On the 22nd of July 1859 Mr. Spruce set out from the pleasant town of Ambato, in the Quitenian Andes, where he was then residing, and, passing through Alausi, arrived at the banks of the river Chanchan, and established himself at a place called Lucmas, which is conveniently near the "red-bark" chinchona forests. Lucmas is a sugar-cane farm, between 5000 and 6000 feet above the sea; there are forest-trees in the valleys and on the hills, while the steep slopes are often covered with scrub and grass. From Lucmas Mr. Spruce went to the forests on the banks of the river Pumachaca, which rises in the mountain of Asuay, and falls into the Chanchan, at an elevation of 4000 feet. One circumstance, among many, will give an idea of the difficulties which he had to encounter. On reaching the Pumachaca he found that the ford had been destroyed by the falling of a cliff, and that in its place there was a deep whirlpool; so, with the driftwood along the banks, a bridge had to be made where the river was narrowed between two rocks, by which his party crossed with the baggage. Then, after a long search, he found a place where the horses could swim across, and, by rolling down masses of earth and stones, a way was made for them to ascend on the other side. Once across, a hut was made among vegetable-ivory palms, thatched with the palm-fronds, and Mr. Spruce commenced the examination of the forest. After a long search, during which he passed several felled trunks of chinchona-trees, he at length came upon a root-shoot about twenty feet high. It is very rare to find these root-shoots, because the bark is stripped from the roots as well as from the trunk. Mr. Spruce, from his observations in the Pumachaca forest, came to the conclusion that the "red-bark" trees grow best on stony declivities, where there is, however, a good depth of humus, at an elevation of from 3000 to 5000 feet above the sea. The temperature was very like that of a summer day in London, but with cold mists towards evening, and from January to May unceasing rain. He found the chinchona-trees, in this part of the country, almost entirely extirpated, and, after a short stay at Lucmas, he proceeded to examine the region of the "hill barks" or _cascarillas serranas_, which is at an elevation of 8500 to 9000 feet, on both sides of the river Chanchan. In the forest of Llalla, at the foot of the mountain of Asuay, he found two kinds called by the natives _cuchi-cara_ (pig-skin) and _pata de gallinazo_;[369] and on a stony hill-side there were twenty large trees of the former, from 40 to 50 feet high.