DELIGHTFUL CLIMATE. 227 



and Turubamba, the most fertile of any embraced by the 

 plateaux of the Andes. Above is spread a deep, soft sky, 

 shedding the influences of an everlasting spring. In the 

 climate of Quito we observe a fine illustration of the fact 

 that meteorological phenomena are determined not less 

 by elevation and relation to mountain-ranges than by 

 position in latitude. Considerable portions of so-called 

 tropical America do not enjoy, or rather suffer, a tropical 

 climate. The lofty cordilleras of the Andes, culminating 

 in height near the southern line of the tropics, with their 

 broad, elevated table-lands, carry a temperate, and, in iso- 

 lated instances, a frigid climate to those intertropical re- 

 gions. Thus western equatorial America is as truly tem- 

 perate as tropical. The mean annual temperature of 

 Quito is lifty-nine degrees ; you here never feel the incon- 

 venience of heat or cold. The entire variation during the 

 year is only twenty-five degress, while in our Northern 

 States it is over one hundred and thirty. Under this 

 equable and salubrious climate epidemic diseases are al- 

 most unknown ; cholera, yellow fever, and consumption, 

 never find their way into these elevated valleys. In re- 

 spect to scenery and climate, Nature has done much for 

 the city of Quito. But man has done his part less well. 

 He has defaced this spot witli a city so devoid of beauty, 

 so filled with filth and guilt, that, should Pichincha bury 

 the whole beneath its lavic floods, we would have no 

 trouble in interpreting the providence. Let us review 

 hurriedly the history of Quito, and then speak briefly of 

 the pi'esent city and the character of Quitonians. 



Quito has beeir the proud capital of four successive 

 civilizations. Centuries ago, almost beyond the reach of 

 tradition, it was founded by the Quitus race. Five hundred 

 years before the Spanish invasion, the Carans, who as- 

 cended the western slope of the Andes, by way of the 

 Esmeraldas, conquered the Quitus nation, and established 



