GUAYAQUIL, to survey this comparatively small but more cultivated department, leads us again to the shores of the Pacific. With an extent of 14,200 square miles, the department of Guayaquil is subdivided into two provinces, Marribi and Guayaquil proper, with an ag gregate population of 73,483. Though fronting on the great ocet.n 450 miles, except Guayaquil river there is no great commercial entrance into this department. Compared with the adjacent provinces of Chimborazo and Pichincha, Guayaquil is depressed to almost the ocean level, and lying between 4° 21' S. and 1° N. lat. is exposed to a burning sun twice annually. The river of Guayaquil rises near the equator, and flowing south to 2° 12' passes the port and city to which it gives name, and opens into a wide gulf round the island of Puna. The eastern recesses of this gulf are about 30 miles from the sources of the Rio Santiago branch of the Amazon, a fact in physical geography demonstrating the very rapid acclivity of the Pacific slope of South America. The city of Cuenza on the eastern slope of the Andes, at a distance of scarce 30 miles, rises above the level of the gulf of Guayaquil 8632 feet ; or almost 288 feet per mile. The city of Guayaquil, the capital of the department, stands on the right bank of the river of the same name, at 2° 12' S. lat., long. 3° 2' W. from Washington City. The environs, according to Hum boldt, are highly majestic, from the variety and magni tude of its vegetable products.
EquAnon, or the Department of the Equator, is amongst the most elevated habitable regions of this pla net. Extending from 3° 5' S. to 1° 15' N. lat. and in long. from 1° 30' E. to 40' W. this department is subdivided into three provinces, Pichincha, Ymbabura, and Chimborazo. Nature has here not sported, but ex erted a strength at the effects of which the human mind shrinks with dread, whilst enchained by admiration. The Andes, divided into three separate chains in Cauca and Cundinamarca, gradually approach in the province of Pasto, and apparently merge in that of Ymbabura. But though apparently confounded, two chains remain distinct, with a very elevated intervening valley raised above the ocean from 8800 to 9500 feet. Colossal vol canic summits rise in symmetrical opposing lines, which covered with eternal snows, served as signal points to the French mathematicians in the measurement of an equatorial degree. Cotapaxi, Antisana, and Cayambe Urcu, range along the eastern, whilst Chimborazo and Pichincha crown the western chain. On the great table land between these gigantic mountains, where the barometer stands at 21.3, we find Quito, 0° 13' S. lat.
with 52,000 inhabitants, standing 9540 feet above the level of the Pacific ; Ibarra, 0° 20' N. lat. at 7591 feet of elevation, and 12,000 inhabitants; Riobamba, 1° 41' S. lat. at 8441 feet, and 16,000 inhabitants ; Loxa, 58' S. lat. at the height of 6765 feet, and 10,000 inhabitants; and Cuenca, 2° 55' S. lat. at 8632 feet, and 25,000 inha bitants. The habitable plateau in the provinces of Chim borazo, Pichincha, and lmbabura, is 240 miles in length, with a mean breadth of 3O,or 7200 square miles ; on which area there is already a population of nearly 300,000 inha bitants, upwards of 41 to the square mile. It is on this aerial plain that the traveller and inhabitant, under and contiguous to the equator, range amid the mingled ve getation of the most distant climes. The lama is seen sporting in the same pastures with the sheep of Asia and Europe. The human being feels invigorated in an atmo sphere, nearly four times more elevated than the chains of the Appalachian system. When we read, however, of mountains rising above the ocean to a height from 15,000 to 21,000 feet, the effect on our minds is very different from what a view of the same summits would produce when actually seen from the equatorial plateau. Already elevated to 8000 feet, such a system of moun tains as that of the Pyrenees, would be merged in the plain of vision, and even Chimborazo is depressed more than one-third of its absolute height.
The province of Ymbabura, confined to the central plain, is more than semieircled by that of Pichincha, which latter rising from the sand and rocks of the Pa cific, sweeps over the summit and plain of the Andes, far down the Isa, Napo, Piguena, and other branches of the Amazon combining in a length of 280 miles, all the di m at es, and admitting a large portion of all the vegetables of the cartl.. Quito, the capital of the province of Pi chincha, and of the whole department of the Equator, stands on a site too uneven to admit, says Make Brun, of the use of carriages. The latitude and height of this city have already been noticed. Though so near the equator, Fahrenheit's thermometer ranges between 40 le 61, but contrary to what might be expected, the seasons of different years vary greatly in mean and relative tem perature The whole adjacent country is very subject to earthquakes; one of which, attended with peculiar de structive effects, occurred February 4th, 1797. But amid the revolutions of their turbulent atmosphere, and treading on ground so liable to convulsion, the people of Quito are admired by every traveller for urbane, kind, lively, and hospitable manners.