ASCENT OT THE SILLA 
417 
and M. Blandir, were men of agreeable manners. These 
plantations were situated opposite the Silla de Caracas. 
Surveying, by a telescope, the steep declivity of the moun- 
tains, and the form of the two peaks by which it is termi- 
nated, we could form an idea of the difficulties we should 
have to encounter in reaching its 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 sea-level as 
the great square of Quito. This estimate was far from cor- 
responding with the notions entertained by the inhabitants 
of the city. Mountains which command great towns, have 
acquired, from that very circumstance, an extraordinary cele- 
brity in both continents. Long before they have been accu- 
rately measured, a conventional height is assigned to them ; 
and to entertain the least doubt respecting that height is to 
wound a national prejudice. 
The captain-general, Sehor de Guevara, directed the te- 
niente of Chacao to furnish us with guides to conduct us on 
our ascent of the Silla. These guides were negroes, and 
they knew something of the path leading over the ridge of 
the mountain, near the western peak of the Silla. This path 
is frequented by smugglers, but neither the guides, nor the 
most experienced of the militia, accustomed to pursue the 
smugglers in these wild spots, had been ou the eastern peak, 
forming the most elevated summit of the Silla. During the 
whole month of December, the mountain (of which the 
angles of elevation made me acquainted with the effects of 
the terrestrial refractions) had appeared only five times free 
of clouds. In this season two serene days seldom succeed 
each other, and we were therefore advised not to choose a 
clear day for our excursion, but rather a time when, the 
clouds not being elevated, we might hope, after having 
crossed the first layer of vapours uniformly spread, to enter 
into a dry and transparent air. ~We passed the night of the 
2d of January in the Estancia de Gallegos, a plantation of 
coffee-trees, near which the little river of Chacaito, flowing 
in a luxuriantly shaded ravine, forms some fine cascades in 
descending the mountains. The night was pretty clear; 
and though on the day preceding a fatiguing journey it 
might have been well to have enjoyed some repose, M. 
Lonplaud and I passed the whole night in watching three 
vol. i. 2 k 
