CHAP. X. HOW TO CATCH A CONDOR. 205 



hours hidden in the grass, while this great, solemn assembly sat 

 watching the dead horse. Our time being exhausted, we stalked 

 up to within two hundred yards, and then mounted, without 

 uttering a word, expecting every moment that we should be 

 perceived. But the birds sat still as mutes, out of sight in the 

 hollow ; and we crept nearer, with the herdsmen leading, and on 

 the signal being given they dashed in and threw their lassos, 

 and all the eighteen Condors flew away,^ — scared and hurriedly, 

 yet without the lightning rapidity that is attributed to them by 

 Professor Orton. 



From Pinantura, I despatched the baggage to Quito in charge 

 of the Carrels, and paid a visit to the cotton factory at Chillo, 

 accompanied by Mr. Verity.^ The mill was 193 feet long, in 

 the form of the letter H, — the legs being one storey and the 

 line joining them two storeys high. The interior was made up 

 of four large rooms (card-room, spinning-room, weaving-room, 

 etc.), each about 80 feet long and 24 feet wide. They were 

 ginning their own cotton with gins made by Piatt of Oldham, 

 and producing calico and thread. Sixty hands were employed — 

 entirely Indians — working sixty hours per week. Each family 

 had a house rent-free, with about an acre and a half of ground 

 attached, and all kept pigs and fowls, while some had as many 

 as six or eight cows and oxen. The whole of the machinery 

 came from Lancashire, and was being worked by a turbine. This 



^ This business was spoiled by want of attention to orders. The liorse should 

 have been killed on the 11th, and the job was put off until manana. We found 

 that the Condors had hardly eaten anything. 



"^ I met Seiior Carlos Aguirre at Chillo ; and, congratulating him upon his 

 valuable observations in the Comptes Hendus, expressed surprise that he should 

 have isolated himself for so long a time, at such a dismal place, in the service of 

 science. Senor Aguirre informed me that the observations were not made by 

 himself, but by a young Ecuadorian whom he deputed to do the work. 



Some weeks later, I paid another visit to Chillo, and was again unable to fix 

 its position. It should come somewhere on my map between the words Pasochoa 

 and Hac. Colegio. The height of Chillo, according to Humboldt, is 8576 feet 

 above the level of the sea. 



