QuiCHUA Indians. 109 



with treacle. The Italian species would undoubtedly thrive 

 here. The bees of Ecuador, like all the bees of the Kew 

 World, are inferior to those of the Old World. Their cells 



are not perfectly hexagonal, and their stings are undevel- 

 oped. They are seldom seen feeding on flowers. Mollus- 

 ca in the Quito Valley are not great in number or variety. 

 They belong principally to the genera Bulirmis, Cyclosto- 

 ma, and Helix. The first is as characteristic of the South- 

 ern Continent as Helix of the North and Achatina of Af- 

 rica. 



From the animal creation we mount by a short step to 

 the imbruted Indian. When and by whom the Andes were 

 first peopled is a period of darkness that lies beyond the 

 domain of history. But geology and archaeology are com- 

 bining to prove that Sorata and Chimborazo have looked 

 down upon a civilization far more ancient than that of the 

 Incas, and perhaps coeval with the flint-flakes of Cornwall, 

 and the shell-mounds of Denmark. On the shores of Lake 

 Titicaca are extensive ruins which antedate the advent of 

 Manco Capac, and may be as venerable as the lake-dwell- 

 ings of Geneva. Wilson has traced six terraces in going 

 up fi'om the sea through the province of Esmeraldas to- 

 ward Quito ; and underneath the living forest, which is old- 

 er than the Spanish invasion, many gold, copper, and stone 

 vestiges of a lost population were found. In all cases 

 these relics are situated below high-tide mark, in a bed of 

 marine sediment, from which he infers that this part of 

 the country formerly stood higher above the sea. If tliis 

 be true, vast must be the antiquity of these remains, for the 

 upheaval and subsidence of the coast is exceedingly slow. 



Philology can aid us little in determining the relations 

 of the primeval Quitonians, for their language is nearly 

 obscured by changes introduced by the Caras, and after- 

 ward by the Incas, who decreed that the Quichua, the Ian- 



