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,
