crater, nor pierce the flank of these mountains, which, to the height of 8970 feet, are fortified by high surounding plains. It appears, therefore natural, that volcanoes so elevated should discharge from their mouth only detached stones, volcanic cinders or ashes, flames, boiling water, and, above all, this carburetted argil impregnated with sulphur, that is called moga in the language of the country.

what rare.

The mountains of the kingdom of Quito sometimes offer to the naturalist another spectacle less alarming, but not less curious. The great explosions are periodical, and someCotopaxi, Tungurahua, and Sangay, sometimes do not present one in twenty or thirty years. But during such intervals, even these volcanoes will discharge enormous quantities of argillaceous mud; and, what is more extraordinary, an innumerable quantity of fish. By accident, none of these volcanic inundations took place the year that I passed the Andes of Quito ; but the fish vomited from the volcanoes is a phenomenon so common, and so generality known by all the inhabitants of that country, that there cannot remain the least doubt of its authenticity. As there are in these regions several very well informed persons, who have successfully devoted themselves to the physical sciences, I have had an opportunity of procuring exact information respecting these fishes. M. de Larrae, at Quito, well versed in the study of chemistry, who has formed a cabinet of the minerals of his country, has been particularly useful to me in these researches. Examining the archives of several little towns in the neighbourhood of Co. topaxi, in order to extract the epochs of the great earthquakes, that fortunately have been preserved with care, I there found some notes on the fish ejected from the volcanoes. On the estates of the Marquis of

Selvalegre the Cotopaxi had thrown a quantity so great, that their putrefaction spread a fetid odour around, In 1691, the almost extinguished volcano of Imbaburu threw out thousands on the fields in the environs of the city of Ibarra. The putrid fevers which commenced at that period were attributed to the miasma which exhaled from these fish, heaped on the surface of the earth, and exposed to the rays of the sun. The last time that Imbaburu ejected fish, was on the 19th of June 1798, when the volcano of Corgneirazo sunk, and thousands of these animals, enveloped in argillaceous mud, were thrown over the crumbling borders,

The Cotopaxi and Tungurahua throw out fish, sometimes by the crater which is at the top of these mountains, sometimes by lateral vents, but constantly at 15.000 or 16,000 feet above the level of the sea: the adjacent plains being 9000 feet high, we may conclude that these animals issue from a point which is 9000 feet higher than the plains on which they are thrown. Some Indians have assured me that the fish thrown out by the volcanoes were sometimes still alive, as they descended, along the flank of the mountain: but this fact does not appear to me sufficiently proved: certain it is that among the thousands of dead fish that in a few hours are seen descending from Cotopaxi with great bodies of cold fresh water, there are very few that are so much disfigured that we can believe them to have been exposed to the action of a strong heat. This fact becomes still more striking, when we consider the soft flesh of these animals, and the thick smoke which the volcano exhales during the eruption. It appeared to me of very great importance to descriptive natural history to verify sufficiently the nature of these. se animals. All the inhabitants agree that they are the same with those which are fo found

in

in the rivulets at the foot of these volcanoes, and called prennadillas: they are even the only species of fish that is discovered at the height of above 7500 toises, in the waters of the kingdom of Quito. M. Lacepede, who has also examined it, advised me to place it in that division of Silurus, which, in the fifth volume of his natural history of fishes, he has described under the name of pi. melodes.

From the enormous quantity of pimelodes the volcanoes of the kingdom of Quito occasionally discharge, we cannot doubt, that this country contains great subterranean lakes which conceal these, for in the little rivers around there are very few. A part of those rivers may communicate with the subterranean pits; it is also probable that the first pimelodes which have inhabited these pits have mounted there against the current. I have seen fish in the caverns of Derbyshire in England; and near Gailenreath, in Germany, where the fossil heads of bears and lions are found, there are living trouts in the grottoes, which at present are very distant from any rivulet, and greatly elevated above the level of the neigh. bouring waters. In the province of Quito, the subterraneous roarings that accompany the earthquakes; the masses of rocks that we think we hear crumbling down below the earth we walk on; the immense quantity of water that issues from the earth during the volcanic explo. sions, and numerous other phenome na, indicate that all the soil of this elevated plain is undermined. But, if it is easy to conceive that vast subterranean basins may be filled, it is more difficult to explain how these animals are attracted by volcanoes that ascend to the height of 9000 feet, and discharged either by their craters or by their lateral vents. Should we suppose that the pimelodes

July 1806.

2

exist in subterranean basins of the same height at which they are seen to issue? How conceive their origin in a position so extraordinary; in the flank of a cone so often heated, and perhaps partly produced by volcanic fire? Whatever may be the source from which they issue, the per. fect state in which they are found induces us to believe that those volcanoes, the most elevated and the most active in the world, experience from time to time, convulsive movements, during which the disengagement of caloric appears less consi.. derable than we should suppose it. Earthquakes do not always accompany those phenomena.

It

The corregidor of the city of Ibarra, Don José Pose Pardo, has communicated to me an interesting observation on the pimelodes. It is known (says he in a letter which I have still preserved,) that the volcano, of Imbaburu, at the time of its great eruption on the side next our city, threw out an enormous quantity of prennadillas; it even continues still occasionally to do so, especially after great rains. is observed, that these fishes ac-. tually live in the interior of the mountain, and that the Indians of St Pabla fish for them in a rivulet at the very place whence they issue from the rock. The fishery does not succeed either in the day or in moonlight: a very dark night is therefore necessary, as the prennadillas will not otherwise come out of the volcano, the interior of which is hollow." It appears then that the light is injurious to these subterraneous fishes, which are not accustomed to so strong a stimulus : an observation so much the more curious, that the pimelodes of the same species, which inhabit the brooks in the vicinity of the city of: Quito, live exposed to the brightness of the meridian sun.

Journal

514

1

COCHIN is situated about two

So miles up the river on the south bank! There is a bar which they say prevents large ships from entering the river, except at spring tides, and unloaded, but as they studiously pre vent any vessels from sounding, it may reasonably be supposed, that the dan nger is more imaginary than real. In going out, we stood, due East, and kept about one third the river's breadth from the north shore. The fort is rather smaller than Fort St George and fortified in the modern manner; the bastions in general having four guns in flank The ditch is broad, and the cover'd way, well palisaded, but without rivetments. There is another narrow ditch round the glacis, of little depth. The gate to the eastward has a large work before it, one face of which is parallel to the river, and mounts about ten pieces of cannon, the other face terminates on the front of a bastion to the west of the gate. Opposite to the center of the face of the fort looking to the rivers, (which consists of only a low thin wall without a ditch) is an island distant about four hundred yards, and covered with trees and houses, so that a battery might easily be construct ed, undiscovered. In the inside of the wall is a narrow ditch into which the tide flows thro' a sally port, and by which canoes enter into the town, but it is very narrow. On the he west side there is another gate which opens to a low point that runs to the sea. Here, there are no out works, except a pallisade, and battery which runs from the glacis to the sea, and seems only intended to prevent an enemy from possessing himself of the point from the land. The Dutch have

2

at present about three hundred EuTropeans, for rather a mixture of Europeans and Mulattoes,) and about five companies of Malays and Poftugueze in garrison; theirbartillery seems to be in very bad ordensul At Cochingis a large colony of Jews, of all tribes, and of all nations.

few of them wandered here, on their dispersion at the time the temple was destroyed, and some of them vintermarrying with the natives, many are now quite black. They still preserve their religion, and all their antisent customs; some of them, however, have entered into our army as Sepoys, and have behaved themselves well, both as privates and officerszoł ; vis

Bancontratands upon a very ligh hill, com the summit of o which biss a very extensive, and fertile plaint was built by the famous Nadic Shah: the walls ofsity and of an immense thickness, but there are, mlovitegular works the situation is beautiful and commanding but the greatest inconvenience attends its being isurrounded by hills, and deep sandygnalleys, where neither horse! Mor seven palanquins can be used. The bills on this coast, care muchɛrmored fertile than those on the coast of Corómandel, producing very fine grass, which when cut at a proper age, makes most excellent hay Mr Farmersshowed us some very fine in stacks than had been managed in the sameythanner as in England; or melt yaz005

The natives never cut it, but occasionally, and in general vit stands till wither'd, when, of course, at retains little nourishment.que barb *

We arrived at Bombay on the 14th of the evening when we were received in the politest manner by Goy, Bʊddom. Upon application to him `we understood that no company's vessel would sail up the gulf for some time, and that the only chance we had of obtaining a passage toons was to take one in a merchant ship, which

દે

was

selves, instantly to fire upon them. No ship whatever is allowed to enter the harbour at night; this precaution is owing to the apprehensions they are under, from the pirates, that swarm in the gulf.

The city of Bussorah, or Balsora, is surrounded by a mud wall with small round towers, which inclose a space of nearly ten miles in circumference, much the largest part of which however, is laid out in corn fields, gardens, &c. It has no ditch, and the wall is in a very ruinous state, without a single gun mounted on it. This city, once so famous, is now little better than a heap of rubbish, which is not to be wondered at, when it is considered that the plague in 1773, which carried off nearly four fifths of the inhabitants, was followed by an attack of the Persians in 1775, who got possession of it, after a thirteen months siege, and committed every species of devastation. On the death of the usurper Kereem Cawn in the year 1779, the officer left in the command of this place was among the competitors for the throne, and collecting all his forces, he abandoned Bussorah, in which the grand seignior's authority is Dow re-established. The government is administered by an officer called the Musalum, appointed by the bashaw of Bagdad, and is by no means an oppressive one, in consequence of which the city begins again to rise from its ruins, and is now said to contain about one hundred and forty thousand inhabitants; I believe this computa. tion to be much too great for the size of the place. I imagine also that the accounts of the former grandeur of the city must be greatly exaggerated, as the mosques (which were not destroyed by the Persians) are of a very mean structure; the streets exceedingly narrow and crooked; and the houses being mostly built of unburned brick and mud, and without windows to the streets, must

always have a very mean appearance. The town is remarkably well situated for the conveniency of transporting goods, &c. from one port to another, being intersected by a number of creeks, which might easily be converted into spacious canals.

1

'

The English and French have factories here; the French, however, keep only a Dragoman, and transact very little business. The English factory, exclusive of its use in forwarding intelligence to and from our settlements in India, disposes of a considerable quantity of broad cloths, sent from England, and also of India goods, and is upon such good terms with the government that it has obtained privileges much superior to even the Turks themselves; as an instance of which it will be sufficient to mention that the customs on our own goods are settled from our own accounts of sale, once a year, without even being inspected by the officers of the custom house, and amounts only to three per cent. while that imposed on the goods of the natives, &c. is charged at 74 per cent. exclusive of the loss and delay occasioned by their being obliged to send every thing to the customhouse.

The Turks maintain a fleet here, consisting of three ships, carrying about twenty guns, and a number of Gullivates, which are of great use in preventing the incursions of the Choub Arabs (an independent tribe on the opposite side of the river) who used to be very troublesome.