28 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OP PERU. 



the feeble decorations of the chisel and the pencil, without the 

 necessity of viewing her sensible creatures humbled in the dis- 

 mal array of the sepulchre, she displays herself living, and in 

 all her splendor. The high world is the principal nave ; its 

 flooring, superior in elevation to Olympus, Pindus, Imaus, 

 or the Pyrenean mountains, supports a magnificent fa9ade 

 looking towards the north, and crowned by the celestial Equa- 

 tor. The edifice which terminates beneath the tropic of Ca- 

 pricorn, is crowned at the meridian by another arch of equal 

 elegance. Corazon, Iligniza, Chimbora%o, Collanes, Filcanota, 

 Illimani, Condoroma, and Tacora, are the columns by which it 

 is supported. Atitisana, Cotopaxi, Tunguragua, Pichincha^ 

 Ambato^ Quinistakac, and Chcke-Putina, are so many inextin- 

 guishable lamps, which, covered by a thick vapour, perpe- 

 tuate unceasingly the worship of the Deity. 



The collateral divisions, regulated, not according to the 

 wretched ideas of man, but by the infinitely wise plans of the 

 Creator, point out the dire6lion of the vallies of which they 

 are composed, and lead, by superb entrances, to the east and 

 west, to the spacious passages formed, on the one hand, by the 

 fertile plains of the Amazons, and on the other by the coasts 

 and the ocean. The produ6lions of the three kingdoms are 

 distributed in each of them. The areas and columns of the 

 centre are enriched by minerals, among which the diamond, 

 enchased in the finest gold, sparkles with effulgence. In the 

 circumference mxCteors prevail ; and while in one dire6lion, 

 the lightning's vivid flash precedes the loud explosion and 

 the darted thunderbolt, in another the blushing dawn of Au- 

 rora shines amid the calmly-floating vapours. The vallies are 

 replete with the treasures of the animal and vegetable king- 

 doms. 



