[30] Since this was written, Garcia Moreno has been re-elected to the presidency and the Constitution revised.
[31] Government has more than once paid its debts by repudiation. Congress lately voted to pay only seven per cent. of the claims against the state which are dated prior to a certain year. Among the sufferers is the venerable Dr. Jameson, a distinguished foreigner, who has served this country faithfully for forty years, first as assayer, then as director of the mint, and always by his scientific position.
[32] Asking the late Chilian minister for his view of the rank of the different South American states, he gave us this order: Chile, Brazil, Argentine Republic, Venezuela, New Granada, Central America, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador.
[33] This was a new thing under the sun. Quitonians "bury at dead of night, with lanterns dimly burning." The dirges sung as the procession winds through the streets are extremely plaintive, and are the most touching specimens of Ecuadorian music. The corpse, especially of a child, is often carried in a chair in a sitting posture. The wealthy class wall up their dead in niches on the side of Pichincha, hypothetically till the resurrection, but really for two years, when, unless an additional payment is made, the bones are thrown into a common pit and the coffin burnt. To prevent this, a few who can afford it embalm the deceased. One of the most distinguished citizens of Quito keeps his mummified father at his hacienda, and annually dresses him up in a new suit of clothes!
[34] In the mountain-town of Caxamarca, farther south, there were living in 1792 seven persons aged 114, 117, 121, 131, 132, 141, and 147. One of them, when he died, left behind him eight hundred living descendants to mourn his loss. We confess, however, that we saw very few old persons in Quito. Foreigners outlive the natives, because they live a more regular and temperate life.
| The mean annual fall of rain at Quito is 70 inches. | ||||||
| " | " | " | " | Charleston is 45.9 | inches. | |
| " | " | " | " | New York is 42.23 | " | |
| " | " | " | " | Albany is 40.93 | " | |
| " | " | " | " | Montreal is 36 | " | |
| " | " | " | " | Madrid is 10. | " | |
[36] Gibbon states that the temperature of the blood of a young bull in Cuzco was 100°; air, 57°. At the base of the Andes a similar experiment resulted in 101° for the blood, air 78°. The lieutenant jocosely adds: "The Spaniards have forced the hog so high up on the Andes that he suffers every time he raises his bristles, and dies out of place."—Puna has been attributed to the presence of arsenical vapor.
[37] On the Himalayas are oaks, birches, pines, chestnuts, maples, junipers, and willows; no tree-ferns, bamboos, or palms.
[38] The Agava Americana of botanists, cabulla of Ecuadorians, maguey of Venezuelans, and metl of Mexicans. It is an interesting fact, brought to light by the researches of Carl Neuman, that the Chinese in the fifth century passed over to America by way of the Aleutian Islands, and penetrated as far south as Mexico, which they called the land of fusung, that being the celestial name of the aloe. Terzozomoc, the high-priest of the ancient Mexicans, gave aloe leaves, inscribed with sacred characters, to persons who had to journey among the volcanoes, to protect them from injury.