Ch. L SOUTH AMERICA. 299 

 and a nunnery of the order of the Conception. Its in- 

 habitants of all ages, feds, and claffes, are computed 

 at ten or twelve thouil\nd fouls. 



Within the limits of this jurifdidion, is the lake 

 of Yagarchoca, famous for being the fepulchre of the 

 inhabitants of Otabalo, on its being taken by Huayna- 

 Capac, the twelfth Ynca, who, inftead of Viewing 

 clemency to their magnanimity, being irritated at the 

 noble refiftance they made, ordered them all to be be- 

 headed, both thofe who had quietly furrendered, and 

 thofe taken in arms, and their bodies thrown into the 

 lake ; and from the water of the lake being tinged of 

 a bloody hue, it acquired its prefent name, which fig- 

 nifies a lake of blood. 



The air is very mild, lefs cold than that of Quito^ 

 and at the fame time the heat is not at all inconveni- 

 ent. The temperature of the air is different in all the 

 villages of this jurifdid:ion, but in mod warm, on ac- 

 count of their low fituation. Thefe parts are all over 

 this country called Valles, as I have already obferved ; 

 and the nances of , thofe in the jurifdidion of San Mi- 

 guel de Ibarra are Chotar Carpuela, and feveral others. 

 Moft of the farms in them have plantations of fugar 

 canes, and mills for extracting the juice, from whence 

 they make great quantities of fugar, and very white : 

 fome are planted viiih the fruits comm.on in a hot cli- 

 mate ; and in others cotton only is cultivated, and to 

 the greateft perfedtion. 



The fugar canes do not ripen here fo late as in Qiii- 

 to ; but they may be committed at any timie to the 

 mill, there being no neceffity for cutting them at any 

 precife time, retaining all their goodnefs even when 

 fufPered to ftand two or three months after they are 

 ripe ; fo that they are cut every quarter, and the mills, 

 by that means, kept at work the whole year. 



The farms fituated in a lefs hot part are employed 

 for cultivating maize, wheat, and barley, in the fame 

 manner as in the jurifdidion of Otabalo, and which 



we 



