294 M. Humboldt 07i ttoo Attempts to ascend Chimborazo. 



destroyed by the great catastrophe of the 4lh February 179T, 

 which in a few minutes destroyed 45,000 human beings. The 

 r.evv Riobamba lies, according to my chronometrical observations, 

 42 seconds more to the eastward than the old Riobamba, but 

 almost in the same latitude (1° 41' 46" south). We were in 

 the plain of Tapia, from which, on the 9.9A June, we began our 

 expedition towards Chimborazo, being already 8S98 Paris feet* 

 (1483 toises) above the level of the South Sea. This table- 

 land is a part of the valley-land between'the Eastern and West- 

 cm Andes, i. c. between the chain of the active volcanoes Coto- 

 paxi and Tungurahua on the one hand, and the chain of the 

 Iliniza and Chimborazo on the other. We gently ascended as 

 far as the foot of the last mentioned mountain, where, in the 

 Indian village Calpi, we were to pass the night. This plain is 

 sparingly covered with Cactus stems and Schinus molle, which 

 resembles a weeping willow. Herds of variegated llamas, in 

 thousands, seek here a scanty subsistence. At so great a height, 

 the nightly terrestrial radiation of heat, when the sky is cloudless, 

 proves injurious to agriculture, through cold and frost. Before 

 reaching Calpi, we visited Lican, now likewise a small village, 

 but before the conquest of the country by the eleventh Inca, -f- 

 a considerable city, and the place of residence of the Concho- 

 cando, or Prince of Puruay. The natives believe that the few 

 •wild llamas found on the western side of Chimborazo, are de- 

 rived from dispersed and fugitive herds, which, after the de- 

 struction of the old Lican, became wild. 



Very near to Calpi, north-westward of Lican, there is in the 

 barren table-land a little isolated hill, the black mountain, Yana- 

 Urcu, the name of which has not been given by the French aca- 

 demicians, but which, in a geognostical point of view, deserves 

 much attention. The hill lies SS.E. of Chimborazo, at a dis- 

 tance of less than three miles (15 to 1°), and separated from the 

 same by the high plain of Luisa only. If in it we do not re- 



• Thus 2890 metres. Boussingault calculated this elevation to be 2870 

 metres, and estimated the mean temperature of the high plain of Tabia at 

 16".4 C. (61°&2 F.) 



•f The same Tupac-Yupanqui, whose well preserved remains, Garcillasso 

 de la Vega, so lately as in 1559, had seen in the family-vault at Cuzco. 



