The space enclosed between the gigantic ridges of the eastern and western Cordillera, or great and frigid mountain-chains of the Andes, is occupied by numerous table-lands yielding short fine grass, and extensive hilly pasture-ground, very like in general outline to the Highlands of Scotland, though destitute of heath: and over this very uneven surface are interspersed lagoons and rivers, and deep, warm, agricultural valleys, in the bottom of which grow the richest fruits and produce of the coast; while the summits of the hills, that rise from and enclose these fertile dales, are exposed to the violence of the tempest in the elevated regions of cold and barrenness.
From one of these glens, where we once resided for some time, we left a house at the door of which the lemon-tree was in perpetual fruit and blossom, and, in two or three hours thereafter, arrived at the rugged crags and peaks of the eastern Cordillera.
The lines of road from the western coast to the central Andes of Peru wind along narrow glens, sometimes contracting into mere ravines, edged by lofty hills or prodigious rocks that close in abruptly. The traveller thus journeys for days, leaving one hill behind, and meeting another rising before; but never arrives at that ideal spot, whence he may command a view from sea to sea,
“Where Andes, giant of the western star,
Looks from his throne of clouds o’er half the world.”
The highest mountains in Britain, such as Ben-Nevis or Cruachan,[18] must appear very diminutive, when compared to the Andes, whose very vastness and extent preclude from the inland regions any view of the sun dipping under the waves of the Pacific, and whose magnitude limits the quickest sight to the groups of mountains, with their included dales, that go to form one stupendous pile of varied shape, production, and climate.
Many of the mountain roads, as they leave the bottom of the glens, and ascend, in more or less of a caracole, along the face of formidable steeps, seem to bear date of origin from the Quichua era, when the llama was the only beast of burden in the country. These animals, like their Indian owners, delight most in the cool of the hills; but, when laden and on the road, their slow and stately gait must not be hurried or interfered with, nor their burden increased beyond their liking, which seldom exceeds 70 or 80 lbs. weight on a long journey: the Indian understands their way, and rules them by gentleness. As the llamas are not for forced marches, and only make short stages of three or four leagues daily, the paths that lead through pasture-grounds are the best suited for them, and may have been considered by the ancient inhabitants of the land as a sufficient reason for striking off from a barren though less elevated or precipitous path, and climbing to eminences that yield an agreeable temperature and some herbage to the indigenous companions of their toil.
When a person has occasion to traverse these narrow and fatiguing roads, it is necessary for him to keep a good look-out, lest he should clash with some rider or cargo-beast coming in the opposite direction; for there are places where it would be utterly impossible to pass two a-breast; and there would be no small danger, on meeting an impatient animal or careless horseman, that either party would be hurled over the brink, and consigned to the condors and eaglets that nestle on the cliffs and in the dark chasms of the crags.
Such dangerous passes are at some places so contracted that the stirrup of the muleteer is seen to overhang the foaming stream, or project beyond the verge of the boldest precipice; and every now and then they are made more formidable by abrupt angles and insecure breast-work without parapets, hastily constructed when the rush of a sudden torrent from the hollow of a hill, or large stones rolling from the heights, have cleft the way so as to render it for a time impassable.