at Quito lasts only an hour and a half; on the coast it is
still shorter. Nor is there any "harvest moon," the satellite rising
with nearly equal intervals of forty-eight minutes.

From the stars we step down to the floral kingdom on the Andes, using as
our ladder of descent the following sentence from Humboldt, at the age
of seventy-five: "If I might be allowed to abandon myself to the
recollections of my own distant travels, I would instance among the most
striking scenes of nature the calm sublimity of a tropical night, when
the stars--not sparkling, as in our Northern skies--shed their soft and
planetary light over the gently heaving ocean; or I would recall the
deep valleys of the Cordilleras, where the tall and slender palms pierce
the leafy veil around them, and wave on high their feathery and
arrow-like branches."

Father Velasco praises Ecuador as "the noblest portion of the New
World." Nature has doubtless gifted it with capabilities unsurpassed by
those of any other country. Situated on the equinoctial line, and
embracing within its limits some of the highest as well as lowest dry
land on the globe, it presents every grade of climate, from the
perpetual summer on the coast and in the Orient to the everlasting
winter of the Andean summits, while the high plateau between the
Cordilleras enjoys an eternal spring. The vegetable productions are
consequently most varied and prolific. Tropical, temperate, and arctic
fruits and flowers are here found in profusion, or could be successfully
cultivated. As the Ecuadorian sees all the constellations of the
firmament, so Nature surrounds him with representatives of every family
of plants. There are places where the eye may embrace an entire zone,
for it may look up to a barley-field and potato-patch, and down to the
sugar-cane and pine-apple.

Confining our attention to the Quito Valley, we remark that the whole
region from Pichincha to Chimborazo is as treeless as Palestine. The
densest forest is near Banos. The most common tree is the "Aliso"
(_Betula acuminata_). Walnut is the best timber. There are no pines or
oaks.[37] The slopes of the mountains, between twelve and fifteen
thousand feet, are clothed with a shrub peculiar to the high altitudes
of the Andes, called _Chuquiragua_. This is a very valuable shrub; the
twigs are used for fuel, and the yellow buds as a febrifuge. The
castor-oil-tree grows naturally by the road side, sometimes to the
height of twelve feet