3o6 A VOYAGE TO Book VI. 



walls, scattered all over the country, where every one 

 has his spot of ground, which he tills for his subsist- 

 ence. A great part, and in some villages the whole, 

 of the inhabitants are Indians, who live there when 

 out of place : though in some parts the inhabitants 

 are Mestizos, and here and there a Spanish family ; 

 but these are extremely poor. 



IV. The first jurisdiction to the southward of that 

 of Quito, is the Assiento Latacunga. The word As- 

 siento implies a place less than a town, but larger than 

 a village. This place stands in a wide plain, having 

 on the east side the eastern Cordillera of the Andes, 

 from whence projects a very high mountain, and ata 

 small distance from its foot is situated Latacunga, in 

 t,^ min. 14 sec. 30 thirds, south latitude. On the 

 west side of it is a river, \yhich, though sometimes 

 fordable, on any increase of the waters must be pass- ' 

 ed over the bridge. This assiento is large and regu- 

 lar ; the streets broad and straight ; the houses of 

 stone, arched, and well contrived : but, on account 

 of the dangerous consequences so often resulting 

 from earthquakes, without any story. This precau- 

 tion the inhabitants were taught by a dreadful de- 

 struction of all the buildings, on the 20th of June 

 1698. This terrible concussion was general all over 

 the province of Quito ; and its effects, as we shall 

 show in the sequel, in many other places, equally 

 melancholy. Out of six hundred stone houses, the 

 number of which this assiento then consisted, only a 

 part of one, and the church of the Jesuits, were left 

 standing ; and even these were so greatly damaged, 

 that there was a necessity for pulling them down. 

 But the greatest misfortune was, that most of the 

 inhabitants vveic buried under their ruins, the earth- 

 quake beginning at one in the morning, a time of 

 general silence and security, and continuing its con- 

 cussions, at short intervals, the greatest part of the 

 day. 



5 ' Th^ 



