Ch.VI. south AMERICA. 281 



something disagreeable, the mornings being so cold as 

 to require warmer clothing ; but the sun soon di- 

 sperses this inconvenience. 



As the pestilence, whose ravages among the human 

 species in Europe, and other parts, are so dreadful, is 

 unknown both an Quito and throughout all America, 

 so is also the madness in dogs. And though they have 

 some idea of the pestilence, and call those diseases si- 

 milar in their effects by that name, they are entirely 

 ignorant of the canine madness ; and express their 

 astonishment when an European relates the melan- 

 choly effects of it. Those inhabitants, on the other 

 hand, are here subject to a distemper unknown in Éu- 

 cope, and may be compared to the small-pox, which 

 few or none escape ; but having once got through it, 

 they have nothing more to apprehend from that quar- 

 ter. This distemper is one of those called peste; and 

 its symptoms are convulsions in every part of the 

 body, a continual endeavour to bite, delirium, vomit- 

 ing blood; and those whose constitutions are not ca- 

 pable of supporting the conflicts of the distemper, 

 perish. But this is not peculiar to Quito, being equal- 

 ly common throughout all South America. 



CHAP. VII. 



Fertility of the Territories of i^ito^ and the common 

 Food of its Inhabit cints. 



THOUGH an account of the fruits should na- 

 turally succeed that of the climate, I determiin- 

 ed, on account of their variety, and their being dif- 

 ferent in different parts, to defer a circumstantial de- 

 scription, till I come to treat more particularly of each 

 of the jurisdictions. So that I shall here only take a 

 transient view of the perennial beauty and pleasant- 

 ness of the country i which has hardly its equal in any" 



part 



