This lady was the wife of the Viceroy Don Geronimo Fernandez de Cabrera, Bobadilla y Mendoza, Conde de Chinchon, who governed Peru from 1629 to 1639. The cure of the Vice-Queen took place in the year 1638. A tradition which is current in Spain, but which I have frequently heard contradicted in Loxa, names Juan Lopez de Cañizares, Corregidor of the Cabildo de Loxa, as the person by whom the Quina (Cinchona) bark was first brought to Lima, and universally recommended as a medicine. In Loxa, I have heard it affirmed that the salutary properties of the tree were long previously, though not generally, known in the mountainous regions. Immediately after my return to Europe, I expressed doubts whether the discovery had really been made by the natives in the vicinity of Loxa, for the Indians in the neighbouring valleys, where intermittent fevers are very prevalent, have an aversion to the Quina bark.[[RS]] The story which sets forth that the natives learned the virtues of the Cinchona from the lions, “who cure themselves of intermittent fever by gnawing the bark of the Quina tree,”[[RT]] appears to be merely a monkish fiction, and wholly of European origin. No such disease as the lion’s fever is known in the New Continent; for the so-called great American lion (Felis concolor) and the small mountain lion (the Puma, whose footmarks I have seen on the snow) are never tamed, consequently never become the subjects of observation. Nor are the various species of the feline race, in either continent, accustomed to gnaw the bark of trees. The name “Countess’s Powder” (Pulvis Comitissæ) originated in the circumstance of the bark having been dealt out as a medicine by the Countess de Chinchon. But this name was subsequently metamorphosed into “Cardinal’s” or “Jesuit’s” Powder, because Cardinal de Lugo, Procurator-General of the Order of the Jesuits, made known the medicine, whilst he was on a journey through France, and recommended it the more urgently to Cardinal Mazarin, as the brethren of the Order were beginning to carry on a profitable trade in the South American Quina bark, which they contrived to obtain through their missionaries. It is scarcely necessary to mention that Protestant physicians suffered themselves sometimes to be influenced by religious intolerance and hatred of the Jesuits, in the long controversy that was maintained, respecting the good or evil effects of the fever bark.
[113]. p. 393—“Aposentos de Mulalo.”
The Aposentos are dwellings or inns. They are called in the Quichua language Tampu, whence the Spanish term Tambo (an inn). On the subject of these Aposentos see Cieça’s Chronica del Peru (cap. 41 ed. de 1544, p. 108), and my Vues des Cordillères (Pl. xxiv).
[114]. p. 394—“The fortress of the Cañar.”
This fortress is situated near Turche, and at an elevation of about 10,640 feet.[[RU]] Not far distant from the Fortaleza del Cañar is situated the celebrated ravine of the sun, called the Inti-Guaycu (in the Quichua language huaycco). In this ravine there are some rocks on which the natives imagine they see the image of the sun, and a bench called the Inga-Chungana (Incachuncana), the Inca’s play. I made drawings of both. (Vues des Cord., pl. xviii. et xix.)
[115]. p. 394—“Causeways covered with cemented gravel.”
See Velasco’s Historia de Quito, 1844, (t. i. p. 126–128), and Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Peru, (vol. i. p. 157.)
[116]. p. 395—“Flights of Steps.”
See Pedro Sancho in Ramusio, vol. iii. fol. 404, and the Extracts from Manuscript Letters of Hernando Pizarro, of which Mr. Prescott, the great historical writer, now at Boston, has so advantageously availed himself (vol. i. p. 444). “El camino de las sierras es cosa de ver, porque en verdad en tierra tan fragosa en la cristiandad no se han visto tan hermosos caminos, toda la mayor parte de calzada.”[[RV]]
[117]. p. 396—“Greeks, Romans, &c., present examples of these contrasts.”