Researches, concerning the institutions & monuments of the ancient inhabitants of America : with descriptions and views of some of the most striking scenes in the Cordilleras! . which the Hindoos, the Chinese, and all the na-tions of the Semitic race place thousands of yearsbefore the improvement of their social state, theAmericans, a people perhaps not less ancient, butwhose awakening has been of a later date, sup-posed to be only two cycles before their emigra-tion from Aztlan. 72 BRIDGE OF ROPES PENIPE. PLATE XXXIII The small river of Chambo, which flows fromthe lake of Coley, separates the
Researches, concerning the institutions & monuments of the ancient inhabitants of America : with descriptions and views of some of the most striking scenes in the Cordilleras! . which the Hindoos, the Chinese, and all the na-tions of the Semitic race place thousands of yearsbefore the improvement of their social state, theAmericans, a people perhaps not less ancient, butwhose awakening has been of a later date, sup-posed to be only two cycles before their emigra-tion from Aztlan. 72 BRIDGE OF ROPES PENIPE. PLATE XXXIII The small river of Chambo, which flows fromthe lake of Coley, separates the pleasing villageof Guanando from that of Penipe. It waters aravine, the bottom of which is two thousand fourhundred metres above the level of the ocean ;and which is celebrated for the cultivation ofcochineal*, which the natives have followed fromtime immemorial. In crossing this country toreach Riobamba, on the western declivity of thevolcano of Tunguragua, we stopped to examinethe country disrupted by the memorable earth-quake of the 7th of February, 1797 ; which, inthe space of a few minutes, destroyed thirty or * See my Political Essay on New Spain, vol. ii, p. 73 forty thousand Indians. We passed the river ofChambo by the bridge of Penipe, in the monthof June, 1802. This is one of those bridges ofropes, which the Spaniards call puente de maro-ma, or de hamaca; and the Peruvian Indians, inthe qquichua language, or that of the Incas,cimppachaca, from cimppa, or cimpasca, ropes,tresses, and chaca, a bridge. The ropes, three orfour inches in diameter, are made of the fibrouspart of the roots of the agave Americana. Oneach bank they are fastened to a clumsy frame-work, composed of several trunks of the schinusmolle. As their weight makes them bend to-ward the middle of the river, and as it would beimprudent to stretch them with too much force,they are obliged, when the banks are low, toform steps or ladders at both extremities of thebridge of hamac. That of Penipe is a h
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