He was not the first to make the same mistake in the mountains near Mendoza. Read the following from Gerstaecker's narrative of a journey from Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso:
"One day we saw a fox approaching, and I determined to have a shot at him. Master Reynard came up the slope as carelessly as though he were only out for a quiet walk; judging the distance at about a hundred yards, just as he got scent of us, but appeared uncertain of the danger, I took a good and sure aim and pulled the trigger. The gun went off, but to my utter astonishment the ball struck the snow, as I plainly saw, some paces short of the fox; and Reynard, discovering all was not right, scampered off, leaving me to fire with as little effect as before.
"Having no idea what could be the matter with the gun, I went to the place where the fox had stood, and, counting the steps in going, was surprised to find that what I had thought about a hundred yards was really two hundred and sixty! So deceptive was the pure and transparent snow as to distance.
"Indeed, on looking back, I saw that the spur of the mountain behind appeared not farther off than two or three miles, though I knew the distance to be much greater. Then I reflected that if the sight was misled in this way by the thin air in judging the distance of objects so close, what an enormous space must lie between the mountain-ridges, which really looked so far apart, and to what a height the mighty peaks must rise, when they were so gigantic even in appearance."
COMING TO TOWN.
As he approached the base of the mountains, Frank found them every moment becoming more lofty in appearance, and it was not unnatural that he should begin to wonder if there was really a way of passing over them to the other side. The plain and the mountains kept his thoughts fully occupied till he reached the end of the wagon-road and halted at the little village where the mountain-path begins.
