On the uplands vegetation nourishes, and to the height of 10,000 feet, the Sierra or High Peru, enjoys a climate composed of a mixture of perpetual spring and autumn. Beyond 14,000 feet, the Sierra is covered with eternal snows, and consequently an everlasting winter reigns in its neighbourhood. The cultivation of these different tracts is little attended to; along the coast, desarts of thirty or forty leagues in extent are frequent; and the immense forests which cover the maritime plains, prove that the inhabitants are not numerous; these forests contain acacias, mangle trees, arborescent brooms and ferns, aloes, and other succulent plants, cedars, cotton or ceiba trees of gigantic growth, many kinds of ebony, and other useful woods, ten or twelve species of palms, and the maria, an enormous tree used in ship building. These forests are thickest at the distance of seven or eight leagues from the coast, and the trees then become covered with parasitical plants, which reach to their very top, mixing their beautiful and lively flowers with the dark green foliage, so peculiar to the tropics. In the forests and in the plains of the coast, are found the cabbage palm, the cocoa nut, the cacao nut, the cotton shrub, the pine apple, canna, amomum, turmeric, plantain, sugar cane, &c., on the sides of the Andes, and in its great plains, are the precious cinchona, coffee tree, the cardana alliodora, a large tree, whose leaves and wood emit an odour resembling garlic. Twenty-four species of pepper, five or six of capsicum, and several of potato, tobacco and jalap exist in Peru, and the green and hot houses of Europe owe most of their beautiful flowers and plants to this country. The llama, the guanuco, the vicuna, and the alpaca, or the different species of American camel, find their native climate in the cold districts of Peru; the jaguar, the cougar or puma, and several other wild animals, inhabit the thick forests; while the elk, the ant-bear, deer, monkeys, the great black bear of the Andes, and armadillos, &c., are very numerous. The woods abound in beautiful birds, the rivers in fish and alligators, and numerous tribes of reptiles infest the warm districts of the coast, in which venomous insects are also common. The mountains of Peru do not yield in height to those of Quito, the great chain of the Andes dividing itself into several parallel branches, forming as in Quito, long and narrow valleys, near its summits; it is very precipitous towards the east, and seems to form a natural barrier between the kingdoms of La Plata and Peru. It here gives birth to the Maranon, the Guallaga, the Tunguragua, and a variety of smaller rivers, which either lose themselves in these or in the Pacific Ocean. HISTORY, DISCOVERY, &C.