1805.] 



Travels between the Tropics. 



113 



bottom of tliofe profound ravines where 

 the thermometer ftanJs night and day be- 

 tween 25° and 31° of Reaumur, But, 

 acc'ftomird to difappoinrments of every 

 kind, fhey readily conl'olcd thenifeives on 

 account of their fate. They were once 

 more fenfible ihat man muft depend only 

 on what can be produced by his own ener- 

 gy j and Baudin's voyage, or rather the 

 falfe intelhgence of the dire£^ion he had 

 taken, made them traverfe iuimtnfe coun- 

 tries towards which no naturalift perhaps 

 woukl other jvife have turned his rel'earches. 

 M. Hur.iboldt being then refjived to 

 purl'ue his own expedition, proceeded 

 from Qiito towards the river Amazon 

 and Lima, wiiii a view of making the im- 

 portant obfervation of the tranfit of Mer- 

 cury over the fun's difk. 



Our travellers finl vifited the ruins of 

 Laftacunga, Humbato, and Riobamba, a 

 dirtriiSf coiivuifed by the dreadiiil eartli- 

 quake of the year 1797. They pafTed 

 through thefnows of Aflonay to Cuenca, 

 and thence with great difficulty, on ac- 

 count of the carriage oP their inHrumcnts 

 and packages of plants, by the Paramo of 

 Saraguio to Loxa. It v as here, in the 

 forelisof Gonz.-.r.aina and Malacites, that 

 they ftudied the valuable tree which fiift 

 made known to man thefebritugequalities 

 of cinchora. The extent of the territory 

 which their travels embraced, gave them 

 an advantage nevei' before enjoyed by ar.y 

 botanift, nairely, that of comparing the 

 different kinds of cinchona of Santa Fe, 

 Popayan, Cuenca, Loxi, and Jaen, with 

 the cufpa and cuj'pare of Cumana and Rio 

 Carcny, the !att:erof which, named im- 

 properly Coilex angufiura, appeal s to be- 

 long tc a new genus of the pentandria 

 moncgynia, with alternate leaves. 



From Loxa they entered Peru by Aya. 

 vata and Gouncabamba, travcrfing the 

 high fuintnitof the Andes, to proceed to 

 the river Amazon. They had to pais 

 thirty-five times in ih; courl'e of two days 

 the river Chaniaya, fometimes on a raft, 

 and fometimes by fording. They faw the 

 fuperb remains of the caufeway of Ynga, 

 which may be compared to the mofl beau- 

 tiful caufeways in France and Spain, and 

 which proceeds on the porphyritic ridge of 

 the Andes, from Cufco to AfTonay, and 

 is furniflied with catnbo (inns) and public 

 fountains. They then embarked on a 

 raft of ochroma, at the fmall Indian vil- 

 lage of Chamaya, and defcended by the 

 river of the fame name, to that of tlie 

 Amazons, determining by the culmina- 

 tion of feveraj ftars, and by the difference 



Monthly Mag. No. 13J. 



of time, the affronomical pofitlon of that 

 confidence. 



La Condamine, when he returned frorn 

 Q2,ito to Para and to France, embarked 

 on the river Amazon only below Quebrada 

 de Chucunga ; he therefore obferved the 

 longitude only at the mouth of the Rio 

 Napo. M. Humboldt endeavoured to 

 fupply this deficiency in the beautiful 

 chart of the French alfroiiomer, navigat- 

 ing the river Amazon as far as the cata- 

 racts of Rentema, and forming at Tome- 

 penda, the capital of the province of Jaea 

 de Bracamorros, a detailed plan of that 

 unknown part of the Upper Maranon, 

 both from his own oblervations and the 

 information obtained from Indian travel- 

 lers. M. Bonpland, in the mean time, 

 made an interelling excurfion to the forefts 

 around the town of Jaen, wheie he difco- 

 vered new fpecies of cinchona ; and after 

 greatly fuffering from the fcorching heat 

 of thefe fblitary diftriifs, and admiring a 

 vegetation rich in new fpecies of Jacqui- 

 nia, Godoya, Porteria, Bougainvi/lea, 

 Colletia, and Pijonia, our three travellers 

 crofTtd for the fifth time the cordillera oi 

 tiie Andes by Montan, in order to return 

 to Peru. 



They fixed the point where Borda's 

 compafs indicated the zero of the magnetic 

 inclination, though at feven degrees of 

 fouth latitude. They examined the mines 

 of Hualguayoc, where native filver is 

 found in large mafTes at the height of 2000 

 toifes above the level of the fea, in mines, 

 feme metalliferous /eins of which contain 

 petrified fhells, and which, with thofe of 

 Huontajayo, are at prefent the richeft of 

 Peru. Fiom Caxamarca, celebrated by 

 its thermal waters, and by the ruins of the 

 palace of Atahualpa, they defcended to 

 Truxillo, in the neighbourhood cf which 

 are found vefliges of the irainenfe Peru- 

 vian city of Manfifche, ornamented with 

 pyramids, in one of which was difcover- 

 ed, in the eighteenth century, hammered 

 gold to the value of more than 150,0001. 

 (terling. 



On this we!lern declivi:y of the Andes 

 our travellers enjoyed, for the firif time, 

 the ftriking view of the Pacific Ocean j 

 and from that long and narrow vjUry, the 

 inhabitants of which zn unacquainted 

 with rain or thunder, and where, under a 

 happy climate, the mo(t a'ofjiute power, 

 and thatnioft dangerous to man, thepciacy 

 iifelf, feems to imitate the beneficence of 

 nature. 



From Truxillo they followed the dry 



coafts of the South Sea, fonueriy watered 



P and 



