Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1885-06-09

LI4I9s WHO MAS NAM&AAI MAA44tNAAN4 41
Pizavro. Their costume i 9 short black
skirt and = square robe Or mantle Of
black, which they wear over their heads
and hold in place by large pin o. thorn
between the shoulders. They look like
nuns, and walk the streets with bur-
dens upon their backs or heads in
professions as solemn as funeral. They
never laugh, aud scarcely ever smile;
they have no songs aud no afliusements.
Their only semblance % music Is d
nournful chant which they give II utii-
son at the feasts which are Intended to
keep alive the memories Ut the meas
They cling I'd their traditions and the
customs of their ancestors They
remember the ancient glory of
their race, and look to its restoration
as the Aztecs of Mexico look for the
coming of Montezuma. They have rel
les which they guard with the most
sacred care, ard two great secrets no
amount Of tOFtlre at the hands Of the
Spaniards has been able to wiring from
them. These are the art of tempering
copper SO as to give il as keen and en-
during an edge as steel, and the burial
place of the Incarial treasures.
It will be remembered that Pizarro Of
fered to release Atahuallpa il the Indians
you'd fill with gold the room in which
he was kept q prisoner. They did it.
Pizarro thought there must be more
where this came from, and demanded
that the ransom be doubled. Runners
were sent over the country to collect the
treasure of the kingdom, and were on
their way to Caxamarca, whore the Inca
was prisoner, loaded down with gold
to buy his freedom, when they heard
that Pizarro had strangled him. This
treasure was buried somewhere in the
mountains of Llanganati, northwest Of
Quito and has been searched for ever
since.
A Spaniard named Valverde married
an Inca girl, and from poverty became
suddenly rich. TO escape persecution
from those who wished to know the Sc
cfet of his sudden accumulation of gold
he fed to Spain, and upon his deathbed
made confession To the effect that
through his wife he had discovered the
Inca treasures, and left guide to the
place of their deposit as a legacy to his
king. This guide has been followed by
the government and by private indi-
viduals; fortunes have been wasted in
the search, hundreds Of men have per-
ished in the mountains while engaged in
it, and, while the gold Of the Incas win
never cease to haunt the memories of the
avaricious, no man has been able to reach
the spot designated by the confession of
Valverde.
The last to attempt it was an English
botanist, who wrote a pamphlet giving
his experience. He says that no one
who was not familiar with every inch of
the Llanganati mountains could have
written the Valverde document. for the
land marks are all infinitely described !;
but the path indicated leads to a ravine
which is impossible, and in attempting
to cross which so many people have lost
their lives. It is his opinion that the
condition of this gorge has been SO
changed by volcanic eruptions and earth
quakes Us to obIiterate the landmarks
which Valverde describes, and per-
manently obstruct path which he is said
to have followed.
The capital and productive regions Of
Ecuador are 100 miles from its only sea
port, Guayaquil, and are accessible only
by mule path, which is impossible for
six months in the year, during the rainy
season, and in the dry season it requires
eight or nine days to traverse Ii, with
no resting places where man can find a
decent bed or food tit for human con-
sumption. This is the only means of
communication between Quito and the
outside world, except along the noun
tains southwark into Bolivia and Peru,
where the lucas constructed beautiful
highways, which the Spaniards have per-
mitted 60 decay, until they are now
practically useless. They were so well
built, however, az to stand the wear and
tear Of three centuries, and the slightest
attempt at repair would have kept them
in order.
Although The journey from Guayaquil
to Quito takes nine days, Garcia Moreno,
the former president of Ecuador, once
made it In thirty-six hours. He heard
of q revolution, and, springing upon his
horse, went to the capital, had twenty
two c0nspirators shot, and was back at
Guayaquil in less than d week. Moreno
vas president for twelve years, and was
one OF the fiercest and most cruel rulers
South America has ever seen. He shot
men who would not take off their hats to
him ia the streets, and had a drunken
priest impaled in the principal plaza of
Quito as warning to the clergy to OBJ
serve Eabits of sobriety or conceal their
intemperance There was nothing too
brutal for this man to do. and nothing
too sacred to escape his grasp. He died
in 1875 BY assassination, and the country
has been in q state OF political eruption
ever since.
Although the road to Quito is over an
almost unfrodden wilderness, it presents
the grandest scenic panorama in the
world Directly beneath the equator,
surrounding the city whose origin is lost
in the mist 81 centuries, rise twenty vol
canoes, presided over BY the princely
Chimborazo, the lowest being 49,
022 feet in height, and the
highest reaching an altitude Of
q, 500 feet. Three OF these volcanoes
are active, five are dormant, aud twelve
extinct Nowhere else on the earth's
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