“Winter season in August?”
“Of course. I was south of the equator, where the seasons, you know, are just the reverse of ours. We commenced the ascent of the mountains in high spirits. The wind was cool and bracing; and the vegetation all around us was of great interest to me. But it began to change rapidly; and, before night, we were among huge stones, and jagged rocks, where only evergreens were seen.”
“How could you find the way?”
“There was a rough kind of road over the mountains. In many places I should never have been able to find it at all, but the guide knew all the landmarks.
“The first night we spent in an Indian cabin; and the next morning continued our journey, but we were not so gay as on the preceding day. It was bitter cold, and we needed all the wraps we had with us. I do not know how our two companions managed to wander away from the road, as they afterwards insisted that they did. I think the cold was too much for their courage, and they grew tired of their bargain, and made up their minds to fall back of us, and watch a chance to turn around and go home. The guide and I soon missed them, and we rode about in various directions, calling them, and searching for them. But it was easy enough for them to conceal themselves behind a rock, or in a ravine, and we could not find them. We gave them up at last, hoping they would find their way back again.
“But we soon discovered that, in looking for them, we had lost our way. For hours we wandered about, and my guide could not find a trace of the road. This was serious, for we had but a small stock of provisions, as there were Indian huts scattered all along the regular route, on which we had relied for supplies. We could not travel over this rough country at night; and a night’s exposure to the cold was not to be thought of without a shudder. And besides, we might never find our way out of this frightful solitude.”
“Was there nothing anywhere about to show that any kind of people lived there?”
“No. It seemed to me we were the first human beings who had ever set foot there. In the midst of our perplexities my guide pointed silently to the sky. There were several small, thick, white clouds floating there. They did not look very terrible, but the guide said we would soon have a storm, and we must try to find shelter. Soon more white clouds floated into sight, and they increased until they hid the sun from us. We were now on smoother ground, and pressed forward as fast as we could, but there was no place of shelter to be seen, not even an overhanging rock.
“Soon the wind came with a rush; and then the thunder and lightning. Our mules broke into a gallop. We enveloped ourselves in the folds of our great woolen wrappers, called tapacaras, lifting our heads once in a while to see where we were going. Next we were treated to a shower of hail-stones. Fortunately they were not very large, but we were rather severely thumped with them. The poor mules fared the worst.
“And then came the snow. The arctic regions could not furnish a better example of a snow-storm than this tropical place! It fell so thick and fast we could not see twenty steps in advance. My heart failed me then. I thought we were lost, and would be buried in snow drifts.