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Show ANNOTATIONS A "D ADDITIONS. 443 to the un it elf. Hi fair companion Chia or Huythaca occasioned by her magical art the overflowing of the valley of Bogota, and for so doing wa banished by Botschica from the earth, and made to revolve round it for the first time, as the moon. Botschica struck the rock of Tequendama, and gave a passage for t.he waters to flow off near the field of the Giants (Campo de Gigantes), in which the bone of elephant-like mastodons lie buried, at an elevation of 8250 ( 792 Engl.) feet above the level of the sea. Captain Cochrane (Journal of a Re idence in Colombia, 1825, vol. ii. p. 390), and Mr. John Ranking (Historical Researches on the Conquest of Peru, 1 27, p. 397), state that animals of this species are still living in the Andes, and shed their teeth ! N emterequeteba, also called Chinzapogua (enviado de Dios), is a human person, a bearded man, who came from the East, from Pasca, and disappeared at Sogamoso. The foundation of the sanctuary of Iraca is sometimes ascribed to him and sometimes to Botschica, and, as the latter is said to have borne also the name of Nemqueteba, the confusion between the two, on ground so unhistoric, is easily accounted for. My old friend Colonel Acosta, in his instructive work, entitled Compendio de la Hist. de la Nueva Granada, p. 185, endeavors to prove, by means of the Chibcha language, that "potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) bear at Usme the native non-Peruvian name of Yomi, and were found by Quesada already cultivated in the province of Velez as early as 1537, a period when their introduction from Chili, Peru, and Quito, would seem improbable, and therefore that the plant may be regarded as a native of New Granada." I would remark, however, that the Peruvian invasion and complete possession of Quito took place before 1525, the year of the death of the Inca Huayna Capac. The southern provinces of Quito even fell under the dominion of Tupac Inca Yupanqui, at the conclusion of the 15th century (Prescott, Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 832). In the unfortunately still very obscure history of the first introduction of the potato into Europe, the merit of its introduction is yet very generally attributed to Sir John Hawkins, who is supposed to have received it from Santa Fe in 1563 or 1565. It appears more certain that Sir Walter Raleigh planted the first potatoes on his Irish estate near Youghal, from whence they were taken to Lancashire. |