2 TRAVELS AMONGST TEE GREAT ANDES. chap. i. 



Peru and Chili caused a large accession of trade, and filled it 

 with a horde of refugees. Lodgings were scarcely to be had 

 for money, and services were difficult to procure. Life seemed 

 too easy for the lower orders at this place. At very trifling 

 expense they can breakfast on chocolate, dine on bananas and 

 cocoa-nut, and fall back at night on pine-apples. Lodging is 

 not a difficulty with them, and dress is almost superfluous in a 

 climate so equably warm. The elders go about in very light 

 attire, and the young people appear in the streets in the earliest 

 mode of Eden. Workmen set an exorbitant value on their 

 services, and the very labourers expected to be paid at the rate 

 of little English Bishops. 



Not much was wanting to perfect our arrangements. Our 

 principal need was a third man, as interpreter and general assist- 

 ant, and it was supplied by Mr. Perring, an Englishman who 

 had lived many years in Ecuador, and had frequently acted as 

 Government courier between Guayaquil and Quito. This matter 

 settled, there was time to look about, and I betook myself 

 daily to the highest accessible ground — a hill at the northern 

 end of the town — to endeavour to get a view of the Andes, and 

 especially of Chimborazo. 



Up to this time we had scarcely had a glimpse of the 

 Andes. On the first half of the voyage from Panama our 

 course was at too great a distance from the coast ; and, on 

 approaching the Equator, although the nearer parts of the outer 

 ranges could be discerned, their tops were in cloud, and the 

 great snow - peaks were invisible. Several Captains of the 

 Mail Steamers, who had long experience, said that they had 

 only seen Chimborazo from the Pacific Ocean on three or four 

 occasions in the course of thirteen or fourteen years ; and Mr. 

 Chambers told me that the mountain was not commonly seen 

 at Guayaquil more than once or twice a month. 



I proposed to make my way to Chimborazo by the ordinary 

 route to Quito, via Bodegas and Guaranda. From Guayaquil 



