Ch. IÍ. south AMERICA. Í25 



labyrinth of confusion with regard to the nature of 

 our design. And the more they reflected on it, the 

 greater was their perplexity, being unable to discover 

 any thinsf proportionate. to the pains and hardships 

 we underwent. And even when we informed them 

 of the real motive of this expedition, which caused 

 so much astonishment, their ignorance of its import- 

 ance would not suffer them to give credit to what 

 we said ;, suspecting that we concealed, under the 

 veil of an incomprehensible chimera, our real prac- 

 tices, of which, as I have already observed, they had 

 no good opinion» 



Among several pleasant adventures which this oc- 

 casioned, I shall only mention two, both which are 

 still fresh in my memory ; and may serve to illustrate 

 the strange ideas these ignorant people formed of us. 

 While we were afthc signal of Vengotasin, erected 

 on a desert at no great distance from the town of 

 Latacunga, about a league from the place where we 

 had pitched our field-tent was a cow-house, where 

 we constantly passed the night ; tor the ascent not 

 being remarkably, difficult, we could every morning, 

 in fair weather, return soon enough to the tent to be- 

 gin our observations. One morning, as we were pass- 

 ing to the signal, we saw at a distance three or four 

 Indians, in appearance on their knees; and we found 

 indeed, on our approaching nearer, that this was 

 their real posture; we also observed that their hands 

 were joined, and that they uttered words in their lan- 

 guage with the greatest fervour and the most sup- 

 plicant accent ; but, by the position of their eyes, it 

 was evident .that we were the persons whom they 

 thus addressed. We several times made signs for 

 them to rise, but they still kept their posture till we 

 were o-ot at a considerable distance. We had scarce 

 begun to prepare our instruments within the tent^ 

 when we were alarmed with a repetition of the same 

 -upplicant vociferations. On going out to know the 



Vol. I. Q cause. 



