The richness of the soil, the plenteousness of water, even for irrigation should it be necessary, the serenity of the climate, and the facility of procuring indians as labourers, with every advantage that can be desirable, render it very probable, that this part of Quito will soon become populous, and that Panama, and the mines of Chocó, will in a few years be supplied with the produce of land now in an uncultivated state. There can be no doubt but that herds of cattle and fields of grain will crown the labours of those who may form establishments in this charming territory, where maize, wheat, rice, and plantains, the daily bread of the four quarters of the globe, will be produced in abundance to reward the labour of the husbandman.
At Piti I found an old man, his wife, and two sons living in a comfortable house, built like those of the Puna in the Guayaquil river, shaded with half a dozen lofty coro palms, and fanned with the magnificent leaves of the plantain, while the banana, several orange, lemon, palta, guava, arnona, and other intertropical fruit trees were laden with fruit, at the same time that small patches of sugar-cane, yucas, and camotes, seemed to vie with each other in luxuriance: numbers of turkeys, fowls and ducks ran about on a small plot of ground lying between the house and the river, which is here about a hundred yards wide. Two canoes were tied to two trees, in one of which there was a small casting net, several harpoons and fishing lines--every thing seemed to bespeak comfort, nay, even profusion.
The old man informed me, that he was a native of Guayaquil; but that he had resided on this spot for more than fifty years, on which account the natives of the country had surnamed him _taita_ Piti, father Piti. He shewed me forty-eight tiger or jaguar skins, and assured me, that the animals had all been slain by his own lance; but he was sorry, he said, that the sport was at an end, not because he was old, but because there were no tigers left in the neighbourhood for him to kill, upwards of seven years having elapsed since he took the last skin. He assured me, that whenever he found the track of a tiger he always followed it alone, and never rested till he had slain his victim. The skins were hung on the inside of the roof and round the sides of the house, forming a very pretty, but rather uncommon kind of tapestry.