234 QUITO. 



thropist. In seeking its solution, while claiming positively 

 equality of rights, let us be careful, in entering another 

 sj)here, that we do not jxnss those lines tliat Nature has 

 drawn, and which she will not allow to be disregarded 

 W'ith impunity. 



Of the mixed population of Quito, about one-fifth con- 

 Btitutes what is termed the white population, an evident 

 misnomer, as probably not a score of tliem could count 

 back two generations without encountering an Indian ; 

 and this fact their jDhysiological characteristics do not fail 

 to reveal. This class form the upper circle of society, and 

 assume the aftairs of state. The purely Indian element, 

 comprising about one-fourth of the inhabitants, is con- 

 demned to manual labor. C/iolos, or 7nestizos, descend- 

 ants of Spaniards and Indians, make up by far the larger 

 portion of the population. They constitute the soldiers 

 and the business class of Quito, and, while superior to the 

 Indians, are as much inferior to those who comprise the 

 first and leading class. 



In every thing, especially in ideas of progress and en- 

 terjjrise, degenerate Quito is several centuries behind the 

 age. And how could we expect that it should be other- 

 wise ? Offspring of imbecile and retrogressive Spain, 

 posted above the rest of the world almost two miles, 

 fenced in by mountains which only a mule or a llama can 

 scale, with the hereditary antipathy of its people to mod- 

 ern innovations, afibrding a still more effectual barrier 

 than those mountain-walls to the introduction of modern 

 thought and improvement, what else could it do but fossil- 

 ize? As their fathers did, so do they. Fletcher, in his bril- 

 liant " Brazil and the Brazilians," tells the following story, 

 wdiich is so applicable to Quitonians, and illustrative of 

 Spaniards, that we cannot forbear repeating it : " Once 



higher characteristics of the white, without imparting its own energies 

 to the offspring. — (" A Journey in Brazil.") 



