MODERN QUITO. 231 



the city under the regime of a republican government. 

 Varied has been its past ; unsatisfactory is its present ; 

 may the future bring it days equal to those when it was 

 called the " City of the Incas ! " 



Quito, as we find it to-day, presents a melancholy con- 

 trast to its former magnificence. The city lies upon the 

 projecting sj)urs of the volcano Pichincha, which rises out 

 of the Western Cordillera. The buildings, generally two 

 stories in height, ai-e constructed of adobe, the walls being 

 two to three feet in thickness, as a precaution against earth- 

 quakes. The upper windows are furnished with balconies, 

 and the roofs covered with tiles. In consequence of the 

 incombustible nature of the building-material, there are no 

 conflagrations. You could as easily fire a beavers' village 

 as the mud squares of Quito. Some of the houses en- 

 close pleasant court-yards, around which run verandas 

 about ten feet in depth, and above these second galleries 

 of equal width, furnished with low balustrades. The 

 government buildings and churches are the only edifices 

 that make any architectural pretensions. The fa9ade of 

 the Jesuit church is the most elaborate work of art the 

 city afibrds, being constructed of the poi-phyritic rock of 

 Pichincha. One of the marked features of Quito, as of 

 all Spanish towns, is its plazas, or public squares. Of 

 these there are three, each being furnished with a stone 

 fountain which gi-aces the centre. The Plaza Mayor was 

 formerly, as the remaining two, the Plaza de San Po- 

 niingo and the Plaza de San Francisco, are at present, 

 destitute of trees ; but President Moreno converted it 

 into a park in order to unfit it as a place for bull-fights, or 

 rather bull-baitings. Quitonians now view this amuse- 

 ment from the balconies of the San Francisco plaza. The 

 last-named square, with that of Santo Domingo, is used 

 as a market-place. Throughout the city are shattered 

 walls and unseemly piles of rubbish — traces of frequent 



