Notes of a naturalist in South America. Ball John
houses and stores, nearly all mere plank sheds, but, as usual throughout South America, the inhabitants rejoice in dreams of future wealth and importance to be secured by a railway communicating with the interior. There was no time to be lost; notice had been given that the ship’s stay was to be very brief, and even before landing it was apparent that the tropical forest was close at hand. In truth, the last houses are within a stone’s throw of the skirts of the forest. Just at this point I was attracted by a leafless bush, evidently one of the spinous species of Solanum, with large, yellow, obversely pear-shaped fruits. As I was about cutting off a specimen, the people, who here seemed very friendly, rushed out of the nearest house and vociferated in warning tones, “Mata! mata!” I was afterwards assured that the fruit is here considered a deadly poison. It appears to be one of the rather numerous varieties of Solanum mammosum, a species widely spread through the hotter parts of America.
FIRST VIEW OF A TROPICAL FOREST.
Being warned not to go out of hearing of the steam-whistle that was to summon us back to the ship, I was obliged to content myself with three short inroads into the forest, through which numerous paths had been cleared. The first effect was perfectly bewildering. The variety of new forms of vegetation surrounding one on every side was simply distracting. Of the larger trees I could, indeed, make out nothing, but the smaller trees and shrubs, crowded together wherever they could reach the daylight, were more than enough to occupy the too short moments.
Of the general character of the climate there could be no doubt. In spite of the blazing sun, with a shade temperature of about 85° Fahr., the ground was everywhere moist. Ferns and Selaginellæ met the eye at every turn, with numerous Cyperaceæ; and in an open spot, among a crowd of less familiar forms, I found a minute Utricularia, scarcely an inch in height. But the predominant feature, and that which interested me most keenly, was the abundance and variety of Melastomaceæ. Within the first ten minutes I had gathered specimens of seven species, all of them but one large shrubs. Of the climbers and parasites that give its most distinctive features to the tropical forest, I could in so hurried a peep make out very little. I owe one beautiful species, hitherto undescribed, to my friend W – , who, having wandered in another direction, spied the scarlet flowers of the epiphyte, which I have named Anthopterus Wardii, on the trunk of a tree, which was promptly climbed by the active negro who had accompanied him.1
Too soon came the summons of the steam-whistle. As we called on our way at the office of the Pacific Company’s agent, we were shown a number of the finer sort of so-called Panama hats, which are chiefly made on this part of the coast. Even on the spot they are expensive articles, a hundred dollars not being considered an unreasonable price for one of the better sort.
Some writers of high authority on geographical botany have held that the most marked division of the flora of tropical South America is that between the regions lying east and west of the Andes. It would be the extreme of rashness for one who has seen so little as I have done of the vegetation of a few scattered points in so vast a region to attempt to draw conclusions from his own observations; but, on the other hand, writers in Europe, even though so learned and so careful as Grisebach and Engler, are under the great disadvantage that the materials available, whether in botanical works or in herbaria, are generally incomplete as regards localities. How is it possible to form any clear picture of the flora of a special district when so large a proportion of the plants recorded are merely said to come from “Columbia” or “Ecuador,” the one larger than Spain, France, and the Low Countries put together, the other equal in extent to the Austrian Empire, and both traversed by mountain ranges varying from fifteen thousand to over eighteen thousand feet in height? I shall have later to make some remarks on the climatal conditions of the coast region extending from Panama to the Bay of Guayaquil, but I may here mention that when I afterwards acquired some slight acquaintance with the flora of Brazil, I was struck with the fact that, although separated by an interval of nearly three thousand miles, and by the great barrier of the Andes, the plants seen in and around the forest at Buenaventura were almost all nearly allied to Brazilian forms.
FLORA OF TROPICAL SOUTH AMERICA.
Further reflection, and such incomplete knowledge as I have been able to acquire as to the flora of inter-tropical South America, lead me to the conclusion that the present vegetable population of this vast region is, when we exclude from view a certain number of immigrants from other regions, mainly derived from two sources. There is, in the first place, the ancient flora of Guiana and tropical Brazil, which has gradually extended itself through Venezuela and Columbia, and along the Pacific coast as far as Ecuador, and, in an opposite direction, through Southern Brazil, to the upper basins of the Uruguay, the Paranà, and the Paraguay. The long period of time occupied by the gradual diffusion of this flora is shown by the large number of peculiar species, and not a few endemic genera that have been developed throughout different parts of this vast region, whose nearest allies, however, are to be found in the original home, Guiana or Brazil. Along with this stock, which mainly occupies the lower country, we find, especially in Venezuela, Columbia, and Ecuador, the modified descendants of vegetable types characteristic of the Andes. Of the Andean flora I shall have something to say in a future page; but I may express the belief that if we go back to the remote period when most of the characteristic types of the vegetation of South America came into existence, we must seek the ancestors of the Brazilian flora, and to a large extent also those of the Andean flora, in the ancient high mountain ranges of Brazil, where we now see, in the vast extent of arenaceous rocks, and in the surviving pinnacles of granite, the ruins of one of the greatest mountain regions of the earth.
Early on Easter Sunday morning, April 9, we were off Tumaco, a small place on one of a group of flat islands lying at the northern extremity of the coast of Ecuador.2 These islands are of good repute as having the healthiest climate on this coast. Although close to the equator, cattle are said to thrive, and, if one could forget the presence of a fringe of cocos palms along the shore, the island opposite to us, in great part cleared of forest, with spreading lawns of green pasture, might have been taken for a gentleman’s park on some flat part of the English coast. We here parted with General Prado, ex-president of Peru, who has purchased one of the islands, and hopes to end his days peacefully as a cattle-breeder. Nothing in his manner or conversation announced either energy or intelligence, but it is impossible not to recognize some kind of ability in a man who, having held such a post at such a time, not only succeeded in escaping the ordinary fate of a Peruvian president – his two immediate predecessors having been assassinated – but also in snatching from the ruin of his country the means of securing an ample provision for himself at a safe distance from home.
In the almost cloudless weather that has prevailed for some days, the apparent path of the sun could not fail to attract attention. Being still so near the vernal equinox, this could not be distinguished from a straight line. Rising out of the horizon at six o’clock, the sun passed exactly through the zenith, and went down perpendicularly in the west into the boundless ocean. Who can wonder that this daily disappearance of the sun has had so large a share in the poetry and the religion of our race? In every land, under every climate, it is the one spectacle which is ever new and ever fascinating. Use cannot stale it; and knowledge, which is said to be driving the imagination out of the field of our modern life, has done nothing to weaken the spell.
We awoke next day to find ourselves in the southern hemisphere, having crossed the line about three a.m. As the morning wore on we passed abreast of the Cabo San Lorenzo, and towards evening, keeping nearer to the coast, were within a few miles of Cabo Santa Elena. This forms the north-western headland of the Gulf of Guayaquil, a wide bay that extends fully a hundred miles eastward from the coastline.
At daybreak, April 11, we were inside the large island of Puna, and soon after entered the mouth of the river Guayas. Although it drains but a small district, this has a deep channel, as wide as the Thames at Gravesend, making the town of Guayaquil, which is about thirty miles from its mouth, the natural port for Western Equatorial America. As we steamed northward up the stream, every eye was turned eastward with the hope of descrying some part of the chain of the Andes. It was, indeed, obvious that a great mountain barrier lay in that direction, and beneath the eastern sun dark masses from time to time stood out to view; but along the crest
For a list of the plants collected here, see a paper in the
Much cinchona bark, coming from the interior, was formerly shipped at Tumaco; but between horrible roads and the reckless waste of the forests through mismanagement, but little is now conveyed by this way.