tion of new plants, of which the baron made a great number of drawings.

From Carthago they proceeded to Popayan, by way of Buga; crossing the beautiful vale of the Cauca, and having, on one side the mountain of Choca, in which are mines of platina. At Popayan they staid during the month of November; and from this place they visited some singular mountains of basalt and porphyry, and the volcanoes of Puracé and Sotara. On ascending, from Popayan toward the summit of Puracé, they found, at the elevation of nearly seven thousand seven hundred feet, a small plain, inhabited by Indians, and cultivated with the greatest care. The mouths of Puracé emit, with a dreadful noise, vapours of sulphurated water.

After they had left Popayan, they advanced, through some dangerous defiles of the mountains, to Pasto, a little town situated on a beautiful plain, and at the foot of a tremendous volcano, the summit of which is at all times covered with snow. They spent their Christmas at this town, and were entertained with great hospitality. The roads both to and from Pasto were excessively bad. The whole province is a frozen plain, so elevated as to be nearly beyond the point where vegetation can subsist; and it is surrounded by volcanoes and sulphur-pits, that continually emit volumes of smoke. The wretched inhabitants of these districts have little other food than potatoes; and, when these fail, they are obliged to go to the mountains to eat the stem of a peculiar kind of tree, called Achupalla: the bears of the Andes also feed upon it, and often dispute it with them.

In proceeding southward from Pasto, the travellers narrowly escaped being drowned, near the town of Ibarra, by a sudden swell of the water, accompanied with the shocks of an earthquake. On the 6th of January, 1802, they reached the city of Quito. Here

*For a description of Quito, see p. 209.

they obtained some repose from their fatigues, and enjoyed the pleasures of hospitality and retirement, surrounded by the grandest productions of nature. They remained about eight months in Quito, making different excursions to the neighbouring volcanoes, and the loftiest summits of the Andes.

Baron de Humboldt remarks, that, amidst the majestic and varied scenery of the Cordilleras, the valleys are what most powerfully affect the imagination of the European traveller; for the stupendous height of the mountains can be discerned only at a considerable distance, and from the low lands, which extend along the coasts. The elevated plains that encircle the summits of these mountains, covered with perpetual snow, are, for the most part, from eight to ten thousand feet above the level of the ocean. This height weakens, in some degree, the effect produced by the colossal masses of Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, and Antisana, as viewed from the lofty plains of Riobamba and Quito. On the contrary, the valleys of the Cordilleras, deeper and narrower than those of the Alps and Pyrenees, present scenes of the wildest aspect imaginable, and fill the soul with astonishment and terror. These valleys are crevices, the sides and bottom of which are clothed with luxuriant vegetation; and the depth, in many parts, is so great that were even Vesuvius to be seated in one of the abysses, its summit would not exceed the ridge of the nearest mountains.

Baron de Humboldt made three attempts, and twice succeeded, though at the imminent hazard of his life, in reaching the peak of the mountain Pichincha, 15.940 feet above the level of the sea. He was desirous of examining its crater. From the sides of this crater he observed, that there arose three pyramidal rocks: these were not, like other parts around the summit, covered with snow, for this had been melted by the heat of the vapours which continually issued from the mouth of the volcano. That he might be the better able to examine the bottom of the

crater, he laid down, and looked over the edge; and it is impossible, he says, for imagination to conceive a more dismal or terrifying picture than was here presented to his view. The mouth of the volcano formed a circular opening, nearly three miles in circumference, of which the rugged and perpendicular sides were covered with snow towards the top. The interior was of a deep black aspect; and so immense was the gulf, that he could distinguish the summits of several mountains contained within it. Their tops seemed to be twelve or fifteen hundred feet beneath the point where he lay; hence we may judge at what depth their base must be situated. Baron de Humboldt is of opinion, that the bottom of this crater is on a level with the city of Quito. M. de la Condamine is supposed to have been the only European who had before reached the summit of the Pichincha, and when he was there the volcano was extinct, and all its upper parts were covered with snow; but the baron, after his visit, had to report the unpleasant intelligence that it was burning.

The travellers next visited the volcano of Antisana, at the summit of which there is a crater, in the midst of perpetual snow, and at an elevation of 19.150 feet above the sea. In this excursion, when they were near the summit, the tenuity of the air was so great as to occasion the blood to issue from their lips, gums, and even their eyes: they became extremely feeble, and one of the company fainted.

Among the mountains covered with eternal snow, which surround the city of Quito, none is so beautiful nor so majestic as that of Cayambé. Its height is 19.200 feet, and its form that of a truncated cone; and its summit is traversed by the equator. This mountain never ceases to attract admiration at sun-set, when the volcano of Pichincha, situated to the west, throws its shadow over the vast plain beyond which Cayambé arises.

The loftiest of all the volcanoes of the Andes, which

of late years have undergone eruptions, is Cotopaxi, situated about twenty-five miles south-east from Quito. Its absolute height is 18.880 feet; and it consequently is about two thousand six hundred feet higher than Mount Vesuvius would be if it were placed on the top of the Peak of Teneriffe. Cotopaxi is the most dreadful volcano in the kingdom of Quito, and its explosions are frequent and disastrous. The mass of scoria, and the huge pieces of rock, thrown out from this volcano, which are spread over the neighbouring valleys, covering a surface of several square leagues, would alone, if heaped together, form a mountain. In 1738 the flames of Cotopaxi rose two thousand feet above the brink of the crater. [An eruption occurred in the year 1743, which was preceded, for some days, by a continued interior rumbling noise. After this an aperture was made at the summit, and three others near the middle of the declivity: in places which, previously to the eruption, had been buried under prodigious masses of snow. The ignited substances that were ejected, being mingled with a considerable quantity of ice and snow, melting amidst the flames, were carried down with such amazing rapidity, that the plain in which the town of Tacunga is situated was overflowed; and a great number of houses, with their wretched inhabitants, were swept away in one general and instantaneous destruction. During three days the volcano ejected cinders, while torrents of lava, with melted ice and snow, poured down the sides of the mountain. The eruption continued for several days longer. At length all was quiet, and neither smoke nor fire was to be seen, till the month of May, 1744, when the flames forced a passage through several other parts on the sides of the mountain. In clear nights, the flames, being reflected by the transparent ice, are said to have exhibited a grand and beautiful illumination. On the 13th of November following, this volcano emitted such prodigious quantities of fire and lava, as to occasion an inundation equal to the former; and the roarings of the mountain

were heard as far as Honda, a town on the borders of the Magdalena, two hundred leagues distant. On the 4th of April, 1768, so great a quantity of ashes was ejected by the mouth of the Cotopaxi, that, in the towns of Hambato and Tucunga, day did not break till three o'clock in the afternoon, and the inhabitants were obliged to use lanterns in walking along the streets. Another eruption took place in January, 1803,, about twelve months after Baron de Humboldt was at Quito. This was preceded, as before, by the sudden melting of the snows that covered the mountain. For twenty years preceding this period, no smoke nor vapour had been perceived to issue from the crater; and, in one night, the subterraneous fire became so active, that, at sunrise next morning, the external walls of the cone, heated no doubt to a very considerable temperature, appeared naked and of dark colour. At the port of Guayaquil, distant fifty-two leagues in a direct line, the noises of this volcano were distinctly heard like continued discharges of a battery.]

Cotopaxi is the most regularly formed of all the colossal summits of the high Andes. It is a perfect cone, covered with an enormous layer of snow, which shines with dazzling splendour at the setting of the sun. The snow conceals from the eye of the observer even the smallest inequalities of the soil: no point of rock, no stony mass penetrates nor breaks the regularity of its shape. The crater, like that of the peak of Teneriffe, is surrounded by rocks that appear, when examined by a good telescope, somewhat like a low circular wall or parapet. It is extremely difficult for any person to reach the lower boundary of the perpetual snows. This difficulty was experienced by Messrs. Humboldt and Bonpland, in an excursion which they made in the month of May, 1802. They were unable to proceed any further than this; and Baron de Humboldt, after an examination of the summit, from this spot, pronounces that it is impossible for any person to reach the brink of the crater.

The travellers, after their excursion to the moun