340 



TOPOGKAPHY. 



du6led ; and after having climbed mountains, descended into 

 abysses, penetrated forests, and gained heights at the manifest 

 risk of falling from the precipices they presented, he finally 

 met, not only with a convenient site for the opening of a 

 road, but also with many rivulets and streams, spacious plains, 

 vestiges of ancient towns, immense pastures, abandoned 

 plantations, dormant mines, and, above all, with mountains 

 thickly covered with the cinchona^ or quina tree*, the exist- 

 ence of which had never been ascertained in that territory -j-. 

 In a word, he saw before him an unexplored country, capable 

 of becoming a new province, richer than many of those that 

 are peopled. He afterwards ascertained, that upwards of 

 twenty towns, now in ruins, had been built by the missiona- 

 ries belonging to the Order of Jesus, by whom that conquest 

 had been made; their capitals having been Chavin de Pariaca, 

 Monzon, and Chapacra. The first of these places, being 

 situated on this side of the Cordillera, still subsists, as is 



* Cinchona officinalis, Lin. — Peruvian bark. 



i This will not appear extraordinary, when it is considered that a century and a 

 half had elapsed, after the arrival of Columbus in America, when the first discovery 

 of the quina was made. This happened in the year 1638, under the viceroyalty of 

 Count de Cinchon, whose lady then laboured under an obstinate tertian fever. The 

 corregidor of Loxa, to whom an Indian had just revealed the virtues of this remedy, 

 having been informed of the countess's illness, sent to Lima a packet of the pow- 

 dered quina, which was successfully administered by the physician in chief, Juan 

 de Vega, who was likewise captain of the armory. On the expiration of his go- 

 vernment, in 1639, the count carried with him a quantity of the pulverized bark to 

 Spain, where it was named the countess's powder. The Jesuits conveyed another 

 parcel to Rome, bestowing a portion on Cardinal de Lugo, and distributing the resc 

 gratuitously ; on which account it was named by some, the powder of the reverend 

 fathers, and by others, the cardinal's powder. 



proved 



