2S2 
forms the fore ground of the drawing of which 
we here give the description, is a part of this 
elevated plain, which separates the western 
from the eastern ridge of the Andes of Quito. 
In these plains the population of this marvel- 
lous country is concentrated ; towns are there 
built, which contain from thirty to fifty thousand 
inhabitants. When we have lived for some 
months on this elevated spot, where the baro- 
meter keeps at twenty inches high, we feel 
the irresistible influence of an extraordinary 
illusion : we forget by degrees,^ that every thing 
which surrounds the observer ; those villages 
which proclaim the industry of a mountainous 
people; those ^pastures, covered at the same 
time with herds of lamas, and flocks of Euro- 
pean sheep ; those orchards bounded by hedges 
of duranta and barnadesia ; those fields cultivat- 
ed with care, and promising the richest harvests ; 
hang as it were suspended in the lofty regions 
of the atmosphere : we scarcely recollect, that 
the soil we inhabit is more elevated above the 
neighbouring coasts of the Pacific Ocean, than 
the summit of Canigou above the basin of the 
Mediterranean. 
Considering the ridge of the Cordilleras as 
a vast plain curtained by distant mountains, 
we accustom ourselves to look on the inequali- 
' ties of the summit of the Andes as so many iso- 
lated tops. Pichincha, Cayambe, Cotopaxi, 
