COLUMBIAN HISTORICAL EXPOSITION AT MADRID. 49 



von Humboldt, from the MSS. of Dr. Duquesne, will desire to learn if 

 those remarkable statements are borne out by these later investigations. 

 Such inquirers are referred to Senor Vicente Restrepo s careful mono 

 graph, Oritica de los Trabajos Arqueologicos del Dr. Jose Domingo 

 Duquesne, Bogota, 1892. It is sufficient to say that later research, 

 as well as an examination of Dr. Duquesne s own writing, leave little 

 doubt but that Humboldt was too credulous in attributing any such 

 advance in culture to the Chibcha nation. 



DEPARTMENT OF ECUADOR. 



The exhibition of the Republic of Ecuador was under the care, as 

 president of the commission, of Senor Antonio Flores, formerly presi 

 dent of that Republic, and now minister plenipotentiary from it to the 

 court of Spain. 



The geographical position of Ecuador surrounds it with special 

 interest to the student of the ancient history of America. It lies in 

 the extreme northern portion of the former &quot; Empire of the Incas,&quot; 

 and is located between the numerous tribes subjected to their rule and 

 a number of independent nations of a certain degree of cultivation to 

 the north of them. Its earliest history is carried back by tradition 

 some five or six hundred years, or as some would say, a much longer 

 time, before the arrival of the Spaniards. The first that we hear of it 

 concerns the nation of the Caras who are reported, somewhere about 

 the ninth century, to have descended the coast from the north and to 

 have landed on the shore near the mouth of the Esmeraldas River. 

 From there they journeyed inland and established their main seat 

 about the city of Quito, where they continued their rule down to about 

 the middle of the latter half of the fifteenth century. At that time 

 the Inca Huaynacapac conquered the-country, and incorporated it into 

 the nation of which he was chief. 



According to the evidence of language and many traditions of great 

 antiquity, the great Kechua nation itself first appears within the ter 

 ritory of Ecuador, from which locality it gradually advanced, in two 

 streams of migration, conquering as it went, until it had brought under 

 its influence tribes as far south as the thirtieth parallel of south 

 latitude. 



However this may be, it is certain that in Ecuador we find many 

 examples of art products which show conclusively the influence 

 exerted by the Kechua people. 



The present collection includes in all 1,327 numbers in its cata 

 logue, many of which were exhibited by the Government of the Repub 

 lic, and others were loaned from private collections. Among the first 

 there were a number of utensils in stone, one a mortar with large ears, 

 each bearing a figure of an animal cut upon it. Another was a long 

 stone with resonant qualities, used as a bell, or to sound warnings, 

 H. Ex. 100 4 



