1538, when the Spaniards conquered the country; and the four universities and half-dozen colleges and schools that have constituted the educational system in late years, owe their existence and influence almost wholly to the clergy of that church.

The chief cities and towns are La Paz, Cochabamba, Sucre or Chuquisaca, Potosi, Santa Cruz, Oruro, Tarija, and Trinidad. La Paz and Oruro have both been the capital of the republic in past years, and Chuquisaca, or Sucre as it is more generally called, is now (1889) the seat of executive authority. The constitution that Simon Bolivar, after whom the country is named, gave the republic in 1826 has since been amended and altered entirely out of its original form. The original four years' term of the president has been changed to six years, then to a life tenure, and then back again to four years; but the internal revolutions have been so numerous that it would be difficult to mention a single president who has lived or been permitted to serve through any of these terms.

When Bolivia formed a part of the Inca empire of Cuzco (1018–1524), it enjoyed a high degree of civilization. The Spanish dominion was firmly es-tablished in 1780, and for some years the country formed a part of the viceroyalty of La Plata. A congress assembled in 1825, after many years of revolution and bloodshed, and declared the country an independent republic. In the following year a constitution was adopted, and General Sucre was elected president. In 1828 he was forced to leave the country; in 1835 the Bolivians invaded Peru and annexed a portion of their territory; 1839 the Bolivians were defeated by Chili; 1866 Bolivia joined the alliance of Peru, Ecuador, and Chili against Spain; 1868 a new constitution was adopted and in the following year was overthrown and restored within three months; and 187981 a war undertaken by Peru with Bolivia as an ally against Chili resulted in Bolivia losing a fourth-part of its territory and a half of its accumulated wealth, and in Peru having the flower of its citizenship killed in battle on land and sea, and its fairest city bombarded and occupied by the Chilians. Between the foregoing events ambitious generals were elected and proclaimed president, deposed, expelled from the country, and assassinated with considerable regularity; and it may be said truthfully that in the hundred years. ending with 1880, Bolivia was not free from revolution nor war for a consecutive period of five years.

CITY OF SUCRE.

UCRE, the capital of the republic, is in latitude 19° 40' south, and longitude 65° 35′ north, on a small plateau above the Rio de la Plata, and at an elevation of 9,343 feet above the sea level. It is a well-built city, with clean and spacious streets, and its houses, generally two stories in height, are provided with small paved courts with water running through them. The city has a grand square on which stands a notable fountain, and several buildings of considerable repute, among which are the magnificent cathedral, built in the Moorish style of architecture, with lofty towers and an immense dome; the churches of San Francisco and San Miguel; the president's palace; the seminary of St. Christopher, College of Junin; the "Colegio de las Educandas," a large female orphan asylum; several monasteries; and a theatre. Sucre is the see of a Roman Catholic archbishop, has valuable silver mines in its immediate vicinity, and a population composed mainly of Indians, who speak the Chichua language. The whole population was estimated in 1880 at 23,979.

THE REPUBLIC OF ECUADOR.

Its

CUADOR is a republic on the west coast of South America, between Peru and the United States of Colombia, and lies directly beneath the equator, from which fact it derives its name. geographical location is between latitude 1° 50′ north and 4° 50′ south, and longitude 70° and 81° west; area, including the Tortoise Islands, 251,322 square miles; population, according to the census of 1885, 1,004,651, of whom about 200,000 were uncivilized Indians. The territory is unequally divided into three districts by the Andes and Cordilleras Mountains, between which is a fertile table-land from 8,000 to 9,500 feet above sea level. This section is a fine agricultural region, capable of producing all the cereals and vegetation known to the temperate zone; but agriculture is there little understood as a science, in fact, cocoa is the only article cultivated with any degree of thoroughness, and it forms the principal wealth of the country.

The mountain ranges in Ecuador are distinguished by the presence of sixteen active volcanoes, the most noted of which is Cotopaxi, with an eleva

tion of 19,498 feet; Chimborazo is 21,414 feet high, Cayambe 19,386, and Antisana 19,140. The country is believed to possess large wealth in precious. metals; gold and silver, iron, coal, and salt are known to exist in paying quantities; but with the exception of salt, which forms a government monopoly, the mines are undeveloped. The chief rocks are granite, syenite, trachyte, and porphyry. The forests contain valuable hard woods, and a profusion of the cinchona tree, palm, Brazil nut, vegetable ivory, vanilla,. rubber, tolu balsam, and the croton tiglium from which croton oil is obtained. There is but one railroad in the country (1889), connecting Quito, the capital,. with Guayaquil, the chief port, and there are no telegraph lines. The state religion is the Roman Catholic, and no other forms are tolerated; and the whole educational system is under the control of the priests. There is an archbishop at the capital, and a bishop in each of the provinces, which are subdivided into parishes, each of which has a public school, and in them little more than the primary branches is taught. It is estimated that fully onehalf the population are unable to read or write. The total number of schools. in all the provinces in 1885 was 522, with 45,533 pupils and 836 teachers, and the whole cost of education that year was only $152,080.

Ecuador is divided politically into three departments, Quito, Guayaquil, and Azuay, and these into seven provinces, Carchi, Imbabura, Pichincha, Leon, Tungurahua, Chimborazo, and Quito. The constitution represents the democratic system of government as illustrated in the United States, and the legal as exemplified in the laws of Spain. The president holds office four years, and the congress sits every two years. The provinces have territorial forms of government, and their chief executives are governors appointed by the president. In addition to the usual forms of courts, to which the judges also are appointed by the president, there are commercial courts to which judges are elected by the merchants of the city or parish in which each of such courts has jurisdiction. The president and the vice-president arenominated by a body of 900 chosen electors, and none but believers in the Roman Catholic church are allowed to exercise the right of suffrage.

The total exports in 1885 amounted in value to $6,680,815; the export to the United States was $1,131,169, and the import from the United States $1,049,392. The amount of cocoa, the chief product, exported that year was 23,227,048 pounds, worth $5,080,918. In 1886 the custom house at Guaya quil reported a total revenue of $1,940,536, which was $845,335 in excess of that of the previous year. The ordinary income of the republic is $4,000,000,

and expenditure $3,360,000. The material and industrial progress of the country are retarded by the laws prohibiting freedom of conscience, the tax of 10 per cent imposed on all agricultural products, and the lack of proper roads. The Hon. Alexander McLean, formerly U. S. Consul at Guayaquil, thus sums up some of the disadvantages of a region teeming with undeveloped riches: “The crops reach a market in canoes. The implements sparingly used are similar to those of the ancient Egyptians. Oats are threshed by driving cattle over them, and corn is gathered and sold by the individual ear. The crops raised for export are cocoa, coffee, rice, sugar, cotton, and tobacco. Rubber and cinchona are not properly crops. They are obtained in a barbarous manner by killing the trees, in the case of rubber for the sap and in that of cinchona for the bark."

Ecuador was discovered by Pizarro in 1526, and passed into the hands of the Spaniards on the downfall of the empire of the Incas. It remained a Spanish possession till 1812, when the inhabitants rose in rebellion. In 1821 New Granada and Venezuela united and formed the republic of Colombia, in 1823 the Spaniards were driven from that part of South America, in 1831 New Granada and Venezuela separated, and Ecuador, or the ancient kingdom of Quito seceded from the former, declared itself an independent republic, and adopted a constitution. For many years the boundaries between Ecuador and Peru and Venezuela were a subject of much contention. In 1859 there was an unsuccessful revolution at Guayaquil, and a successful one at Quito, which nearly resulted in the country becoming subject to Peru. In 1866 Ecuador joined in alliance with Chili and Peru to resist the attacks of Spain upon those republics. Revolutions and assassinations have been frequent, but the country has not been engaged in a war of any magnitude since 1823. It was visited by severe earthquakes on August 13th, 1868, and June 29th, 1887.

CITY OF QUITO.

UITO, the capital of the republic, is built on a side of the extinct volcano of Pichincha, in latitude 0° 13′ south, and longitude 78° 43′ west, and at an elevation of over 9,000 feet above sea level. Notwithstanding its close proximity to the equator, it enjoys a healthy and equable climate, the temperature ranging from 45° to 75° F., and averaging 60°. Eight summits of the Andes covered with perpetual snow can be seen from

its heights, and, in remarkable contrast, the beautiful cultivated valley of Chillo. The houses are solidly built and mostly one story in height, to reduce the dangers of earthquakes. The public buildings embrace the palaces of the president and archbishop, the cathedral, and municipal hall, all built to face the Plaza Mayor, a university, four colleges, eleven schools of a higher grade than those previously mentioned, several seminaries, nearly 300 parish schools, a mint, a public library, a polytechnic school established 1872, and numerous churches, many of them with convents attached. In its neighborhood are the ruins of many ancient palaces of the Incas, beside traces of the great road which in the days of the Incas led from the city to the southern extremity of the valley of Titicaca. South of Quito is Tacunga, or Lactacungo, which, between 1698 and 1797, was four times destroyed by earthquakes. The modern city of Quito was founded by Benalcazar in 1534, and had in 1885 a population variously estimated at from 75,000 to 80,000. GUAYAQUIL, the chief port of the republic, is on a river of the same name, in latitude 2° 12′ south, and longitude 79° 39′ west, had a population, 1885, of 25,000, and has long been noted for its manufactures of Panama hats.

THE REPUBLIC OF PARAGUAY.

O portion of South America has sustained such extreme vicissitudes through the terrible ordeal of war, as the republic of Paraguay. At one time its territory included the enormous region lying between latitude 16° south and the Straits of Magellan, and between Chili and Peru on the west, and Brazil on the east. By the war with Brazil and the Argentine Republic in 1865-70, the country lost much of its best territory, beside the lives of nine-tenths of its entire population. Since 1870 the republic has been confined to the tract between latitude 22° and 25° south and longitude 53° and 59° west, and been bounded on the north by Bolivia, on the west by Venezuela, on the south by the Argentine territory of the Missions, and on the east by Brazil.

Its area was estimated in 1879 at 91,980 square miles, and its population, exclusive of 130,000 Indians, at 346,048—not as much as that of some thrifty cities in the United States. The country is well watered by the numerous tributaries of the Parana River on the south and east, and of the Paraguay on