ISS A VOYAGE TO Bqok IV. 



loured mantelet, bordered with broad firips of black 

 velvet, but without laces or any other decorations. 

 Befides necklaces and bracelets, they wear rolaries, of* 

 the fame degree of richnefs as at Panama ; and not 

 only load their ears with brilliant pendants, but add 

 tufts of black filk, about the fize of a filberd, and fo 

 full of jewels as to make a very fplendid appear- 

 ance. 



From the commerce of this city, a ilranger would 

 imagine it richer than it aitually is. This is partly 

 owing to the two dreadful pillages it has fuifered, and 

 partly to fires, by both which it has been totally ruin- 

 ed. And though the houfes here, as already ob- 

 ferved, are only of wood, the whole charge of which 

 is the cutting and bringing it to the city ; yet the ex- 

 penfe of a houle of any figure amounts to 15 or 20,000 

 dollars, workmen's wages being very high, and iron 

 remarkably dear. Europeans, who have raifed any 

 thing of a fortune here, when they have no immove- 

 able goods to detain them, retire to Lima, or fome 

 other city of Peru, where they may improve their 

 flocks with greater fecurity. 



CHAP. VI. 



Of the 'Temperature of the Air, and the different 

 Seafons at Guayaquil ; its Incowueniencies and 

 Dijlempcrs» 



IN Guayaquil, the winter fets in during December, 

 fometimes at the beginning, fometinics in the 

 middle, and fometimes not till the end of the month, 

 and lafi:s till April or May. During this feafon, the 

 elements, the inredts, and vermin, feem to have joined 

 in a league to incommode the human fpecies. Its ex- 

 treme heat appeared from fome thermometrical experi- 

 ments ; for, ovl the 3d of April,, when its intenfcjicfs had 



begun 



