260 TRAVELS AMONGST TEE GREAT ANDES, chap. xiv. 



When looking back from this place it was seen that there was 

 good reason for bringing us by a circuitous route. The lower 

 slopes of our mountain^ and the comparatively fiat ground at its 

 base, were rent and riven in a most extreme manner. In no other 

 part of Ecuador is there anything equalling this extraordinary 

 assemblage of fissures, intersecting one another irregularly and 

 forming a perfect maze of impassable clefts. The general appear- 

 ance of the country between the villages of Cotocachi and Otovalo 

 is not very unlike that of a biscuit which has been smashed by a 

 blow of the fist. The cracks are all V shaped, and though seldom 

 of great breadth are often very profound, and by general consent 

 they are all earthquake qiiehradas. Several, at least, have been 

 formed within the memory of man, while others are believed to be 

 centuries old. It was not to be expected that any one would be 

 found who had actually witnessed their formation,^ or possessing 

 certain knowledge of the immediate cause of their production. 

 Some persons would probably have said with Shakespeare that 



''Oft the teeming earth 

 Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd 

 By the imprisoning of unruly wind 

 Within her womb ; which, for enlargement striving, 

 Shakes the old beldame Earth, and topples down 

 Steeples and moss-grown towers." 



If, however, they had been caused by upheaval, there could 

 scarcely have failed to have been some irregularities in the 

 surface ; and I imagine that they arise from a succession of settle- 

 ments in this particular area. Whether they have been caused by 

 upheavals or subsidences, it is clear that at the time they were 

 produced the surface of the earth was in a state of tension. 



After leaving Iltaqui, we were guided by the Indian up a small 

 valley leading towards what may be termed the southern ridge of 



* The quebrada we skirted was one of the largest, and was not less than six 

 miles in length. It opened in the night. I am unable to give a view of this very 

 remarkable scene. The photographic plates that were exposed at Iltaqui were 

 smashed in the accident which occurred on the way back to Quito. 



