ILLUSTRATIONS (1). THE CHIMBORAZO. 235 



Condamine* derives from chimpani, to cross a river. " Chim- 

 bora9o" means, according to him, ''the snow of the opposite 

 bank," from the fact of a brook being crossed at the village of 

 Chimbo, in sight of the huge snow-covered mountain. (In 

 the Qquichua language chimpa signifies the opposite bank or 

 side; chimpani to cross a river, bridge, &c.) Several 

 natives of the province of Quito assured me that Chimborazo 

 meant simply the snow of Chimbo. In Carguai-razo we meet 

 with the same termination, and it would appear that "razo" is 

 a provincial word. The Jesuit Holguin, whose excellent 

 vocabulary! I possess, is not acquainted with the word razo. 

 The genuine term for snow is ritti. On the other hand, my 

 friend, Professor Buschmann, an admirable linguist, remarks 

 that in the Chinchaysuyo dialect, (employed north of Cuzco as 

 far as Quito and Pasto) raju, the^' being apparently guttural, 

 signifies snow.J As chimpa and chimpani do not well suit 

 on account of the , we may seek a definite meaning for the 

 first portion of the name of the mountain and of the village 

 Chimbo, in the Qquichua word "chimpu," which is used to 

 express a coloured thread or fringe (serial de lana, hilo 6 bor- 

 lilla de colores) ; the redness of the sky (arreboles), and the 

 halo round the sun and moon. The name of the mountain 

 might be thus derived from this word, without reference to 

 the district or village. At all events, whatever may be the 

 etymology of the word Chimborazo, it should be written in 

 the Peruvian manner Chimporazo, as the Peruvians have 110 

 b in their alphabet. 



May not the name of this colossal mountain be wholly inde- 

 pendent of the Inca language, and have come down from a 

 bygone age? The Inca or Qquichua language had not been 

 introduced long prior to the Spanish invasion into the king- 

 dom of Quito, where the now wholly extinct Puruay language 

 had been previously used. The names of other mountains, as 

 Pichincha, Ilinissa, and Cotopaxi, are wholly devoid of mean- 

 ing in the language of the Incas, and are therefore undoubt- 



* Voyage a TEquateur, 1751, p. 184. 



f Vocabulario de la Lengua general de todo el Peru llamada 

 Lengua Qquichua 6 del Inca, Lima, 1608. 



See the word in Juan de Figueredo's vocabulary of Chinchaysuyo 

 words appended to Diego de Torres Rubio, Arte, y Vocabulario de la, 

 Lengua Quichua, reimpr. en Lima, 1751, fol. 222, b. 



