ducted; and after having climbed mountains, descended into abysses, penetrated forests, and gained heights at the manifest risk of falling from the precipices they presented, he finally met, not only with a convenient site for the opening of a road, but also with many rivulets and streams, spacious plains, vestiges of ancient towns, immense pastures, abandoned plantations, dormant mines, and, above all, with mountains thickly covered with the cinchona, or quina tree[1], the existence of which had never been ascertained in that territory[2]. In a word, he saw before him an unexplored country, capable of becoming a new province, richer than many of those that are peopled. He afterwards ascertained, that upwards of twenty towns, now in ruins, had been built by the missionaries belonging to the Order of Jesus, by whom that conquest had been made; their capitals having been Chavin de Pariaca, Monzon, and Chapacra. The first of these places, being situated on this side of the Cordillera, still subsists, as is
- ↑ Cinchona officinalis, Lin.—Peruvian bark.
- ↑ This will not appear extraordinary, when it is considered that a century and a half had elapsed, after the arrival of Columbus in America, when the first discovery of the quina was made. This happened in the year 1638, under the viceroyalty of Count de Cinchon, whose lady then laboured under an obstinate tertian fever. The corregidor of Loxa, to whom an Indian had just revealed the virtues of this remedy, having been informed of the countess's illness, sent to Lima a packet of the powdered quina, which was successfully administered by the physician in chief, Juan de Vega, who was likewise captain of the armory. On the expiration of his government, in 1639, the count carried with him a quantity of the pulverized bark to Spain, where it was named the countess's powder. The Jesuits conveyed another parcel to Rome, bestowing a portion on Cardinal de Lugo, and distributing the rest gratuitously; on which account it was named by some, the powder of the reverend fathers, and by others, the cardinal's powder.
