"Evergreen Quito." — Manufactures. 77 



sidered downriglit folly in theory and practice. A large 

 portion of the valley, left treeless, is becoming less favora- 

 ble for cultivation. 



Yet, as it is, the traveler is charmed by the emerald ver- 

 diire of the coast, and by " evergreen Quito" — more beau- 

 tiful than the hanging gardens of Babylon — suspended far 

 above the ordinary elevation of the clouds. In the San 

 Francisco mai'ket we find wheat, barley, maize, beans, peas, 

 potatoes, cabbages, beets, salads, pine-apples, chirimoyas, 

 guavas, oranges, lemons, pears, quinces, peaches, apricots, 

 melons, and strawberries- — ^the last all the year round. 

 Most of these are exotics ; the early discoverers found not 

 a cereal grain of the Old World, not an orange or apple, 

 no sugar-cane or strawberries.* 



There is but little manufacturing industry in the interior 

 of Ecuador, but much more than on the coast. The chief 

 articles manufactured are straw hats, shoes, baskets, car- 

 pets, embroidery, tape, thread, ponchos, coarse woolen and 

 cotton cloth, saddles, sandals, soap, sugar, cigars, aguardi- 

 ente, powder, sweetmeats, carved images, paints, and pot- 

 tery. Wines, crockery, glassware, cutlery, silks, and fine 

 cloth are imported. There are three cotton mills in the 

 country; one in Chillo (established by Senors Aguirre in 

 1842), another in Otovalo (built by Senor Parija in 1859), 

 and a third in Cuenca (1861). The machinery of the Chil- 

 lo factory came from England ; that of Otovalo from Pat- 

 terson, N". J. The latter was utterly destroyed in the late 

 great earthquake, and the proprietor killed. The cotton is 

 inferior to that of ISTew Orleans ; it is not " fat," as me- 

 chanics say ; the seeds yield only two per cent, of oil. But 

 it is whiter than American cotton, though coarse, and can 



* The vase is still shown in which Father Kixi brought the first wheat from 

 Europe. It was sown in what is now the San Francisco Plaza, the chief 

 mai'ket-place of the city. 



