[93] The altitude of Loja is 6768 feet; of Cuenca, 8640 feet.
[94] According to Villavicencio, Rio (or Rie) is Quichua for road; bamba is plain.
[95] Atuntaqui received its name from the big drum which was kept here in the days of Huayna-Capac, to give the war-signal.
[96] Professor Quinby, of the University of Rochester, has, at our request, calculated the position of the moon at the late earthquake: "August 16th, 1868, 1 A.M., the moon was on meridian 137° 21' east of that of Quito, or 42° 30' past the lower meridian of Quito, assuming the longitude of Quito west of Greenwich to be 79°, which it is very nearly. This is but little after the vertex of the tidal wave should have passed the meridian of Quito, on the supposition that the interior of the earth is a liquid mass. The age of the moon at that time was 27.36 days, i.e., it was only about two days before new moon." At the time of the earthquake, 8 A.M., March 22, 1859, the moon was on meridian 25° 48' east of that of Quito, and was 17.6 days old. Shocks have since occurred, March 20th at 3 A.M., and April 10th at 8 A.M., 1869.
[97] The boundary-line between Ecuador and Peru is about as indefinite as the eastern limit of Bolivia, Brazilians claiming "as far west as the cattle of the empire roam."
[98] Quito might be made more accessible on the Atlantic than on the Pacific side. But Ecuadorians dote on Guayaquil, and refuse to connect themselves directly with the great nations of the East. We believe there is a glorious future for Quito, when it will once more become a city of palaces. But it will not come until a road through the wilderness and a steamer on the Napo open a short communication with the wealth of Amazonia and the enterprise of Europe.
[99] All savages appear to possess to an uncommon degree the power of mimicry.—Darwin.
[100] Gibbon observes of his Indian paddlers on the Marmoré: "They talk very little; they silently pull along as though they were sleeping, but their eyes are wandering all the time in every direction."
[101] Some of these feminines, however, have a method of retaliation which happily does not exist further north. They render their husbands idiotic by giving them an infusion of floripondio, and then choose another consort. We saw a sad example of this near Riobamba, and heard of one husband who, after being thus treated, unconsciously served his wife and her new man like a slave. Floripondio is the seed of the Datura sanguinea, which is allied to the poisonous stramonium used by the priests of Apollo at Delphi to produce their frantic ravings.
[102] Jacquinia armillaris, an evergreen bush. The Indians on the Tapajos use a poisonous liana called timbó (Paullinia pinnata).