America is plainly the continent of vegetation; and wherever the vegetable element predominates, the animal is subordinated. We must not look, therefore, for a large amount or variety of animal life in the Ecuadorian forests. Time was when colossal megatheroids, mastodons, and glyptodons browsed on the foliage of the Andes and the Amazon; but now the terrestrial mammals of this tropical region are few and diminutive. They are likewise old-fashioned, inferior in type as well as bulk to those of the eastern hemisphere, for America was a finished continent long before Europe. "It seems most probable (says Darwin) that the North American elephants, mastodons, horse, and hollow-horned ruminants migrated, on land since submerged near Behring's Straits, from Siberia into North America, and thence, on land since submerged in the West Indies, into South America, where for a time they mingled with the forms characteristic of that southern continent, and have since become extinct."[42] The rise of the Mexican table-land split up the New World into two well-defined zoological provinces. A few species, as the puma, peccari, and opossum, have crossed the barrier; but South America is characterized by possessing a family of monkeys, the llama, tapir, many peculiar rodents, and several genera of edentates.
The tapir, the largest native quadruped, is sometimes found on the mountains, but never descends into the Quito Valley. A link between the elephant and hog, its true home is in the lowlands. The tapir and peccari (also found on the Andean slopes) are the only indigenous pachyderms in South America, while the llama[43] and deer (both abounding in the valley) are the only native ruminants; there is not one native hollow-horned ruminant on the continent. The llama is the only native domesticated animal; indeed, South America never furnished any other animal serviceable to man: the horse, ox, hog, and sheep (two, four, and six-horned), are importations. Of these animals, which rendered such important aid in the early civilization of Asia and Europe, the genera even were unknown in South America four centuries ago; and to-day pure Indians with difficulty acquire a taste for beef, mutton, and pork. The llama is still used as a beast of burden; but it seldom carries a quintal more than twelve miles a day. The black bear of the Andes ascends as high as Mont Blanc, and is rarely found below three thousand five hundred feet. The puma, or maneless American lion, has an immense range, both in latitude and altitude, being found from Oregon to the Straits of Magellan, and nearly up to the limit of eternal snow. It is as cowardly as the jaguar of the lowlands is ferocious. It is a very silent animal, uttering no cry even when wounded. Its flesh, which is very white, and remarkably like veal in taste, is eaten in Patagonia. Squirrels, hares, bats (a small species), opossums, and a large guinea-pig (Cuye del Monte), are found in the neighborhood of Quito.
As only about sixty species of birds are common to North and South America, the traveler from the United States recognizes few ornithic forms in the Valley of Quito. Save the hummers, beautiful plumage is rare, as well as fine songsters. But the moment we descend the Eastern Cordillera into the interior of the continent, we find the feathered race in robes of richest colors. The exact cause of this brilliant coloring in the tropics is still a problem. It can not be owing to greater light and heat, for the birds of the Galápagos Islands, directly under the equator, are dull.[44]
The males, both of birds and butterflies, are the most gaudily dressed. In the highlands the most prominent birds are the condor and the humming-bird. These two extremes in size are found side by side on the summit of Pichincha. The condor appears in its glory among the mountains of Quito. Its ordinary haunt is at the height of Etna. No other living creature can remove at pleasure to so great a distance from the earth; and it seems to fly and respire as easily under the low barometric pressure of thirteen inches as at the sea-shore. It can dart in an instant from the dome of Chimborazo to the sultry coast of the Pacific. It has not the kingly port of the eagle, and is a cowardly robber: a true vulture, it prefers the relish of putrescence and the flavor of death. It makes no nest, but lays two eggs on a jutting ledge of some precipice, and fiercely defends them. The usual spread of wings is nine feet. It does not live in pairs like the eagle, but feeds in flocks like its loathsome relative, the buzzard. It is said to live forty days without food in captivity, but at liberty it is very voracious. The usual method of capture is to kill an old mare (better than horse, the natives say), and allow the bird to gorge himself, when he becomes so sluggish as to be easily lassoed. It is such a heavy sleeper, it is possible to take it from its roost. The evidences in favor of and against its acute smelling powers are singularly balanced. For reasons unknown, the condor does not range north of Darien, though it extends its empire through clouds and storms to the Straits of Magellan. In the Inca language it was called cuntur, and was anciently an object of worship. The condor, gallinazo, turkey-buzzard, and caracara eagle (says Darwin) "in their habits well supply the place of our carrion crows, magpies, and ravens—a tribe of birds widely distributed over the rest of the world, but entirely absent in South America." The condor appears on the gold coins of New Granada and Chile. Of Trochilidæ there are hosts. The valley swarms with these "winged jewels" of varied hues, from the emerald green of Pichincha to the white of Chimborazo. They build long, purse-like nests by weaving together fine vegetable fibres and lichens, and thickly lining them with silk-cotton. In this delicate cradle, suspended from a branch, the female lays two eggs, which are hatched in about twelve days. The eggs are invariably white, with one exception, those of a species on the Upper Amazon, which are spotted. The young have much shorter bills than their parents. The humming-bird is exclusively American: the nearest form in the Old World is the nectarinia, or sunbird. Other birds most commonly seen in the valley are: Cyanocitta turcosa (Jay), Pœcilothraupis atrierissa, Pheuticus chrysogaster, Chlorospingus superciliaris, Buthraupis chloronata, Tanagra Darwini, Dubusia selysia, Buarremon latinuchus, and B. assimilis. The only geese in the valley are a few imported from Europe by Señor Aguirre, of Chillo, and these refuse to propagate.
Reptiles are so rare in the highlands the class can hardly be said to be represented. During a residence of nearly three months in the Quito Valley we saw but one snake.[45] Nevertheless, we find the following sentence in such a respectable book as Bohn's Hand-book of Modern Geography: "The inhabitants of Quito are dreadfully tormented by reptiles, which it is scarcely possible to keep out of the beds!" Of frogs there are not enough to get up a choir, and of fishes there is but one solitary species, about a finger long.[46] The entomology of Quito is also brief, much to the satisfaction of travelers from the insectiferous coast. Musquitoes and bedbugs do not seem to enjoy life at such an altitude, and jiggers[47] and flies are rare. Fleas, however, have the hardihood to exist and bite in the summer months, and if you attend an Indian fair you will be likely to feel something "gently o'er you creeping." But fleas and lice are the only blood-thirsty animals, so that the great Valley of Quito is an almost painless paradise. Of beetles and butterflies there are a few species, the latter belonging for the most part to the familiar North American genera Pyrameis and Colias. At Vinces, on the coast, we found the pretty brown butterfly, Anartia Jatrophæ, which ranges from Texas to Brazil. A light-colored coleopter is eaten roasted by the inhabitants. The cochineal is raised in the southern part of the valley, particularly in Guananda, at the foot of Tunguragua, where the small, flat-leaved cactus (Opuntia tuna), on which, the insect feeds, is extensively cultivated. The male is winged, but the female is stationary, fixed to the cactus, and is of a dark brown color. It takes seventy thousand to make a pound, which is sold in the valley for from sixty cents to $3. The best cochineal comes from Teneriffe, where it was introduced from Honduras in 1835. The silk-worm is destined to work a revolution in the finances of Ecuador; Quito silk gained a gold medal at the Paris Exhibition. No bees are hived in the republic; the people seem to be content with treacle. The Italian species would undoubtedly thrive here. The bees of Ecuador, like all the bees of the New World, are inferior to those of the Old World. Their cells are not perfectly hexagonal, and their stings are undeveloped. They are seldom seen feeding on flowers. Mollusca in the Quito Valley are not great in number or variety. They belong principally to the genera Bulimus, Cyclostoma, and Helix. The first is as characteristic of the Southern Continent as Helix of the North and Achatina of Africa.
From the animal creation we mount by a short step to the imbruted Indian. When and by whom the Andes were first peopled is a period of darkness that lies beyond the domain of history. But geology and archæology are combining to prove that Sorata and Chimborazo have looked down upon a civilization far more ancient than that of the Incas, and perhaps coeval with the flint-flakes of Cornwall, and the shell-mounds of Denmark. On the shores of Lake Titicaca are extensive ruins which antedate the advent of Manco Capac, and may be as venerable as the lake-dwellings of Geneva. Wilson has traced six terraces in going up from the sea through the province of Esmeraldas toward Quito; and underneath the living forest, which is older than the Spanish invasion, many gold, copper, and stone vestiges of a lost population were found. In all cases these relics are situated below high-tide mark, in a bed of marine sediment, from which he infers that this part of the country formerly stood higher above the sea. If this be true, vast must be the antiquity of these remains, for the upheaval and subsidence of the coast is exceedingly slow.
Philology can aid us little in determining the relations of the primeval Quitonians, for their language is nearly obscured by changes introduced by the Caras, and afterward by the Incas, who decreed that the Quichua, the language of elegance and fashion three hundred years ago, should be the universal tongue throughout the empire.[48] Quichua is to-day spoken from the equator to 28° S. (except by the Aymará people), or by nearly a million and a half. We found it used, corrupted, however, by Spanish, at the month of the Napo. There are five dialects, of which the purest is spoken in Cuzco, and the most impure in Quito. The Indians of the northern valley are descendants of the ancient Quitus, modified by Cara and Peruvian blood. They have changed little since the invasion of Pizarro. They remember their glory under the Incas, and when they steal any thing from a white man, they say they are not guilty of theft, as they are only taking what originally belonged to them. Some see in their sacred care of Incarial relics a lingering hope to regain their political life. We noticed that the pure mountaineers, without a trace of Spanish adulteration, wore a black poncho underneath, and we were informed by one well acquainted with their customs that this was in mourning for the Inca. We attended an Indian masquerade dance at Machachi, which seemed to have an historical meaning. It was performed in full view of that romantic mountain which bears the name of the last captain of Atahuallpa. There is a tradition that after the death of his chief, Rumiñagui burned the capital, and, retiring with his followers to this cordillera, threw himself from the precipice. The masquerade at Machachi was evidently intended to keep alive the memory of the Incas. Three Indians, fantastically adorned with embroidered garments, plumed head-dresses, and gold and silver tinsel, representing Atahuallpa and his generals, danced to music of the rudest kind, one individual pounding on a drum and blowing on a pipe at the same time. Before them went three clowns, or diablos, with masks, fit caricatures of the Spaniards. Like all other Indian feasts, this ended in getting gradually and completely drunk. During the ceremony a troop of horsemen, gayly dressed, and headed by one in regimentals with a cocked hat, galloped twice around the Plaza, throwing oranges at the people; after which there was a bull-bait.
The features of the Quichuans have a peculiar cast, which resembles, in D'Orbigny's opinion, no other American but the Mexican, and some ethnologists trace a striking similarity to the natives of Van Diemen's Land. They have an oblong head (longitudinally), somewhat compressed at the sides and occiput; short and very slightly arched forehead; prominent, long, aquiline nose, with large nostrils; large mouth, but not thick lips; beautiful enduring teeth; short chin, but not receding; cheek-bones not prominent; eyes horizontal, and never large; eyebrows long; thick, straight, coarse, yet soft jet black hair; little or no beard; a long, broad, deep, highly-arched chest; small hands and feet; short stature, seldom reaching five feet, and the women still shorter; a mulatto color (olive-brown says D'Orbigny, bronze says Humboldt), and a sad, serious expression. Their broad chests and square shoulders remind one of the gorilla; but we find that, unlike the anthropoid ape, they have very weak arms; their strength lies in their backs and legs. They have shrewdness and penetration, but lack independence and force. We never heard one sing.[49] Always submissive to your face, taking off his hat as he passes, and muttering, "Blessed be the altar of God," he is nevertheless very slow to perform. Soured by long ill treatment, he will hardly do any thing unless he is compelled. And he will do nothing well unless he is treated as a slave. Treat him kindly, and you make him a thief; whip him, and he will rise up to thank you and he your humble servant. A certain curate could never trust his Indian to carry important letters until he had given him twenty-five lashes. Servile and timid, superstitious and indolent, the Quichuans have not half the spirit of our North American Indians. It has passed into a proverb that "the Indian lives without shame, eats without repugnance, and dies without fear." Abject as they are, however, they are not wholly without wit. By a secret telegraph system, they will communicate between Quito and Riobamba in one hour. When there was a battle in Pasto, the Indians of Riobamba knew of it two hours after, though eighty leagues distant.
The civilization of South America three centuries ago was nearly confined to this Andean family, though they had attained only to the bronze period. In the milder character of their ancient religion and gentleness of disposition they are strongly distinguished from the nations that encircled the vale of Anahuac, the centre of civilization on the northern continent. But little of this former glory is now apparent. The Incas reached an astronomical knowledge which astonished the Spaniards, but the Quichuans of to-day count vaguely by moons and rains. Great is the contrast between the architecture of this century and that in the days of Huayna-Capac. There are few Incarial relics, however, in the Valley of Quito, for the Incas ruled there only half a century. The chief monuments are the tolas or mounds (mostly at Cuenca), containing earthen vessels and bronze hatchets and earrings; the Inga-pirrca, or oval fortress, and the Intihuaicu, or temple of the sun, near Cañar; the Inga-chungana, a massive stone resembling a sofa, where the Inca reposed to enjoy the delightful prospect over the Valley of Gulán; and remnants of causeways and roads.