GUARANDA. 47 



streets are rudely paved, and pitch to the centre, to form 

 an aqueduct, like the sti-eets of old Sychar. The inhabit- 

 ants are in happy ignorance of the oiitside world. They 

 pass the day without a thought of work, standing on the 

 Plaza, or in front of some public office, staring vacantly 

 into space, or gossiping. A cock fight will soonest rouse 

 them from their lethargy They seem to have no purpose 

 in life but to keep warm under their ponchos and to eat 

 when they are hungry. Guaranda is a healthy locality, ly- 

 ing in a deep valley on the west bank of the Chimbo, at an 

 elevation, according to our barometer, of 8840 feet, and 

 having a mean temperature slightly less than that of Quito. 

 It is a place of importance, inasmuch as it is the resting- 

 place before ascending or after descending the still loftier 

 ranges, and nduch more because it is the capital of the re- 

 gion which yields the invaluable cinchona, or Peruvian 

 bark.* This tree is indigenous to the Andes, where it is 

 found on the western slope between the altitudes of two 

 thousand and nine thousand feet, the species richest in alka- 

 loids occupying the higher elevations, where the air is moist. 

 Dr. Weddell enumerates twenty-one species, seven of which 

 are now found in Ecuador, but the only one of value is the 

 the C. succirubra (the calisaya has run out), and this is now 

 nearly extinct, as the trees have been destroyed to obtain 

 the bark. This species is a beautiful tree, having large, 

 broadly oval, deep green, shining leaves, white, fragrant 

 flowers, and red bark, and sometimes, though rarely, attains 

 the height of sixty feet. A tree five feet in circumference 



Moors to Spain, thence to America ; and from America the word has gone 

 to the Sandwich Islands. 



* This celebrated febrifuge was first taken to Europe about the middle of 

 the seventeenth century, and was named after the Countess of Chinchon, who 

 had been cured of intermittent fever at Lima. Afterward, when Cardinal de 

 Lugo spread the knowledge of the remedy through France, and recommend- 

 ed it to Cardinal Mazarin, it received the name of Jesuits' Bark. The French 

 chemists, Pelletier and Caverton, discovered quinine in 1820. 



