288 PLATEAU OF CAXAMAECA. 



therefore almost as high as the city of Quito ; but being 

 sheltered by surrounding mountains it enjoys a far milder 

 and more agreeable climate. The soil is extremely fertile, 

 and the plain full of cultivated fields and gardens tra- 

 versed by avenues of Willows, large flowered red, white, 

 and yellow varieties of Datura, Mimosas, and the beautiful 

 Quinuar-trees (our Polylepsis villosa, a Eosacea allied to 

 Alchemilla and Sanguisorba) . Wheat yields on an average 

 in the Pampa de Caxamarca fifteen to twentyfold, but the 

 hopes of a plentiful harvest are sometimes disappointed by 

 night frosts, occasioned by the great radiation of heat towards 

 the unclouded sky through the dry and rarefied mountain 

 air : the frosts are not felt in the roofed houses. 



In the northern part of the plain, small porphyritic domes 

 break through the widely extended sandstone strata, and 

 probably once formed islands in the ancient lake before its 

 waters had flowed off. On the summit of one of these 

 domes, the Cerro de Santa Polonia, we enjoyed a pleasing 

 prospect. The ancient residence of Atuhuallpa is surrounded 

 on this side by fruit gardens and by irrigated fields of 

 lucerne (Medicago sativa, " campos de alfalfa"). Columns of 

 smoke are seen at a distance rising from the warm baths 

 of Pultamarca, which are still called Bafios del Inca. I 

 found the temperature of these sulphur-springs 55.2 

 .Reaumur (]56.2 Fahrenheit). Atahuallpa spent a part of 

 the year at these baths, where some slight remains of his 

 palace still survive the devastating rage of the Conquistadores. 

 The large and deep basin or reservoir in which, according to 

 tradition, one of the golden chairs in which the Inca was 



