480 



Accustomed to a uniform and domestic life ? 

 they dread fatigue, and sudden changes of cli- 

 mate. It would seem as if they live not to 

 enjoy life, but only to prolong it's duration. 



Our walks led us often toward two cof- 

 fee plantations, the proprietors * of which were 

 men of agreeable manners. These plantations 

 are opposite the Silla de Caraccas. Surveying, 

 with our glasses, the steep declivity of the moun- 

 tain, and the form of the two peaks by which 

 it is terminated, we could appreciate the dif- 

 ficulties, which we should have to conquer 

 in order to reach it's summit. Angles of ele- 

 vation, taken with the sextant at our house, 

 had led me to believe, that the summit was not 

 so high above the level of the sea as the great 

 square of Quito. This estimation was far from 

 corresponding with the ideas of the inhabitants 

 of the town. The mountains, which command 

 great towns, acquire from this very circum- 

 stance an extraordinary celebrity in both con- 

 tinents. Long before they have been accu- 

 rately measured, the learned of the country 

 assign to them a height in toises, or Castilian 

 varasy of which to entertain the least doubt 

 would wound a national prejudice. 



The captain-general, Mr. de Guevara, order- 

 ed the teniente of Chacao to furnish us with 



* Don Andres de Ibarra, and M. Blandin. 



