Although the journey from Guayaquil to Quito takes nine days, Garcia Moreno, a former President of Ecuador, once made it in thirty-six hours. He heard of a revolution, and springing upon his horse went to the capital, had twenty-two conspirators shot, and was back at Guayaquil in less than a week. Moreno was 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 in the streets, and had a drunken priest impaled in the principal plaza of Quito, as a warning to the clergy to observe habits of sobriety or conceal their intemperance. There was nothing too brutal for this man to do, and nothing too sacred to escape his grasp. Yet he compelled Congress to pass an act declaring that the republic of Ecuador “existed wholly and alone devoted to the services of the Holy Church,” and forbidding the importation of books and periodicals which did not receive the sanction of the Jesuits. He divided his army into four divisions, called respectively “The Division of the Blessed Virgin,” “The Division of the Son of God,” “The Division of the Holy Ghost,” and “The Division of the Body and Blood of Christ.” He made the “Sacred Heart of Jesus” the national emblem, and called his bodyguard the “Holy Lancers of Santa Maria.” He died in 1875 by assassination, and the country has been in a state of political eruption ever since. [Illustration: WAITING FOR THE MULES TO FEED.] Although the road to Quito is over an almost untrodden wilderness, it presents the grandest scenic panorama in the world. Directly beneath the equator, surrounding the city whose origin is lost in the mist of centuries, rise twenty volcanoes, presided over by the princely Chimborazo, the lowest being 15,922 feet in height, and the highest reaching an altitude of 22,500 feet. Three of these volcanoes are active, five are dormant, and twelve extinct. Nowhere else on the earth’s surface is such a cluster of peaks, such a grand assemblage of giants. Eighteen of the twenty are covered with perpetual snow, and the summits of eleven have never been reached by a living creature except the condor, whose flight surpasses that of any other bird. At noon the vertical sun throws a profusion of light upon the snow-crowned summits, when they appear like a group of pyramids cut in spotless marble. [Illustration: EN ROUTE TO THE SEA.] Cotopaxi is the loftiest of active volcanoes, but it is slumbering now. The only evidence of action is the frequent rumblings, which can be heard for a hundred miles, and the cloud of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night, which constantly arises from a crater that is more than three thousand feet beyond the reach of man. Many have attempted to scale it, but the walls are so steep and the snow is so deep that ascent is impossible even with scaling-ladders. On the south side of Cotopaxi is a great rock, more than two [Illustration: SOMEWHERE NEAR THE SUMMIT.]