of Santa Fe till 1722; and again of Peru till its
independence. The power of Spain in South America was destroyed at the
battle of Ayacucho, Dec. 9, 1824. In 1830 Venezuela separated from
Colombia, and Ecuador followed the same year. The first Congress was
held in Riobamba; but Quito has ever since been the political focus. The
first president was General Flores.

[Footnote 18: The son of his Quito love. The name was first written
_Atauhuallpa_, meaning fortunate in war; after the fratricide, he was
called _Atahuallpa_, or game-cock. He was the Boabdil of this occidental
Granada. He is called traitor by Peruvian writers, and is not admitted
by them into the list of their Incas.]

Under the diadem of the Incas, Quito assumed a magnificence which it
never saw before and has not displayed since. It was the worthy
metropolis of a vast empire stretching from the equator to the desert of
Atacama, and walled in by the grandest group of mountains in the world.
On this lofty site, which amid the Alps would be buried in an avalanche
of snow, but within the tropics enjoys an eternal spring, palaces more
beautiful than the Alhambra were erected, glittering with the gold and
emerald of the Andes. But all this splendor passed away with the sceptre
of Atahuallpa. Where the pavilion of the Inca stood is now a gloomy
convent, and a wheat-field takes the place of the Temple of the Sun.

The colonial history of this favored spot is as lifeless as the history
of Sahara. Not a single event occurred of which even Spain can be proud;
not a monument was raised which reflects any credit upon the mother
country. Every thing was prescribed by law, and all law emanated from a
tribunal five thousand miles distant. There was no relation of private
life with which the government did not interfere: what the colonist
should plant and what trade he should follow; where he should buy and
where he should sell; how much he should import and export; and where
and when he should marry, were regulated by the "Council of the Indies"
and the Inquisition. In the words of a native writer, "The great
majority of the people knew nothing of sciences, events, or men. Their
religion consisted of outward observances, and an imperfect knowledge of
the papal bulls; their morality, in asceticism and devotion to their
king; their philosophy, in the subtleties of Aristotle; their history,
in the history of the mother country; their geography, in the maps of
Spanish Americ