Page:Whymper - Travels amongst the great Andes of the equator.djvu/144

Rh (9140), a place with perhaps 5000 inhabitants, built on rather flat ground, dangerously near to a stream that is liable to sudden swellings when Cotopaxi is in eruption. We went by advice to the little hotel of Pompeyo Baquero,—the best kept house we entered in Ecuador. Everything was clean, and the place was free from fleas, a fact which was the more welcome because Ambato was densely populated with these wild animals. In the apartments we had just quitted there were more fleas per square yard than I have known anywhere. When rays of sunlight streamed in through the windows, a sort of haze was seen extending about a foot above the floor, caused by myriads of them leaping to and fro.

The favourable impression which was created by the propriety of Baquero's hotel was utterly destroyed by what we saw upon leaving this town. At the door of every house on the sunny side of the street leading to the bridge, the ladies of Latacunga were basking in the warmth. Mothers had their children reposing in their laps, and daughters seemed to be caressing their parents. To the non-observant they would have formed sweet pictures of parental and filial affection. A glance was enough to see that all this assemblage were engaged in eating the vermin which they picked out of each other's hair. According to the old historians, this habit was established in the country before the Spanish conquest. It is practised now by the hybrid Ecuadorian race as much as by the pure Indians. There were more than two dozen groups on one side of this single street engaged in this revolting occupation, which they carried on without shame in the most public manner. Though I shook the dust of this town off my feet, it was impossible to forget the Ladies of Latacunga, for the same disgusting sight was forced upon our attention throughout the whole of the interior.

Upon leaving the town, under the guidance of Mr. Perring, we took the road on the right bank (western side) of the Cutuchi. This part of the Moreno road was erased during the eruptions of Cotopaxi in 1877, and no doubt it will be swept away again,