chas), and the Peruvians, are connected. Quetzalcoatl, bearded, clothed in black, a high priest of Tula, subsequently a penance-performing anchorite on a mountain near Tlaxapuchicalco, comes to the highlands of Mexico from the coast of Panuco; therefore from the eastern coast of Anahuac. Botschica, or rather Nemterequeteba (8) (a Buddha of the Muyscas), a messenger sent by the Deity, bearded and wearing long garments, arrives in the high plains of Bogota from the grassy steppes east of the chain of the Andes. Before Manco Capac a degree of civilisation already prevailed on the picturesque shores of the Lake of Titicaca. The strong fort of Cuzco, on the hill of Sacsahuaman, was formed on the pattern of the older constructions of Tiahuanaco. In the same manner the Aztecs imitated the pyramidal structures of the Toltecs, and these, those of the Olmecs (Hulmecs); and gradually ascending, we arrive, still on historic ground in Mexico, as far back as the sixth century of our Era. According to Siguenza, the Toltec steppyramid (or Teocalli) of Cholula is a repetition of the form of the Hulmec step-pyramid of Teotihuacan. Thus as we penetrate through each successive stratum of civilisation we arrive at an earlier one; and national self-consciousness not having awoke simultaneously in the two continents, we find in each nation the imaginative mythical domain always immediately preceding the period of historic knowledge.

Notwithstanding the tribute of admiration which the first Conquistadores paid to the roads and aqueducts of the Peruvians, not only did they neglect the repair and preservation of both these esses of useful works, but they even wantonly

destroyed them; and this still more towards the sea-coast, (for the sake of obtaining fine cut stones for new buildings; and where the want of water consequent on the destruction of the aqueducts has rendered the soil barren), than on the ridges of the Andes, or in the deep-cleft valleys by which the mountain chain is intersected. In the long day's journey from the syenitic rocks of Zaulaca to the Valley of San Felipe (rich in fossils, and situated at the foot of the icy Paramo de Yamoca), we were obliged to wade through the Rio de Guancabamba (which flows into the Amazons), no less than twenty-seven times, on account of the windings of the stream; while we continually saw near us, running in a straight line along the side of a steep precipice, the remains of the high built road of the Incas with its Tambos. The mountain torrent, though only from 120 to 150 English feet broad, was so strong and rapid that, in fording it, our heavily laden mules were often in danger of being swept away by the flood. They carried our manuscripts, our dried plants, and all that we had been collecting for a year past. Under such circumstances one watches from the other side of the stream with very anxious suspense until the long train of eighteen or twenty beasts of burden have passed in safety.

The same Rio de Guancabamba, in the lower part of its course, where it has many falls and rapids, is made to serve in a very singular manner for the conveyance of correspondence with the coast of the Pacific. In order to expedite more quickly the few letters from Truxillo which are intended for the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, a "swimming

courier," ," "el correo que nada," as he is called in the country, is employed. This post messenger, who is usually a young Indian, swims in two days from Pomahuaca to Tomependa, first by the Rio de Chamaya (the name given to the lower part of the Rio de Guancabamba), and then by the Amazons. He carefully places the few letters entrusted to him in a large cotton handkerchief, which he winds round his head in the manner of a turban. When he comes to waterfalls he leaves the river, and makes a circuit through the woods. In order to lessen the fatigue of swimming for so long a time, he sometimes throws one arm round a piece of a very light kind of wood (Ceiba, Palo de balsa), of a tree belonging to the family of Bombaceæ. Sometimes also a friend goes with him to bear him company. The pair have no concern about provisions, as they are always sure of a hospitable reception in any of the scattered huts, which are abundantly surrounded with fruit trees, in the beautiful Huertas de Pucara and Cavico.

Happily the river is free from crocodiles, which, in the upper part of the Amazons, are first met with below the cataracts of Mayasi. These unwieldy and slothful monsters generally prefer the more tranquil waters. According to my measurements the Rio de Chamaya, from the Ford (Paso) de Pucara to the place where it enters the Amazons River below the village of Choros, has a fall (9) of 1668 (1778 English) feet in the short space of 52 English geographical miles. The Governor of the province of Jaen de Bracamoros assured me that letters carried by this singular waterpost were rarely either wetted or lost. Soon after my return

to Europe from Mexico, I received, in Paris, letters from Tomependa, which had been sent in the manner above described. Several tribes of wild Indians, living on the banks of the Upper Amazons, make their journeys in a similar manner, swimming down the stream sociably in parties. I had the opportunity of seeing in this manner, in the bed of the river, the heads of thirty or forty persons (men, women, and children), of the tribe of the Xibaros, on their arrival at Tomependa. The "Correo que nada" returns by land by the difficult route of the Paramo del Paredon.

On approaching the hot climate of the basin of the Amazons, the eye is cheered by the aspect of a beautiful, and occasionally very luxuriant vegetation. We had never before, not even in the Canaries or on the hot sea coast of Cumana and Caraccas, seen finer orange trees than those of the Huertas de Pucara. They were principally the sweet orange (Citrus aurantium, Risso), and less frequently the bitter or Seville orange (C. vulgaris, Risso). Laden with many thousands of their golden fruits, they attain a height of sixty or sixty-four English feet; and, instead of rounded tops or crowns, have aspiring branches, almost like a laurel or bay tree. Not far from thence, near the Ford of Cavico, we were surprised by a very unexpected sight. We saw a grove of small trees, only about eighteen or nineteen English feet high, which, instead of green, had apparently perfectly red or rose-coloured leaves. It was a new species of Bougainvillæa, a genus first established by the elder Jussieu, from a Brazilian specimen in Commerson's herbarium. The trees were almost entirely without true leaves, as what we took

for leaves at a distance, proved to be thickly crowded bracteas. The appearance was altogether different, in the purity and freshness of the colour, from the autumnal tints which, in many of our forest trees, adorn the woods of the temperate zone at the season of the fall of the leaf. A single species of the South African family of Proteaceæ, Rhopala ferruginea, descends here from the cold heights of the Paramo de Yamoca to the hot plain of Chamaya. We often found here the Porlieria hygrometrica (belonging to the Zygophyllex), which, by the closing of the leaflets of its finely pinnated foliage, foretels an impending change of weather, and especially the approach of rain, much better than any of the Mimosacea. It very rarely deceived us.

We found at Chamaya rafts (balsas) in readiness to convey us to Tomependa, which we desired to visit for the purpose of determining the difference of longitude between Quito and the mouth of the Chinchipe (a determination of some importance to the geography of South America on account of an old observation of La Condamine). (10) We slept as usual under the open sky on the sandy shore (Playa de Guayanchi) at the confluence of the Rio de Chamaya with the Amazons. The next day we embarked on the latter river, and descended it to the Cataracts and Narrows (Pongo in the Quichua language, from puncu, door or gate) of Rentema, where rocks of coarse-grained sandstone (conglomerate) rise like towers, and form a rocky dam across the river. I measured a base line on the flat and sandy shore, and found that at Tomependa the afterwards mighty River of the Amazons is only a little above 1386 English feet across. In the celebrated River Narrow or Pongo of Manseritche,