126 The Ajstdes ajjd the Amazon. 



of these would be visible from a single stand-point — the 

 summit of Cotopaxi. The lofty peaks shoot up with so 

 much method as almost to provoke the theory that the In- 

 cas, in the zenith of their power, planted them as signal 

 monuments along the royal road to Cuzco. The eastern 

 series is called the Cordillera real, because along its flank 

 are the remnants of the splendid highway which once 

 connected Quito and the Peruvian capital.* It can also 

 boast of such tremendous volcanoes as Cotopaxi and San- 

 gai. The Western Cordillera contains but one active vol- 

 cano ; but then it can point to peerless Chimborazo and 

 the deep crater of Pichincha. These twenty volcanic 

 mountains rise within a space only two hundred miles 

 long and thirty miles wide. It makes one tremble to 

 think of the awful crevice over which they are placed.f 



The limit appears to descend more rapidly going south of the equator than 

 in going north. 



* We traveled over a portion of this ancient road in going from Riobamha 

 to Cajabamba. It is well paved with cut blocks of dark porphyry. It is not 

 graded, but partakes of the irregularity of the country. Designed, not for 

 carriages, but for troops and llamas, there are steps when the ascent is steep. 



t Grand as the Andes are, how insignificant in a general view ! How 

 slightly they cause our globe to differ from a perfect sphere ! Cotopaxi con- 

 stitutes only jJ^j of the earth's radius ; and on a globe six feet in diameter, 

 Chimborazo would be represented by a grain of sand less than Jj of an inch 

 in thickness. 



