245 



were sufficient to cause the opposite sensa- 

 tions of cold and heat, because on these coasts 

 of the South Sea the habitual temperature of 

 the atmosphere is twenty-eight degrees. The 

 humidity, which modifies the conducting power 

 of the air for heat, contributes greatly to these 

 impressions. In the port of Guayaquil, as every 

 where else in the low regions of the torrid zone, 

 the weather grows cool only from storms of rain: 

 and I have observed, that, when the thermome- 

 ter sinks to 23 # 8°, De Luc's hygrometer keeps 

 up to fifty and fifty-two degrees * ; it is, on the 

 contrary, at thirty-seven degrees in a tempera- 

 ture of 30*5°. At Cumana, in very heavy show- 

 ers, we hear in the streets ; que hielo ! estoy 

 emparamado % ; though the thermometer exposed 



* 85'8° and 86*4° of Saussure's hygrometer, 

 t 73° Saussure. 

 X u What an icy cold! I shiver as if 1 was on the top of the 

 mountains." The provincial word emparatnarse can be trans- 

 lated only by a very long periphrasis. Paramo, in Peruvian 

 puna, is a denomination found on all the maps of Spanish 

 America. In the colonies it signifies neither a desert nor a 

 heath, bat a mountainous place covered with stunted trees, 

 exposed to the winds, and in which a damp cold perpetually 

 reigns. Under the torrid zone, the paramoes are generally 

 from one thousand six hundred to two thousand toises high. 

 Snow often falls on them, but it remains only a few hours j 

 for we must not confound, as geographers often do, the 

 words paramo and puna with that of nevado, in Peruvian 

 ritticapa, a mountain which enters into the limits of the per- 



