COKDILLEBA. DE LA COSTA. 
307 
and Cliillo are situated eastward of those hills ; and those of 
Quito, Inaquito, and Turuhamba lie westward. The equator 
t'rosses the suniiDit of the Nevado de Cayanihe and the valley 
of Quito, in the village of Sail Antonio de Lulumbamba. 
"When we consider the small mass ot the knot of Assuj% 
and above all, of that of Chisinche, we are iiicliucd to regard 
the three basins of Cuenca, Hambato, and Quito, as one 
Valley (from the Paramo de Sarar to the Villa de Ibarra) 7.1 
sea leagues long, from 4 to 5 leagues broad, having a general 
direction N. 8° E., and divided by two transversel dykes one 
between Alansi and Cnenca (2° 27' south Ifititiide), and the 
other between Machache and Tambillo (O^ dt/). Nowhere 
in the Cordillera of the Andes are there luore colossal 
nioimtains heaped together, than on the east and west oi 
this vast basin of the province of Quito, one degree and a 
half south, and a quarter of a degree north ot the equator. 
'J'his basin, which, next to the basin of Titicaca, is the centre 
of the most ancient native civilization, touches, southward, 
the knot of the mountains of Loxa, and northward the table- 
land of the province of Los Pastes. 
Ill this province, a little beyond the villa of Ibarra, between 
the snowy suinuiita of Cotocache and Iiubabura, the two 
Cordilleras of Quito unite, and form one mass, extending to 
Weneses and Voisaeo, from 0" 21' north hit. to 1 Id . ^ 1 
call this mass, on which are situated the volcanoes ot Cuiuoa. 
and Chiles, the knot of the niouiitams ot Los I astos, from 
the name of the province that forms the centre. The volcano 
of Paste, the last eruption of which took place in the jear 
1727, is on the south of Yeiioi, near the northern limit of 
this group, of which the inhabited table-lands are more than 
KiOO toises above sea-level. It is the 1 liibet of the equi- 
noctial regions of the New IV orld. 
On the north of the town of Pasto (lat. 1 13 N. ; lonp, 
7s)°41'), the Andes again divide into two branches, and 
surround the table-land of Mamendoy and Almaguer. 
eastern Cordillera contains the Sienega ot bebondoy (an 
alpine lake which gives birth to the Putumayo), the sources 
ot^he Jupura or Caqueta, and the Paranios ot Aponte and 
Iscanse. 'The western Cordillera, that ot hlamacondi , called 
in the country Cordillera de la Costa, on ® 
proiimity to the shore of the Paeifle, is broken by the grt«i. 
