228 A V O Y A G E T O Book V. 



ailronomical obfervations. For, in the deferts, the 

 clouds in which we were fo frequently involved, hin- 

 dered us from difcerning the other fignals and in 

 the city, over which they fpread a kind of perpetual 

 pavilion^ they hid the ftars from us while they pafied 

 the meridian ; but patience and refolution, infpired by 

 the importance of our enterprize, having enabled us 

 at lafl: to perform our tafk on the fouth fide of the 

 equator, we prepared for our journey to the north of 

 it, in order to make the aftronomical obfervations at 

 the other extremity of the arch of the meridian, and 

 thus put the finifhing hand to our work; but this was 

 for fome time retarded by an accident of importance 

 which called us to Lima, as will be related in the fe- 

 cond volume. 



In December 1743, the reafons which detained u& 

 at Lima, Guayaquil, and in Chili, no longer* fubfift- 

 ing, we returned to Qiiito in January 1744, when 

 Don George Juan and I prolonged the arch of the 

 meridian four triangles, by which it was extended to 

 the place where M. Godin, in 1740, had made the 

 fecond aftronomical obfervation, and which he now 

 repeated, and finiftied in the month of May 1744. 



Mess. Bouguer and M. de la Condamine having 

 at that time finidied the feveral parts afiigned to, them, 

 had left Qviito, in order to return to France ^ the 

 former by the way of Carthagena, and the latter by 

 the river of the Amazons ; but the reft of the com- 

 pany remained there fome time j fome for fear of be- 

 ing taken by the enemy, fome for want of the means 

 to defray the charges necelfary in fo long a journey, 

 and others on account of their having contracted fome 

 obligations, and were unwilling to leave the country 

 till they could difcharge tliem. So that in the former 

 only the natural defire of returning to their country 

 prevailed, in order there to repofe themfelves after 

 fuch a feries of labours and hardfliipsj by which the 



7 health 



