PRIESTS AND MONKS.
"Donkeys and mules are the beasts of burden, and occasionally some of them brushed against us with their loads, that projected far on each side. But they do not have a monopoly of the carrying trade, as we saw a good many Indians laden with baskets of vegetables and fruit from the neighboring country, and they appear to be as strong as the donkeys, if we may judge by their great loads. Many of these porters are women, and in some instances we saw men, without burdens, walking by the side of women carrying baskets large enough to be a load for two persons. Evidently the aborigines of Ecuador are no believers in the exemption of women from hard work.
"There is probably little resemblance between the Quito of to-day and that of Atahualpa and the Spanish conquest. The city had suffered much from earthquakes, and was partially destroyed by fire; the Spanish conquerors founded a new Quito in 1534, and laid out the streets on lines of their own, and, since their advent, the earthquakes have again shaken it to its foundations. There were severe and destructive shocks in 1797 and 1859, and another in 1868. In the one last mentioned many lives were lost, numerous buildings were thrown down, and, according to the official report, every house in the city was so shaken and weakened that not one was fit to live in. Half a dozen churches, the government buildings, and the archbishop's palace were wholly or partially demolished, such of them as were not thrown down being so weakened as to render their removal necessary.
"In almost every street there are piles of ruins, and it is a wonder people will continue to live here with the effects of the earthquake so constantly before them. Nearly all the houses are of but a single story, and the most ambitious of the edifices rarely exceeds two stories. Most of the streets are narrow and have channels in the centre, through which streams of water flow during and after a rain. We observed a great variety in the costumes of the people, and were told that every district had its distinct way of coloring its garments, so that its inhabitants could be distinguished from others. Occasionally we saw people with hardly any clothing whatever; but the absence of wardrobe was made up by a free use of paint. The natives thus decorated were from the eastern slopes of the Andes, but they did not appear to be numerous.
"The common houses have no fireplaces or chimneys; fires are built almost anywhere on the earthern floor, and the smoke is allowed to get out the best way it can. Even in our hotel the kitchen is little more than a dark hole, where the pots and kettles are so indiscriminately assembled that the cooks are liable to mix things up fearfully, while preparing a meal. Neatness is not fashionable, and there is no country in the world where the appetite would suffer more discouragement than here by a revelation of the culinary mysteries.
"Our guide called attention to the distinction among the men on the streets, some of them wearing cloaks and others ponchos. No gentleman would wear a poncho in public any more than a Frenchman of the middle or upper classes would don a blouse for a promenade. The poncho is far the more picturesque of the two garments, and I am inclined to think its wearers are more comfortable than the genteel part of the population. Ladies wear the panuelon, which corresponds to the Spanish mantilla, and they eschew hats and bonnets altogether. The only head-covering beyond the hair is a lace veil or a fold of the panuelon; but its use is by no means obligatory. It is said that when the daughter of an American minister-resident wore a bonnet in the cathedral on the Sunday following her arrival, she was criticised as severely as she would be for wearing a masculine 'stove-pipe' in a New York church.
"A gentleman who has lived here for some time says there are about eight thousand people of Spanish origin in Quito, ten or twelve thousand Indians of pure blood, and perhaps twenty thousand cholos or mixed races. Then there are a few foreigners and negroes, and other few who cannot be readily classified. The whites are the aristocracy or ruling race, and, owing to the numerous revolutions which have reduced the male population, women outnumber the men. For a white man to work would be degrading, and many a gentleman will not hesitate to beg for a dinner or a cup of coffee, though he would scorn to earn the money to pay for it. The poverty-stricken hidalgo of Spain is no more proud of his lineage than is the Spanish-descended resident of Quito, who wraps his tattered cloak around him, and comforts himself with reflections upon the past glories of his family.
