La Condamine, however, was eager to continue north. While Bouguer had been at his Rio Jama camp, La Condamine had spent five days fixing the point where the equator crossed the coast. This was at “Palmar, where I carved on the most prominent boulder an inscription for the benefit of Sailors,” he wrote in his journal. “I should have perhaps included a warning to not stop at that place; the persecution one undergoes night and day from mosquitoes and the different species of flies unknown in Europe is beyond any exaggeration.” He was happy to be on his own, with only a servant by his side, and it mattered little to him that at every step of the way, he had to fight legions of mosquitoes and drag along a bulky quadrant and telescope. These were inconveniences that any adventurer could expect.
AFTER ARRIVING in Guayaquil on March 26, Godin and the others were unable to depart at once for Quito, the constant rains making travel overland impossible. So much rain fell in April that the river overflowed its banks, driving “snakes, poisonous vipers and scorpions” into the houses where they were staying, Ulloa and Juan complained. The streets turned so muddy that people had to walk from the porch of one house to the next over planks set down as bridges between them. Waterlogged rats scurried about everywhere, marching through ceiling rafters at night with such a loud step that it was difficult to sleep.
On May 3, they thankfully escaped from Guayaquil aboard a chata, heading up the Guayaquil River to Caracol, a distance of about eighty miles. Indians living along this stretch of water, Ulloa and Juan noted, skillfully hunted fish with spears and harpoons. In smaller creeks, the Indians would chop up a plant root, called barbasco, mix it with bait, and toss the mixture into the water. The herbal concoction would knock out the fish, which would then float to the surface, enabling the Indians to scoop them up with nets. Alligators, some nearly fifteen feet long, lined the banks, and those that had tasted human flesh before were rumored to be “inflamed with an insatiable desire of repeating the same delicious repast.” But insects were the worst menace:
The tortures we received on the river from the moschitos were beyond imagination. We had provided ourselves with moschito cloths, but to very little purpose. The whole day we were in continual motion to keep them off, but at night our torments were excessive. Our gloves were indeed some defense to our hands, but our faces were entirely exposed, nor were our clothes a sufficient defense for the rest of our bodies, for their stings, penetrating through the cloth, caused a very painful and fiery itching. … At day-break, we could not without concern look upon each other. Our faces were swelled, and our hands covered with painful tumours, which sufficiently indicated the condition of the other parts of our bodies exposed to the attacks of those insects.
La Condamine marks the equator.
From Charles-Marie de La Condamine, Journal du voyage fait par ordre du roi à l’équateur (1751).
A balsa raft in the Bay of Guayaquil.
From Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, Relación histórica del viage a la América Meridional (1749).
After eight such miserable days, they transferred their baggage at Caracol to the backs of seventy mules and immediately found themselves mired in a bog. The mules “at every step sunk almost up to their bellies,” and when they finally reached the Ojibar River, only twelve miles from Caracol, they had to spend the night in a village with the unhappy name of Puerto de Moschitos. Jean Godin and a few others, in an effort to find relief from the insects, “stripped themselves and went into the river, keeping only their heads above water, but the face, being the only part exposed, was immediately covered with them, so that those who had recourse to this expedient, were soon forced to deliver up their whole bodies to these tormenting creatures.”
They now began their climb into the mountains, and while they had the pleasure of passing many beautiful waterfalls, some more than 300 feet high, the path was so narrow that as they rode on the mules, they frequently banged “against the trees and rocks,” giving them a collection of bruises to go with their multitude of insect bites. They also had to cross swaying bridges strung high over cascading rivers:
The bridges [are] made with cords, bark of trees, or lianas. These lianas, netted together, form an aerial gallery, which is suspended from two large cables of similar materials, the extremities of which are fastened to branches of trees on opposite banks. Collectively the whole of these singular bridges resembles a fisher’s net, or rather an Indian hammock, extending from one to the other side of the river. As the meshes of this net are very wide, and would suffer the foot to go between them, a sort of flooring is superimposed, consisting of branches and shrubs. It will readily be conceived, that the weight of this network, but especially that of the passenger, must give a considerable curve to the bridge, and when, in addition, one reflects that the traveler passing it is exposed to great oscillations, to which it is incident, particularly when the wind is high, and he reaches near the middle, this kind of bridge, which is oftentimes thirty fathoms long, [it] must needs have something frightful in its aspect. The natives, however, who are far from being naturally intrepid, pass such bridges on the trot, with their loads on their shoulders, together with the saddles of the mules, which cross the river by swimming, and laugh at the timidity of the traveller who hesitates to venture [across].
Huts on the Guayaquil River.
From Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, Relación histórica del viage a la América Meridional (1749).
Even more frightening, they discovered that their lives were now dependent on their mules’ having good judgment and a steady step. The muddy trail was filled with holes, “near three quarters of a yard deep, in which the mules put their fore and hind feet, so that sometimes they draw their bellies and riders’ legs along the ground. Should the creature happen to put his foot between two of these holes, or not place it right, the rider falls, and, if on the side of the precipice, inevitably perishes.” They spent two or three days in this manner, at times inching along ledges that looked out over “deep abysses,” which, Ulloa and Juan confessed, filled their “minds with terror.” They reached an altitude of more than 10,000 feet, having ascended the western cordillera of the Andes,* and then, in the early afternoon of May 18, they crossed over a mountain pass called Pucara. Now they began their descent into the valley below, the slopes so steep and muddy that the mules slid down on their bellies, with their forelegs stretched out, moving with the “swiftness of a meteor.” All that the startled riders—Ulloa, Juan, Louis Godin, Jussieu, Senièrgues, Hugo, Morainville, Verguin, Couplet, and Jean Godin—could do was hang on for dear life.
They spotted the village of Guaranda just before sunset. A sorry-looking bunch of travelers, the lot of them bruised, muddied, and exhausted, they felt overwhelmed with relief when the corregidor of the town came out to greet them. A priest then appeared, leading a parade of Indians boys waving flags, dancing, and singing, and as the expedition entered the town, bells were rung, “and every house resounded with the noise of trumpets, tabors and pipes.” When they expressed their surprise, they were informed that such a reception was not at all unusual, but was given to all who entered the town. It was Guaranda’s way of “paying congratulations” to those who had survived the perilous journey from Guayaquil.
They now had to travel north for 120 miles to reach Quito. They left Guaranda on May 21, skirted around the flanks of snow-capped Mount Chimborazo, a volcano more than 20,000 feet tall, and spent that first night in a stone cave called Rumi Machai. Over the course of the next week, they stumbled across the ruins of an Inca palace, awoke several mornings in huts covered with ice, crossed several deep chasms formed by earthquakes, and then, on May 29, at dusk, they rode into Quito. There they were greeted with every civility by the president of the Quito Audiencia,† Dionesio de Alsedo y Herrera, their journey of twelve months having finally come to an end.
BOUGUER AND LA CONDAMINE fared even worse in their travels. Bouguer, after leaving La Condamine at the Rio Jama, had suffered a miserable journey down the coast to Guayaquil,
the trail so swampy that even mounted on a horse, he was often up to his knees in water. He reached Guayaquil three days after the others had departed, and he then followed in their wake all the way to Quito. His travel, however, was slowed by his poor health, and he did not arrive until June 10.
At first, La Condamine’s trip had not been too unpleasant. After he and Bouguer split up, he had traveled north in a sea canoe, hugging the shoreline and stopping to determine the longitude of landmarks along the coast, such as the Cape of San Francisco. He was filling out the map that he and Bouguer had begun in Manta, and he continued his sea travels for more than 120 miles, until he reached Esmeraldas, a town populated primarily by free Negroes, the descendants of slaves who had escaped from a nearby shipwreck fifty years earlier. There he had the good fortune to meet the governor of the province, Pedro Maldonado, who had heard from administrators in Quito about the French mission. Maldonado was about the same age as La Condamine, and he shared his enthusiasm for exploration and science. A lasting friendship was born, and Maldonado told La Condamine of his plans to build a road from Esmeraldas to Quito—a route, he said, that La Condamine could now take.
The first leg of this 140-mile trip was up the Esmeraldas River. The river was so named because the conquistadors had come upon natives mining gems from its banks, and La Condamine, ever the indefatigable scientist, mapped its every turn. After that, he plunged into the jungle. Maldonado’s vision for a road to Quito was just that—a dream for the future—and La Condamine had to bushwhack his way through the forest. His Indian guides cut their way through the brush with axes, La Condamine carrying his compass and thermometer in his hands, “more often than not on foot rather than horseback.” It rained every afternoon, La Condamine dragging “along several instruments and a large quadrant, which two Indians had a hard time carrying.” The dense foliage slowed their progress, and yet La Condamine turned even this to his advantage, collecting “in this vast jungle a large number of singular plants and seeds,” which he looked forward to giving to Jussieu upon his arrival in Quito. His mood turned sour only after he was abandoned by his guides. He had but one horse to help him carry his goods, which consisted of a hammock, a suitcase of clothes, and his treasured instruments, which he was loathe to leave behind.* He was also nearly out of food: “I remained for eight days in this jungle. Powder and other provisions became scarce. I subsisted on bananas and other native fruits. I suffered a fever which I treated by a diet, which was recommended to me by reason and ordered by necessity.”
He emerged from this solitude by “following the crest of a mountain,” coming upon a narrow path much like the one that Godin and the others had followed into the Andes from Guayaquil. The trail passed waterfalls and crossed ravines “carved by torrents of melting snow,” and La Condamine, like the others, found the liana bridges nerve-racking. Halfway up the Andes, he came upon several Indian villages—Niguas, Tambillo, and Guatea—where the natives, known as Los Colorados, colored themselves with red paint. In the last of these, he obtained new guides and mules. Because he had no money left, he was forced to leave behind his suitcase and quadrant as a guarantee that someone would return and pay for these services. Los Colorados led him to Nono, a village high in the Andes, where a Franciscan monk supplied him with all that he needed for the rest of his journey. La Condamine made his way ever higher into the mountains, stopping at times to catch his breath. The path scooted around the northern flank of boulder-strewn Mount Pichincha, a volcano that topped 15,700 feet. As he reached the highest point on the trail, the clouds lifted, and suddenly he could see for miles:
I was seized by a sense of wonder at the appearance of a large valley of five to six leagues wide, interspersed with streams which joined together to form a river. I saw as far as my sight could see cultivated lands, divided into plains and prairies, green spaces, villages and towns surrounded by bushes and gardens. The city of Quito, far off, was at the end of this beautiful view. I felt as if I had been transported to the most beautiful of provinces in France, and as I descended I felt the imperceptible change in climate by going from extreme cold to the temperature of the most beautiful days in May.
His journey had come to an end. It was June 4, 1736, and now La Condamine and the others could begin the daunting task of measuring a degree of latitude in this rugged terrain.
* Mount Pelée is 4,586 feet tall.
* Although La Condamine is unclear on this point, apparently the Portefaix had not been authorized to sail to a Spanish port.
* The Andes in this part of South America consists of two mountain ranges, or cordilleras, separated by a valley twenty-five to thirty-five miles wide.
† The Viceroyalty of Peru was divided up into a number of administrative districts known as audiencias. The Audiencia de Quito governed a territory about five times the present size of Ecuador, stretching from the Pacific to the Amazon.
* La Condamine writes of being alone once the guides abandoned him. It is most likely, however, that he was still accompanied by a personal servant.
CHAPTER SIX
Measuring the Baseline
QUITO IS BUILT ON the lower slopes of Mount Pichincha, a volcano that has often rained ashes down on the homes below. The landscape is also cut by two deep ravines carrying waters tumbling down from Pichincha, which, in the 1700s, was covered with snow and ice. Such topography makes it an unlikely place for a city, and yet, as the members of the French expedition quickly sensed, there was something special, even spiritual, about this spot. Upon his arrival, Bouguer called it a “tropical paradise,” and at every step they were confronted with evidence of its long history. Barefoot Indians trotted through the city, the men dressed in white cotton pants and a black cotton poncho, and they greatly outnumbered those of Spanish blood.
As far back as the fifth century A.D., Indians had come to this spot to trade goods, with gold, silver, and pearls the treasured items of the day. The people in this region came to be known as the Quitus. In the eleventh century, a tribe living along the coast, the Caras, ascended the Esmeraldas River into the valley, intermarrying with the Quitus, and collectively the two groups came to be known as the Shyri Nation. Two centuries later, the Shyris intermarried with the Puruhás to the south, forming the peaceful Kingdom of Quitu. The people worshipped the sun and built an observatory to study the solstices.
Around 1470, the Incas, led by the great warrior Tupac Yupanqui, began their conquest of this kingdom, capturing the city of Quitu in 1492. They brought with them a language, Quechua, which they made the common tongue of the realm, and for the next thirty-five years, during the reign of Huayna Capac, the Inca Empire prospered, with Quito its northern capital. Huayna Capac died in 1525, and after his son Atahualpa was killed by Pizarro at Cajamarca in 1533, one of Pizarro’s men, Sebastián de Benalcázar, marched north to lay claim to Quito. He entered Quito in December 1534, with 150 horsemen and an infantry of eighty, but found it deserted and in ruins. Rumiñahui, a local Indian chieftain who had remained loyal to the Incas, had torched the city rather than hand it over to the Spaniards.
Benalcázar founded the new village of San Francisco de Quito atop the ashes of the old. As was their custom, the Spaniards plotted out a blueprint for their city, locating the plaza mayor close to the old Indian marketplace. In 1563, Spain made Quito the capital of the Audiencia de Quito, a jurisdictional district that stretched more than 1,500 miles north to south and 500 miles east to west. As a capital, Quito was home to all the fixtures of colonial government—an administrative palace, a judicial court, and a royal treasury. By the early eighteenth century, it could also boast of three colleges and a hospital (founded in the sixteenth century), and it was famous throughout Peru for its elaborate cathedrals.
The people of Quito had been waiting for the arrival of the French expedition for months, for Philip V’s letter, in which he urged his representatives to treat the visitors well, had reached them on September 10, 1735 (thirteen months after it was written). No one had been quite
sure what to expect—after all, the city had never hosted a group of foreigners before, and these men were said to be the great minds of Europe—so when Godin and the others arrived on May 29, 1736, with their long train of mules bearing a load of strange instruments, the streets were lined with spectators. The audiencia president, Dionesio de Alsedo y Herrera, put them up in the royal palace and greeted them with a written proclamation, grandly announcing that the two nations were uniting for the “transcendental matters of science.” For three days, Alsedo hosted one dinner and ceremony after another for the visitors, with the wealthy and powerful coming from miles to attend. Members of the town council, the judges of the audiencia court, church officials, and wealthy merchants all came to introduce themselves, and everyone, Ulloa and Juan wrote, “seemed to vie with each other in their civilities towards us.”
Bouguer and La Condamine missed this grand welcome. Godin and the others, while waiting for them to arrive, joyfully explored this city of 30,000 and its environs. Quito, they believed, was the “highest situated” city in the world, its inhabitants—Bouguer would later write—“breathing an air more rarefied by one third than other men.” All found the weather a delight, the city warmed by its proximity to the equator but cooled by its altitude, a combination that created a “perpetual spring.” The valley to the south was a sea of green and gold. Cattle grazed on grassy plots while Indians worked the plowed fields, the mild climate allowing one field to be sown while, on the same day, the one next to it was harvested. Orchards dripped with apples, pears, and peaches, and the entire valley was ringed by snow-capped volcanoes. There was Mount Cotopaxi to marvel at, as well as Antisana, Cayambe, and Illiniza, each one taller than the greatest mountain in the Alps. “Nature,” Ulloa and Juan wrote, “has here scattered her blessing with so liberal a hand.”
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