2G0 QUITO. 



Incas, and the establishment of Spanish supremacy in 

 South America. Quito was one of the last cities to fall 

 into the hands of the invaders. After the death of Ata- 

 huallj^a, his chief Rumiuagui collected the army, shat- 

 tered in the battle of Quipaypan, and prepared for the 

 defence of the capital. Sebastian de Benalcazar, with 

 only a handful of Spanish soldiers, but having a strong 

 force of Indian allies, crossed the Cordilleras, and, after a 

 series of fiercely-contested battles, arrived at Quito ; but 

 only to find it a heap of ruins. Rumiuagui, removing the 

 treasures from the temples, had destroyed the city, and 

 retreated to the northern provinces of the valley. Through 

 this desperate act of the Indians, and the vandalism of the 

 Spanish iconoclasts, themselves baser devotee;^, as some 

 one has Veil said, of a baser idol than ever found a place 

 in the temples of the religion they warred against, not a 

 trace was left of the former magnificence of the city of 

 the Incas.* Thus fell Quito while enjoying a civilization 

 superior to that of Rome during the reign of the Tarquins ; 

 equal to that of the Britons at the time of the Saxon in- 

 vasion. Upon its ruins was founded, in 1534, the present 

 city. 



Its long, instructive colonial history we will pass in 

 silence. But a change at last came. Spain, by impolitic 

 diplomacy, by arrogant assumption of colonial jurisdic- 

 tion, at length forced her American colonies to revolu- 

 tionary measures. During the war for independence, 

 Ecuador joined her fortunes with those of New Granada 

 and Venezuela, but shortly after the close of the struggle, 

 in 1829, this union was dissolved, and since that time Quito 

 has been the capital of the Repuhlica del Ecuador. Revo- 

 lutions, and rumors of revolutions, make up the history of 



* " Of the ancient buildings of Quito no stone was left upon the other, 

 iind deep excavations were made under them to search for hidden treas- 

 ures." — (Hassaurek's " Four Years among Spanish Americans.") 



