(black)
PROPIEDAD
(white)
ALEMANA
(red)
The family of “Don Panchito” with whom I lived in Quito. In front stands little Mercedes, familiarly known as “Meech,” our house-maid and general servant
Girls of the “gente decente” class of Quito, in a school run by European nuns. The Mother Superior (right) is Belgian; the nun on the left is Irish
Within a few blocks of the main plaza may be noted the following “Propiedades”: “Española, Francesa, Alemana, Belga, Danesa, Inglesa, Italiana, Holondesa, Sueca, Chilena, Colombiana, Peruana, Venezolana, Turca,” and one or two more. The Stars and Stripes and the words “Propiedad Americana” appear only once—on the door of a small export house.
Apparently every one is entitled to three guesses on the population of Quito. The estimates range from fifty to a hundred thousand, with the truth probably somewhere near the seventy-five thousand attributed to it in Stevenson’s day. Its tendency of late years has been to overflow its banks; the suburb of Guarico climbs a considerable way up the skirts of Pichincha, and the huts of Indians have scrambled well up the flanks of the other enclosing ridges. Though more in touch with the outside world than Bogotá, it has much the same atmosphere of a world apart, a peaceful, restful little sphere supplied with a few modern conveniences of a crude, break-down-often sort, but with little of the complicated life of twentieth-century cities. It is a splendid place to play at life, to lie fallow and catch up with oneself, with nothing more exciting to stir up existence than the semi-weekly concert in the plaza mayor. A score of carriages rattle over its cobbled streets; the rails of a tramway line had been laid years before our arrival, but the cars had not yet been ordered. Somewhere there may be a finer climate, but it would scarcely be worth while going far to look for it. Standing at a height which, in the temperate zone, would be covered by eternal snows, the city is sheltered by the surrounding ranges from the bitter chill that descends so often upon less lofty Bogotá. In the Colombian capital we were always suffering more or less from cold in our waking hours, except at midday; in Quito it was possible to sit comfortably on a plaza bench at midnight. With all the stages of nature, from planting through blossoms, fruit, and harvest, existing side by side, its days are like the best half-dozen culled from a northern May. There is a popular saying that it rains thirteen months a year in Quito. But this is slander. During my long stay, there were, to be sure, few days when it did not rain; but the shower came almost always at a more or less fixed hour of the afternoon, and the resident soon learned to make his plans accordingly. The rain seemed heavier than it was in reality, for tin spouts pour the water noisily out into the cobbled streets, the wide, projecting eaves protecting the sidewalks. Now and then came a day heavy with massed clouds; far more often all but an hour or so was brilliant with sunshine.
Yet an American schoolma’am accustomed to tell her pupils that the people of Quito all dress in white because it lies on the equator, would be startled to see what attention even a woman in light-colored garb attracts in its streets. On rare occasions a man in white cotton passed through the overcoated plaza during the evening concert; but this meant only that the tri-weekly train from Guayaquil had arrived. We met, too, an American “drummer,” more noted for his ability as a “mixer” than for his knowledge of geography, who had arrived with a carefully chosen wardrobe of white linen suits—and proved a godsend to the local tailors. Incidentally, he had come down to introduce American plumbing in Ecuador; but that is another and still sadder story. The truth is that moderate winter clothing is never out of place in the city of the equator. Even at noon, with one’s shadow a round disk under foot and the sun glaring to the eyes and burning the skin in this thin, upland air, a leisurely climb up one of the longest streets brought no memories of the tropics.