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Show THE PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA, THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCA ATAHUALLP A. AFTER a residence of an entire year on the crest of the chain of the Andes or Antis, (1) between 4° north and 4° south latitude, in the high plains of New Granada, Pastos, and Quito, whose mean elevations range between 8500 and 12,800 English feet, we rejoiced in descending gradually through the milder climate of the Quinayielding forests of Loxa to the plains of the upper part of the course of the Amazons, a terra incognita rich in magnificent vegetation. The small town of Loxa has given its name to the most efficacious of all the species of medicinal Fever Bark ; Quina, or Cascarilla fina de Loxa. It is the precious production of the tree which we have described botanically as Cinchona condaminea, but which, under the erroneous impression that all the kinds of the Quina or fever bark of commerce were furnished by the same species of tree, had previously been called Cinchona officinalis. The Fever Bark was first brought to Europe towards the middle of the ~eventeenth century, either, as Sebastian Bad us asserts, to Alcala de Henares in 1632, or to Madrid in 1640, on the arrival of the wife of the Viceroy, the Countess of Chinchon, (2) who had been cured of intermittent fever at Lima, accompanied by her physician, Juan del V ego. The trees which yield the finest quality of Quina de Loxa are found from 8 to 12 miles to the south-east of the town, in the mountains of Uritusinga, Villonaco, and Rumisitana, growing on mica.slate and gneiss, at very moderate elevations above the level of the sea, being between 5400 and 7200 (5755 and 7673 English) feet, heights about equal respectively to those of the Hospice on the Grimsel and the Pass of 85* |
