highest points of each of them are covered by a snow as ancient as the world; and their volcanoes, which vomit forth a perpetual fire in the region of frost and cold, present a terrific spectacle to the contemplative philosopher.
If the worth of countries were to be estimated by the greater or less extension they afford to population and to agriculture, the Royal Cordillera would diminish the value of Peru, since its eminences and declivities, far from augmenting the proportion of cultivable land which would be found at the bases of this chain of mountains, diminish them extremely[1]; but,
- ↑ Taking it for granted that, in consequence of the parched and dry state of the
to the Sierras, or mountainous territory of Maldonado, in the river of La Plata. Secondly, the eastern one of Peru, which, originating in the snow-clad mountains of Santa Martha, on the confines of the northern sea, runs, as has been said, towards the Tropic, from whence it takes an inclined direction towards the south-east, and terminates in the plains of the great Chaco. Thirdly, the western one, which proceeds from North America, passes the isthmus of Panama, and redoubles the whole of the southern coast to Cape Horn. Between the northern sea and the first Cordillera, lies Brazil; between the first and second, lie the great and lofty plains of the country of the Amazons; and, in the line in which these plains terminate, the second Cordillera commences, as does also Peru, which is comprehended within this one and the third. The ancient Yncas gave to each of them the name of Ritisuyu, which signifies a band of snow; and as the four cardinal points, which they called Tavantinsuyu, were denoted by the subjugated nations which they viewed towards them, that of the Antis, which is to the east of Cuzco, gave the name, as well to the mountains which descend from the second Cordillera into the plains, as to this same Cordillera which precedes them. We still preserve these distinctions, having corrupted the word Antis into Andes, and afterwards applied the same term to the south Cordillera. We say that both these Cordilleras lie beneath the Equator, since, notwithstanding in the province of Popayan they are already divided and parallel, their mountains are so low, that at two degrees to the north, they have not the fourth part of the elevation of those of the south. Hence it is that the climate is very different from that of high Peru.
