Some Spaniards have enriched themselves in this manner, for in making a gallery through the tumulus, they have found golden idols and jewels to a great amount; but the contents generally consist only of the skeleton, earthen drinking vessels, tools of copper or stone, with mirrors of obsidian, and of a sort of flint, curiously made and perfectly polished. The golden ornaments and images they occasionally discover, are, in general, beautifully wrought, but always very thin and hollow; the emeralds are cut into all shapes, and perforated with the greatest nicety, but how these were executed without any other than hardened copper and stone tools, is almost inconceivable. The jurisdiction of QUITO, independent of the city, contains twenty-five villages or parishes; the lands are covered with plantations, in the plains breaches or valleys, and up the sides of the mountains, as far as vegetation will reach, so as to be productive of any return to the cultivator; the valleys being hot grow sugar canes and cotton; the plains, maize; and the higher regions, wheat, barley, &c. European grain was introduced into Quito by Father Jose Rixi, a native of Ghent in Flanders, who sowed some near the convent of St. Francis, and the monks still show the vase in which the first wheat came from Europe, as a sacred relic. Above the regions which produce wheat, barley, potatoes, &c., are fed numerous flocks of sheep, which yield great quantities of wool; and cows are reared also in great numbers, for the sake of cheese and butter; most of the villages of Quito are inhabited by Indians. South of Quito, and divided from it by the mountains of Tiopullo and Chisinche, is the district of LACTACUNGA, or LATACUNGA, the chief town of which is _Latacunga_, in 0° 55ʹ 14ʺ south latitude, and 78° 16ʹ west longitude, fifty miles south of Quito, a large and well-built place, the streets being straight and broad, the houses of stone, arched, and of one story, on account of the frequency of earthquakes; but in 1698 the whole of the town was overturned, excepting the church of the Jesuits, which was much damaged, and almost all the inhabitants perished. The stone of which the houses are built is a sort of pumice, extremely light, and which has been ejected from the neighbouring volcanoes; that of Cotopaxi being only six leagues distant. This district contains seventeen large villages, and the climate is cold, on account of the vicinity of several snowy summits. The first eruption of Cotopaxi, witnessed by the Spaniards, was when Benalcazar invaded these provinces; the natives had a tradition, that when the volcano should burst they would be subdued by an unknown people; this event, combined with the appearance of the white and bearded strangers, struck such terror into the poor Indians, that they quietly submitted to the Spanish arms.