| OCR Text |
Show 250 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. everything for making the measurement at the latter station, when thick clouds concealed the summit of Chimborazo. Those who are engaged in investigations on languages may not be unwilling to :find here some conjectures respecting the etymology of the widely celebrated name of Chimborazo. Chimbo is the name of the Corregimiento or District in which the mountain of Chimborazo is situated. La Condamine (Voyage a l'Equateur, 1751, p. 184) deduces Chimbo from 11 chimpani," ''to pass over a river." Chimbo-rago signifies, according to him, u1a neige de l'autre bord," because at the village of Chimbo one crosses a stream in full view of the enormous snow-dad mountain. (In the Quichua language '' chimpa'' signifies the ''other, or farther side;" and chimpani signifies to pass or cross over a river, a bridge, &c.) Several natives of the province of Quito have assured me that Chimborazo signifies merely u the snow of Chimbo." We find the same termination in Carguai-razo. But razo appears to be a provincial word. The Jesuit Holguin (whose excellent u Vocabulario de la Lengua general de todo el Peru Hamada Lengua Quichua 6 del Inca," printed at Lima in 16081 · is in my possession) knows nothing of the word '' razo." The genuine word for snow is '' ritti." On the other hand, my learned friend Professor Buschmann remarks that, in the Chinchaysuyo dialect (spoken north of Cuzco up to Quito and Pasto), raju (the i apparently guttural) signifies snow j see the word in Juan de Figueredo's notice of Chinchaysuyo words appended to Diego de Torres Rubio, Arte, y Vocabulario de la Lengua Quichua, reimpr. en Lima, 1754 j fol. 222, b. For the first two syllables of the name of the mountain, and for the village of Chimbo (as chimpa and chimpani suit badly on account of the a), we may find a definite signification by means of the Quichua word chimpu, an expression used for a colored thread or fringe (seiial de lana, hilo 6 borlilla de colores)-for the red of the sky (arreboles)and for a halo round the sun or moon. One may try to derive the name of the mountain directly from this word, without the intervention of the village or district. In any case, and whatever the etymology of Chimborazo may be, it must be written in Peruvian Chimporazo1 as we know that the Peruvians have no b. But what if the name of this giant mountain should have nothing |
