Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/275

 THE

PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA,

THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCA ATAHUALLPA.

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 12800 English feet, we rejoiced in descending gradually through the milder climate of the Quina-yielding 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 seventeenth century,