CHAPTER VI.. Astronomic Virtues of Quito.--Flora and Fauna of the Valley of

Astronomic Virtues of Quito.--Flora and Fauna of the Valley of Quito.--Primeval Inhabitants of the Andes.--Quichua Indians.

Quito, with a position unparalleled for astronomical purposes, has no observatory. The largest telescope in the city is about five feet long, but the astute professor of natural philosophy in the Jesuit College who has charge of it had not the most distant idea that an eclipse of the sun would occur on the 29th of August, and an eclipse of the moon fifteen days later. In ancient days this "holy city" had within it the Pillar of the Sun, which cast no shadow at noon, and a temple was built for the god of light. The title of the sovereign Inca was the Child of the Sun; but there was very little knowledge of astronomy, for, being the national religion, it was beyond the reach of scientific speculation.

The atmosphere of Quito is of transparent clearness. Humboldt saw the poncho of a horseman with the naked eye at a horizontal distance of ninety thousand feet. The sky is of a dark indigo color; the azure is less blended with white because of the extreme dryness of the air. The stars stand out with uncommon brilliancy, and the dark openings between them the great German compared to "tubes through which we look into the remotest depths of space." It is true at Quito, as Humboldt noticed at Cumana, that the stars do not twinkle when they are more than fifteen degrees high; "the soft planetary light" of the stars overhead is not mere rhetoric.

Living under the equatorial line, Quitonians enjoy the peculiar privilege of beholding the stars of both hemispheres, the guiding stars of Ursa Major as well as the Magellanic Clouds and Southern Cross, not omitting that black spot near the latter, "the unappropriated region in the skies reserved by Manager Bingham for deposed American presidents."

The zodiacal light here appears in all its glory. This strange phenomenon has long puzzled philosophers, and they are still divided. It is generally considered to be produced by a continuous zone of infinitesimal asteroids. The majority place this zone beyond the orbit of the earth, and concentric with the sun. But Rev. George Jones, of Philadelphia, who has spent several years in observing this light, including eight months in Quito, considers it geocentric, and possibly situated between the earth and its satellite. At New York only a short pyramidal light, and this only at certain seasons, is to be seen; but here, an arch twenty degrees wide, and of considerable intensity, shoots up to the zenith, and Mr. Jones affirms that a complete arch is visible at midnight when the ecliptic is at right angles to the spectator's horizon. We have not been so fortunate as to see it pass the zenith; and Professor Barnard contends that it never does pass. We may remark that the main part of the zodiacal light shifts to the south side of the celestial equator as we cross the line. To us the most magnificent sight in the tropical heavens is the "Milky Way," especially near Sobieski's Shield, where it is very luminous. We observed that this starry tract divided at [Greek: a] Centauri, as Herschel says, and not at [Greek: b], as many maps and globes have it. The brightest stars in the southern hemisphere follow the direction of a great circle passing through [Greek: e] Orionis and [Greek: a] Crucis.

Another thing which arrests the attention of the traveler is the comparatively well-defined boundary-line between day and night. The twilight at Quito lasts only an hour and a half; on the coast it is still shorter. Nor is there any "harvest moon," the satellite rising with nearly equal intervals of forty-eight minutes.

From the stars we step down to the floral kingdom on the Andes, using as our ladder of descent the following sentence from Humboldt, at the age of seventy-five: "If I might be allowed to abandon myself to the recollections of my own distant travels, I would instance among the most striking scenes of nature the calm sublimity of a tropical night, when the stars--not sparkling, as in our Northern skies--shed their soft and planetary light over the gently heaving ocean; or I would recall the deep valleys of the Cordilleras, where the tall and slender palms pierce the leafy veil around them, and wave on high their feathery and arrow-like branches."

Father Velasco praises Ecuador as "the noblest portion of the New World." Nature has doubtless gifted it with capabilities unsurpassed by those of any other country. Situated on the equinoctial line, and embracing within its limits some of the highest as well as lowest dry land on the globe, it presents every grade of climate, from the perpetual summer on the coast and in the Orient to the everlasting winter of the Andean summits, while the high plateau between the Cordilleras enjoys an eternal spring. The vegetable productions are consequently most varied and prolific. Tropical, temperate, and arctic fruits and flowers are here found in profusion, or could be successfully cultivated. As the Ecuadorian sees all the constellations of the firmament, so Nature surrounds him with representatives of every family of plants. There are places where the eye may embrace an entire zone, for it may look up to a barley-field and potato-patch, and down to the sugar-cane and pine-apple.

Confining our attention to the Quito Valley, we remark that the whole region from Pichincha to Chimborazo is as treeless as Palestine. The densest forest is near Banos. The most common tree is the "Aliso" (Betula acuminata). Walnut is the best timber. There are no pines or oaks. The slopes of the mountains, between twelve and fifteen thousand feet, are clothed with a shrub peculiar to the high altitudes of the Andes, called Chuquiragua. This is a very valuable shrub; the twigs are used for fuel, and the yellow buds as a febrifuge. The castor-oil-tree grows naturally by the road side, sometimes to the height of twelve feet.

A very useful as well as the most ordinary plant in the valley is the American aloe, or "Century Plant." It is the largest of all herbs. Not naturally social, it imparts a melancholy character to the landscape as it rises solitary out of the arid plain. Most of the roads are fenced with aloe hedges. While the majority of tropical trees have naked stems with a crown of leaves on the top, the aloe reverses this, and looks like a great chandelier as its tall peduncle, bearing greenish-yellow flowers, rises out of a graceful cluster of long, thick, fleshy leaves. When cultivated, the aloe flowers in much less time than a century; but, exhausted by the efflorescence, it soon dies. Nearly every part serves some purpose; the broad leaves are used by the poorer class instead of paper in writing, or for thatching their huts; sirup flows out of the leaves when tapped, and, as they contain much alkali, a soap (which lathers with salt water as well as fresh) is also manufactured from them; the flowers make excellent pickles; the flower-stalk is used in building; the pith of the stem is used by barbers for sharpening razors; the fibres of the leaves and the roots are woven into sandals and sacks; and the sharp spines are used as needles. A species of yucca, resembling the aloe, but with more slender leaves and of a lighter green, yields the hemp of Ecuador.

The "crack fruit" of Quito, and, in fact, of South America, is the chirimoya. Its taste is a happy mixture of sweetness and acidity. Hanke calls it "a masterwork of Nature," and Markham pronounces it "a spiritualized strawberry." It grows on a tree about fifteen feet high, having a broad, flat top, and very fragrant flowers. The ripe fruit, often attaining in Peru the weight of sixteen pounds, has a thick green skin, and a snow-white pulp containing about seventy black seeds. Other pomological productions are alligator pears, guavas, guayavas, granadillas, cherries (a small black variety), peaches (very poor), pears (equally bad), plums, quinces, lemons, oranges (not native), blackberries, and strawberries (large, but flavorless). The cultivation of the grape has just commenced. Of vegetables there are onions (in cookery, "the first, and last, and midst, and without end"), beets, carrots, asparagus, lettuce, cabbages, turnips, tomatoes (indigenous, but inferior to ours), potatoes (also indigenous, but much smaller than their descendants), red peppers, peas (always picked ripe, while green ones are imported from France!), beans, melons, squashes, and mushrooms. The last are eaten to a limited extent; Terra del Fuego, says Darwin, is the only country in the world where a cryptogamic plant affords a staple article of food.

The most important grains are barley, red wheat, and corn, with short ears, and elongated kernels of divers colors. Near the coast three crops of corn a year are obtained; at Quito it is of slower growth, but fuller. The sugar-cane is grown sparingly in the valley, but chiefly on the Pacific coast. Its home is Polynesia. Quito consumes about one hundred and fifty barrels of flour daily. The best sells for four dollars a quintal. The common fodder for cattle is alfalfa, an imported lucerne. There is no clover except a wild, worthless, three-leaved species (Trifolium amabile). Nearly all in the above list are cultivated for home consumption only, and many valuable fruits and vegetables which would grow well are unknown to Quitonians. As Bates says of the Brazilians, the incorrigible nonchalance and laziness of the people alone prevent them from surrounding themselves with all the luxuries of a temperate as well as tropical country.

It would be an endless task to speak of the flowers. It must suffice to state that a Synopsis Plantarum AEquatoriensium, the life-work of the venerable Professor Jameson, of the University of Quito, has just been published by the tardy government. Botanists will find in these two small volumes many new species unknown to American science, and others more correctly described by one who has dwelt forty years among the Andes. The last zone of vegetation nearest the snow-line consists chiefly of yellow-flowering Compositae. In fact, this family includes one fourth of the plants in the immediate vicinity of Quito. The next most numerous family is the Labiatae, and then follow Leguminosae and Gentians. Although the Rosaceae is represented, there is not one species of the genus Rosa not even in the whole southern hemisphere. The magnificent Befaria, found in the lower part of the valley, is called "the Rose of the Andes." Fuchsias may be considered characteristic of South America, since they are so numerous; only one or two kinds occur in any other part of the world. Flowers are found in Quito all the year round, but the most favorable months are December and May. Yellow is the predominating color. The higher the altitude, the brighter the hues of any given species. Thus the Gentiana sedifolia is a small, light blue flower in the lowlands, but on the Assuay it has bright blue petals three times as large and sensitive. This accords with Herschel's statement: "The chemical rays of the spectrum are powerfully absorbed in passing through the atmosphere, and the effect of their greater abundance aloft is shown in the superior brilliancy of color in the flowers of Alpine regions."

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." 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 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 Galapagos Islands, directly under the equator, are dull.

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 Trochilidae 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), Poecilothraupis 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 Senor 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. 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. 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 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 Jatrophae, 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 archaeology 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. Quichua is to-day spoken from the equator to 28 deg. S. (except by the Aymara 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, Ruminagui 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. 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 Canar; the Inga-chungana, a massive stone resembling a sofa, where the Inca reposed to enjoy the delightful prospect over the Valley of Gulan; and remnants of causeways and roads.