The Andes and the Amazon; or, Across the continent of South America.

92 THE ANDES AND THE AMAZON.
of "the blessed, the happy, and long-lived" of Anacreon.'
No torrid heat enervates the inhabitant of this favored spot;
no icy breezes send him shivering to the fire. Nobody is
sun-struck; nobody's buds are nipped by the frost. Stoves
and chimneys, starvation and epidemics, are unknown. It
is never either spring, summer, or autumn, but each day is
a combination of all three. The mean annual temperature
of Quito is 58~.8, the same as Madrid, or as the month of:May in Paris. The average range in twenty-four hours is
about 100. The coldest hour is 6 A.M.; the warmest between 2 and 3 P.M. The extremes in a year are 45~ and
70~; those of Moscow are -38~ and 89~. It is a prevalent
opinion that since the great earthquake of 1797 the temperature has been lower. "It was suddenly reduced (says
the Eneycl.ii fetropolitana) from 66~ or 680 to 400 or 45~"a manifest error. The natives say that since the terremote
of 1859 the seasons have not commenced so regularly, nor
are they so well defined; there are more rainy days in
summer than before. It remains to be seen whether the
late convulsion has affected the climate.
The mean diurnal variation of the barometer is only.084. So regular is the oscillation, as likewise the variations of the magnetic needle, that the hour may be known
within fifteen minutes by the barometer or compass. Such
is the clock-like order of Nature under the equator, that
even the rains, the most irregular of all meteorological phenomena in temperate zones, tell approximately the hour of
the day. The winds, too, have an orderly march-the ebb
and flow of an aerial ocean. No wonder watch-tinkers can
* In the mountain-town of Caxamarca, farther south, there were living in
1792 seven persons aged 114, 117, 121., 131, 132, 141, and 147. One ofthem,
when he died, left behind him eight hundred living descendants to mourn his
loss. We confess, however, that we saw very few old persons in Quito. Foreigners outlive the natives, because they live a more regular and temperate
life.