Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/374

324 department by several rugged mountains, similar to those of the Pyrenees.

When the traveller has journied about a hundred leagues from Pasco, in a northern direction, he quits these snow-clad mountains, and, having descended several steep hills, which may more properly be named precipices, enters the delightful vallies of Tarija. Here it would require the pen of Fenelon, to describe the serenity of the sky, the fine temperature of the air, the beauty and fertility of the soil, the abundance of the waters, &c.; but as we do not possess his sublime eloquence, we shall confine ourselves to the observation, that, according to all we have seen, heard, and read, of the two Americas, there is not any other province which can be brought in comparison with the country of which we treat. There may be found wheat, maize, and all the other productions essential to the sustenance of man, together with the tree which yields the herb of Paraguay, the cocoa, the vine, and the flax which is sown in the district named la Recoleta, merely for the purpose of gathering the seeds. If the abundance of the produce be not proportionate to the fecundity of these vallies, it is either on account of the want of application of those who reside in them, or through the poverty of the circumjacent departments of Lipes and Chichas, which cannot make any considerable demands for the productions. The stores which reward the labours of the cultivator, may, however, be deemed sterility, when compared with what the lands occupied by the Chirihuanos, and other tribes of free Indians, might be made to yield. Those who have seen them, give a description of them similar to the one made to Moses by those who first explored the Land of Promise, The most noticeable circumstance, in these