completely different from what might, under ordinary conditions, be expected. I had seen reason to conjecture that, in ascending from the Pacific coast to the Cordillera, the rate of diminution of mean temperature would be less considerable than in most other parts of the world, but I was no way prepared to find it so slight as it really is. During the time of my visit, the mean temperature at Lima, 448 feet above the sea, was very nearly 70°, while the annual mean appears to be 66·6° Fahr.9 The mean temperature at Chicla at the same season was estimated by me at 54°, with a maximum of 65·7°, and a minimum of 42°, and the first figure probably approximates to the annual mean. For a difference in height of 11,774 feet this would give an average fall of 1° Fahr. for 935 feet of elevation, or 1 °Cent. for 512 metres; whereas, as is well known,10 the ordinary estimate found in physical treatises, resulting chiefly from the observations of Humboldt, would give for Equatorial America a fall of 1° Fahr. for about 328 English feet of increased altitude, or 1 °Cent. for 180 metres. This rate of decrease would give a fall of 36·6° Fahr. in ascending from Lima to Chicla, whereas, as we have seen, the difference is probably little more than one-third, certainly less than one-half, of that amount. It is, therefore, with some astonishment that the stranger, arriving in this region of the Cordillera, finds himself amidst a vegetation characteristic of the Temperate zone,11 and that many of the most conspicuous species are such as in mid-Europe require the protection of a greenhouse. Amongst the more attractive and characteristic of the Andean flora, I may mention five species of Calceolaria, Alonsoa, two fine Loasaceæ (one with large deep orange flowers and stiff hairs that penetrate the gloves, the other a climber with yellow flowers), several bushy Solanaceæ, and a beautiful clematis, which may hereafter adorn European gardens.

      Along with many types of vegetation peculiar to the Andes, or more or less widely diffused throughout СКАЧАТЬ