158 A VOYAGE TO Bocjk: IV; 



loured mantelet, bordered with broad ftrips of black- 

 velvet, but without laees or any other decorations, 

 Befides necklaces and bracelets^ they wear rofaries, of 

 the fame degree of rtchnets as at Panama ; and not 

 only load their ears with brilliant pendants, but add 

 tufts of black filk, about the fize of a filberd, and fo 

 full of jewels as to make a very fplendid appear- 

 ance. 



From the commerce of this city, a flranger would 

 imagine it richer than it adually is* This is partly, 

 owing to the two dreadful pillages it has fufFered, and 

 partly to fires, by both which it has been totally ruin- 

 ed. And though the houfes here, as we have al- 

 ready obferved, are only of wood, the whole charge 

 of which is the cutting and bringing it to the city 5 

 yet the expcnce of a houfe of any figure amounts to 

 fifteen or twenty thoufand dollars, workmens wages 

 being very high, and iron remarkably dear. Euro- 

 peans, who have raifed any thing of a fortune hercj 

 when they have no immoveable goods to detain them^ 

 retire to Lima, or fome other city of Peru, where 

 they may improve their ilocks with greater fecurity. 



CHAP. VL 



Of the Temperature of the Alr^ and the dlferent 

 Seafons at Guayaquil ; its Incoiwenkncks and 

 DJjlem^ers. 



IN Guayaquil, the winter fets in during the month 

 of December, fometim.es at the beginning, fome- 

 times in the middle, and fometimes not till the end 

 of the month, and lafts till April or May. During 

 this feafon, the elements, the infed:s, and vermin, 

 feem to have joined in a league to incommode tlip 

 human fpecies. Its extreme heat appeared from fome 

 thermometrical experiments \ for, on the 3d of April, 

 3 when 



