The country round Islay is as dreary and arid a waste as the eye could rest on; yet from July to October, when there is the greatest amount of moisture on the coast, the otherwise barren mountains, which rise up abruptly from the desert, at a distance of about three miles from the sea, are green and carpeted with flowers, while the plain nearer Islay is also dotted over with vegetation. This maritime range is called the "Lomas." In consequence of the unusual quantity of rain which fell in the early part of 1860, the Lomas had broken out in renewed freshness in March. The country, close to Islay, was covered with a scattered growth of Compositæ, wild tobacco, Nympha, Oxalis, Salvia, an Umbellifer with a large white flower, Verbena, Heliotrope, a purple Solanum, an Amaranth, and other flowers. It is broken up into abrupt ravines; and, near the foot of the mountains, some of them contain deposits of soil washed down by little streams which flow during the wet season, sufficient to sustain small groves of fig and olive trees, the abodes of numerous flocks of doves. Such is the case in the ravines called Catarindo, Yutu, and Matarani, from the latter of which the water is led in pipes to supply the town of Islay. The guardian of this water-supply is an Irishman, generally known as Juan de la Pila (John of the fountain), an active obliging man, who also follows the trades of carpenter, cooper, and blacksmith; and to whom we were indebted for much valuable assistance in procuring soil for the Wardian cases, and in giving us the use of his yard. The soil in the richest parts of these ravines, which had been washed down from the higher slopes of the Lomas, is several feet deep, and appeared sufficiently good to be used for the Wardian cases, in the event of its being found impossible to obtain soil from any more promising locality; and the great number of wild flowers which were growing in it convinced me that it could not contain anything very pernicious.[121]