they usually found rather more than a quart of excellent water.  They were so much distressed by famine on this march as to be under the necessity of eating several of their horses, the flesh of which sold so high that a dead horse brought more money on this occasion than he had cost when living.  Besides thirst and famine, they were very much distressed during a considerable part of the way by quantities of hot ashes falling upon them, which they afterwards learnt were thrown up by a volcano in the neighbourhood of Quito, which burns with such violence that its ashes are often carried by the wind to the distance of eighty leagues, and its noise like prodigious thunder is sometimes heard at a hundred leagues from Quito.  In the whole march, which was nearly under the equinoctial line, the troops of Alvarado found everywhere abundance of emeralds.  After a long and difficult march through these arcabucos, where they were for the most part obliged to cut their way through the thick brushwood by means of axes and their swords, they came at length to a high chain of mountains covered with snow, over which it was necessary to pass.  In this difficult and dangerous passage by an extremely narrow road, it snowed almost continually, and the cold was so extremely severe, that although every one put on all the clothes they had along with them, more than sixty men perished from the extreme severity of the weather.  One of the soldiers happened to be accompanied by his wife and two young children, and seeing them entirely worn out with fatigue, while he was unable to assist them, he preferred to remain with them and perish, although he might have saved himself.  At length, after infinite toil and danger, they found that they had reached the top of the mountain, and began joyfully to descend into the lower grounds of the kingdom of Quito.  It is true that in this country they found other high mountains covered likewise with snow, as the province is entirely surrounded and interspersed with mountains; but then there are many temperate vallies among these mountains, which are well peopled and cultivated.  About this time, so great a quantity of snow melted suddenly on one of these mountains, producing such prodigious torrents of water, that the valley and village of Contiega were entirely overwhelmed and inundated.  These torrents bring down immense quantities of stones, and even vast fragments of rock, with as much ease as if they were only pieces of cork.

It has been already said that Almagro had left Benalcazar in the government of Quito, meaning to return to Cuzco, because no intelligence had reached him of the motions of Alvarado; and mention has been made of his having reduced certain rocks and fortresses into which the Indians of Quito had retired to defend themselves.  This had occupied him so long, that Alvarado had penetrated into the province of Quito before Almagro had returned into the south of Peru, being still employed in reducing