the remains of one of nature's noblemen.

[Footnote 33: This was a new thing under the sun. Quitonians "bury at
dead of night, with lanterns dimly burning." The dirges sung as the
procession winds through the streets are extremely plaintive, and are
the most touching specimens of Ecuadorian music. The corpse, especially
of a child, is often carried in a chair in a sitting posture. The
wealthy class wall up their dead in niches on the side of Pichincha,
hypothetically till the resurrection, but really for two years, when,
unless an additional payment is made, the bones are thrown into a common
pit and the coffin burnt. To prevent this, a few who can afford it
embalm the deceased. One of the most distinguished citizens of Quito
keeps his mummified father at his hacienda, and annually dresses him up
in a new suit of clothes!]

Turn we now to a more delightful topic than the politics and religion of
Quito. The climate is perfect. Fair Italy, with her classic prestige and
ready access, will long be the land of promise to travelers expatriated
in search of health. But if ever the ancients had reached this Andean
valley, they would have located here the Elysian Fields, or the seat of
"the blessed, the happy, and long-lived" of Anacreon.[34] 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 deg..8,
the same as Madrid, or as the month of May in Paris. The average range
in twenty-four hours is about 10 deg.. The coldest hour is 6 A.M.; the
warmest between 2 and 3 P.M. The extremes in a year are 45 deg. and 70 deg.;
those of Moscow are-38 deg. and 89 deg.. It is a prevalent opinion that since
the great earthquake of 1797 the temperature has been lower. "It was
suddenly reduced (says the _Encycl. Metropolitana_) from 66 deg. or 68 deg. to
40 deg. or 45 deg."--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.

[Footnote 34: In the mountain-town of Caxamarca, farther south, there
were living in 1792 seven per