"It is nothing," said Savedra.
"I am afraid of nothing," said Prat.
A league-wide glacier stretched in front of us; we crossed it, keeping near the edge of some lava fields. Three long crevasses crossed the glacier, one of which was dangerous so we dismounted and jumped it, holding the horses by the bridle to let them jump it. Prat's horse was the only animal that jumped it without either falling with its fore feet or hind feet into it. My beast fared the worst and I thought that it was a "goner." The crevasse seemed bottomless and to extend to infinity. The glare of the sun on the fresh snow was terrific and caused us all to have sore eyes which lasted several days not to mention that our faces were burned so much that the skin peeled off. The sky appeared to be indigo instead of azure. Since leaving the lava fields there had been several volcanic eruptions of five minutes' duration, each one louder as we approached. I had now become used to them and was no longer afraid.
Rim of the Crater of Volcano Chillán During Eruption
Snow Fields of Volcano Chillán
Looking in any direction the scene was enough to imbue any mortal with a wholesome fear of God. Grand is not the word for the description; it was superlatively wild, lonesome, and awful. It is nearly impossible to realize the terrible loneliness and awesomeness of the great peaks of the Andes, uninhabited by man or beast or bird which mark the boundary between Central Chile and Northern Patagonia, their great snow-clad serrated or conical summits towering thousands of feet into the cloudless ether. The terrible view makes a man feel his insignificance. I have been to the top of Misti, Ararat, and Mont Blanc, the first mentioned two having an altitude double that of Chillán, but from their summits the view is incomparable with that seen from the mountain on whose slopes I now was. To the southeast probably fifty miles as a crow flies rose the conical snow-capped extinct volcano of San José, and beyond it the precipitous anvil top of twenty thousand feet high Quemazones (Burnt Places) inaccessible, both lying in Argentina.
Early that morning a certain Carlos Michaelis from Punta Arenas had left the Termas on foot for the summit of the volcano, so after we had gazed with astonishment upon the awe inspiring works of Nature just described, we turned our attention to the higher slopes of Chillán to see if we could see him, for up to now we had seen no sign of him. We finally saw a black spot high up on a snow-field which with binoculars proved to be a man. He was plodding upward through the thick snow laboriously, and at every few steps he would stop.