28 The Axdes akd the Amazon. 



The full name of the city is Santiago de Guayaquil.* It 

 is so called, first, because the conquest of the province was 

 finished on the 25th of July (the day of St. James), 1533; 

 and, secondly, after Guayas, a feudatory cacique of Atahu- 

 allpa. It wa^ created a city by Charles Y., October 6, 1535. 

 It has suffered much in its subsequent history by fires and 

 earthquakes, pirates and pestilence. It is situated on the 

 right bank of the Kiver Guayas, sixty miles from the ocean, 

 and but a few feet above its level. Though the most west- 

 ern city in South America, it is only two degrees west of 

 the longitude of Washington, and it is the same distance 

 below the equator — Orion sailing directly overhead, and 

 the Southern Cross taking the place of the Great Dipper. 

 The mean annual temperature, according to our observa- 

 tions, is 83°. There are two seasons, the wet, or invierno, 

 and the dry, or verano. The xerano is called the summer, 

 although astronomically it is winter; it begins in June 

 and terminates in. November.f The heavy rains come on 

 about Christmas. March is the rainiest month in the year, 

 and July the coldest. It is at the close of the invierno 

 (May) that fevers most abound. The climate of Guaya- 

 quil during the dry season is nearly perfect. At daybreak 

 there is a cool easterly breeze ; at sunrise a brief lull, and 

 then a gentle variable wind ; at 3 p.m. a southwest ^vind, 

 at first in gusts, then in a sustained current ; at sunset the 

 same softened down to a gentle breeze, increasing about T 

 P.M., and dying away about 3 a.m. Notwithstanding heaps 

 of filth and green-mantled pools, sufficient to start a pes- 



* The ancient name was Culenta. 



t The continuity of the dry season is broken by a rainy fit commencing a 

 few days after the autumnal equinox, and called el Cordonazo de San Fran- 

 cisco. ' ' Throughout South America (observes Mr. Spruce) the periodical al- 

 ternations of dry and rainy weather are laid to the account of those saints 

 whose ' days' coincide nearly with the epochs of change. But if the Aveather 

 be rainy when it ought to be fair, or if the rains of winter be heavier than or- 

 dinary, the blame is invariably laid on the moon." 



