PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF PERU. 



23 



highest points of each of them are covered by a snow as an- 

 cient as the world ; and their volcanoes, which vomit forth a 

 perpetual fire in the region of frost and cold, present a terri- 

 fic spedlacle to the contemplative philosopher. 



If the worth of countries were to be estimated by the greater 

 or less extension they afford to population and to agriculture, 

 the Royal Cordillera would diminish the value of Peru, since 

 its eminences and declivities, far from augmenting the pro- 

 portion of cultivable land which would be found at the bases 

 of this chain of mountains, diminish them extremely* ; but, 



in 



to the Sierras, or mountainous territory of Maldonado, in the river of La Plata. 

 Secondly, the eastern one of Peru^ which, originating in the snow-clad mountains 

 of Santa Martha, on the confines of the northern sea, runs, as has been said, to- 

 wards the Tropic, from whence it takes an inclined direiStion towards the south- 

 east, and terminates in the plains of the great Chaco. Thirdly, the western one, 

 which proceeds from North America, passes the isthmus of Panama, and redoubles 

 the whole of the southern coast to Cape Horn. Between the northern sea and the 

 first Cordillera, lies Brazil ; between the first and second, lie the great and lofty 

 plains of the country of the Amazons ; and, in the line in which these plains termi- 

 nate, the second Cordillera commences, as does also Peru, which is comprehended 

 within this one and the third. The ancient Yncas gave to each of them the name 

 of Ritisuyu, which signifies a band of snow, and as the four cardinal points, which 

 they called Tavantlnsuyu, were denoted by the subjugated nations which they viewed 

 towards them, that of the Antis, which is to the east of Cuzco, gave the name, as 

 well to the mountains which descend from the second Cordillera into the plains, 

 as to this same Cordillera which precedes them. We still preserve these distin£lions, 

 having corrupted the word jintis into Andes, and afterwards applied the same term 

 to the south Cordillera. We say that both these Cordilleras lie beneath the Equator, 

 since, notwithstanding in the province of Popayan they are already divided and pa- 

 rallel, their mountains are so low, that at two degrees to the north, they have not 

 the fourth part of the elevation of those of the south. Hence it is that the climate 

 is very different from that of high Peru. 



• Taking it for gfanted that, in consequence of the parched and dry state of the 



declivities 



