ULLOA's voyage to south AMERICA. 30^ 



wanting in any kind of good office in their power. Every thing being thus happily 

 difpofed, and ^dvice arriving that the mules were on their way to Caracol, where they 

 arrived the 6th of May, we were no lefs expeditious to embark on the river, which 

 is the ufual paffage. There is indeed a road by land ; but at all times extremely diffi- 

 cult and dangerous, on account of the many bays and large rivers which mufl be 

 pafled ; fo that no perfon travels this road but in fummer, and then only fuqh as have 

 no baggage, and are, befides, well acquainted with the country and the ferries. 



CHAP. IV. — Defcription of Guayaquil. 



THOUGH there is no certainty with regard to the time when Guayaquil was 

 founded, it is univerfally allowed to be the fecond city of Spanifh origin, both in its 

 own province and the kingdom of Peru ; it appearing, from antient records preferved 

 in its archives, that it was the next city founded after San Miguel de Piura : and the 

 foundation laid of Los Reyes, Remac, or Lima, being* in 1534, or according to 

 others, in 1535, the building of Guayaquil may be fixed between thofe two years; 

 but the prolperity it attained under its governor Belalcazar, was-of no long continuance, 

 being, after feveral furious attacks, entirely deftroyed by the neighbouring Indians; 

 It was however in 1537, rebuilt by Captain Francifco de Orellana. The firtt fituatioa^ 

 of Guayaquil was in. the bay of Charapoto, a little to the northward of the place where 

 the village of Monte Chrifto now ftands ; from whence it was removed to the prefent 

 fpot, which is on the weft bank of the river of Guayaquil, in 2° 11'' 21" of fouth 

 latitude, as appeared from our obfervations. Its longitude was not determined by any 

 accurate obfervations ; but by computing it from thofe made at Quito, it is 297° 17', 

 reckoning from the meridian of Teneriffe. On its removal by Orellana, from its firft 

 fituation, it was built on the declivity of a mountain called Cerillo Verde, and is now 

 termed Ciudad Vieja, or the old town. Its inhabitants being afterwards ftraitened by 

 the mountain on one fide, and by ravines or hollows made by floods of rain on the 

 other, formed a defign, without entirely abandoning the place, to build the principal 

 part of the city at the diftance of five or fix hundred toifes ; which was accordingly 

 begun in 1693; and for pxeferving a communication with the old part, a bridge of 

 timber was eredled, of about three hundred toifes in length, by which means the 

 inconveniences of the ravines are avoided, and, the intervals being filled with fmall 

 houfes, the old and new towns are now united. 



This city is of confiderable extent, taking up, along the bank of the river from the* 

 lower part of the old town to the upper part of the new, near half a league ; but 

 the breadth is not at all proportional, every perfon being fond of having a houfe near 

 the river, both for the amufements it affords, and for the benefit of refrefhing winds, 

 which, in winter, are the more eagerly coveted as they are very rare. 



All the houfes of both towns are built of wood, and many of them qovered with 

 tiles ; though the greater part of thofe in the old town are only thatched ; but in 

 order to prevent the fpreading of fires, by which this city has feverely fuffered on feve- 

 ral occafions, fuch covering is now prohibited. Moft of thefe conflagrations Qwedi 

 their rife to the malevolence of the negroes, who, in order to revenge fome punish- 

 ments inflifted on them by their mafters, took the opportunity, during the night, of 

 throwing fire on the thatch, and by that means, not only ruined thofe who were the 

 immediate objeds of their revenge, but alfo the greater part of the inhabitants of 

 the city. 



VOL. XIV. 3 E Though 



