244 SOUTH AMEEICA— THE ANDES LEGIONS. 



stated to have been ejected with the mud and slush, the stench from their putrid 

 bodies spreading dangerous fevers far and wide. 



The seas, especially about the estuaries along the north coast near Colombia, 

 abound in animal life. One species, large shoals of which frequent Pailon Bay and 

 the Sardines archipelago, is the famous " musical fish," first described by Onffroy 

 de Thoron ; it is distinguished from the grondin and all other singing-fishes by a 

 peculiar note " well sustained, prolonged and harmonious." The same waters are 

 infested by the manta, another curious marine animal, much dreaded by sailors. 

 According to De Thoron's description it has no fins, but two arms, with elbows of 

 almost human shape, and seizes tbe floating seaweeds on which it feeds with its 

 " palmed hands." 



Inhabitants. 



In Ecuador proper the aborigines have disappeared, or have been merged in 

 the conquering races of pre-Columbian times, and afterwards slightly modified by 

 crossings with the Spaniards. The Caras, Canars and Quitus, formerly dominant 

 on the plateau and western slopes, had originally come from the south. In 

 Ecuador they intermingled with the indigenous peoples, who perhaps belonged to 

 the same ethnical stock, as may be inferred from the generally current Quito 

 language, a dialect of the Peruvian Quichua. According to a native chronicler, 

 quoted by the Spanish historians, all the subjects of the Incas were required to 

 speak the language of the conquerors, and this injunction was everywhere com- 

 plied with. But such conformity, even if it were possible, would of itself 

 imply a certain affinity between all these forms of speech. 



Quichua tradition spoke of a race of " giants " who inhabited the forests of the 

 seaboard, and whose remains, probably those of mastodons, are supposed still to be 

 met with. The term " giant " itself, given to these aborigines, may perhaps be 

 explained by the stout resistance they offered to the Quichua invaders. A powerful 

 nation dwelling north of the Guayaquil peninsula, between the Rio Daule and the 

 sea, bore the Peruvian designation of Huanca-Vilca (" Break-Teeth "), from the 

 custom of the men to extract two of the upper incisors. The Inca, Huayna-Capac, 

 is said after the Conquest to have condemned them to extract two others. 



Under the Spanish rule the Cara tribes of the coastlands all became merged in 

 the general population, except a few Colorado families of the upper Rio Toachi, 

 and about 2,000 Cayapas, who still keep to the forests on the banks of the Rio 

 Cayapa, holding carefully aloof both from the whites and the negroes. Wolf 

 has collected a vocabulary of their language, which has also remained unaffected 

 by Quichua or Spanish influences. In the inter- Andean districts all the abori- 

 gines have been similarly merged in the half-caste population of Quichua speech ; 

 a few Canar families alone still survive near Zaraguro. 



But while most of the Indians have lost the memory of their origin, numerous 



