sons aged 114, 117, 121, 131, 132, 141, and
147. One of them, when he died, left behind him eight hundred living
descendants to mourn his loss. We confess, however, that we saw very few
old persons in Quito. Foreigners outlive the natives, because they live
a more regular and temperate life.]

The mean diurnal variation of the barometer is only .084. So regular is
the oscillation, as likewise the variations of the magnetic needle, that
the hour may be known within fifteen minutes by the barometer or
compass. Such is the clock-like order of Nature under the equator, that
even the rains, the most irregular of all meteorological phenomena in
temperate zones, tell approximately the hour of the day. The winds, too,
have an orderly march--the ebb and flow of an aerial ocean. No wonder
watch-tinkers can not live where all the forces in nature keep time.
Nobody talks about the weather; conversation begins with benedictions or
compliments.

The greatest variations of the thermometer occur in autumn, and the
greatest quantity of rain falls in April.[35] While on the western side
of the Andes, south of the equator, the dry season extends from June to
January, on the eastern side of the Cordillera the seasons are reversed,
the rain lasting from March to November. The climate of the central
valley is modified by this opposition of seasons on either side of it,
as also by the proximity of snowy peaks. Nine such peaks stand around
Quito within a circle of thirty miles. The prevailing winds in summer
are from the northeast; in the winter the southwest predominate.

[Footnote 35:

The mean annual fall of rain at Quito is 70 inches.
" " " " Charleston is 45.9 inches.
" " " " New York is 42.23 "
" " " " Albany is 40.93 "
" " " " Montreal is 36 "
" " " " Madrid is 10. "

]

There are only three small drug-stores in the great city of Quito. The
serpent is used as the badge of apothecary art. Physicians have no
offices, nor do they, as a general rule, call upon their patients. When
an invalid is not able to go to the doctor, he is expected to die.
Yellow fever, cholera, and consumption are unknown; while intermittent
fevers, dysentery, and liver complaints, so prevalent on the coast, are
uncommon. The ordinary diseases are catarrhal affections and typhoid
fever. Cases of inflammation of the