548 A NATURALIST ON THE " CHALLENGER." 



laughed at it without the slightest feeling of compassion. I 

 would have given a great deal to have been able to put it out of 

 its misery, but I did not want the man to see that I had no 

 pistol with me, and I was, therefore, obliged to let the animal 



lie. 



There was absolutely no food, yet the man said the mule 

 would live eight days. There were plenty of Condors wheeling 

 about in different directions, but they took not the slightest 

 notice of the beast. I was told that they never approach 

 until an animal is actually dead. The drover who took the 

 pack off the mule had, no doubt, never given a thought to 

 taking the trouble to kill the animal. 



There were several patches of snow which were crossed by 

 the track close to the summit (Cumbre), but there was no snow 

 on the track at the actual summit itself. 



I was told that when highway murders were committed 

 on the Pass, the traveller attacked was usually lassoed and 

 dragged off his horse, and some way away from the track ; the 

 assailant, as soon as his man is noosed, putting spurs to his 

 horse ; a very unpleasant mode of death. The lasso is, however, 

 used on human beings occasionally with far different intent. 

 I saw a young girl going out on foot to milk the cows, at a 

 farm at some distance down the Pass, playfully lasso a young 

 man with whom she had been flirting, catching him round the 

 neck as neatly as possible, just as he was going away. 



I rode a horse on the journey whilst my guide rode a mule. 

 We made a detour on our return journey in order that I should 

 see a remarkable chasm in the rock called "El salto del soldado" 

 (The Soldier's Leap). We had to traverse an old and neglected 

 route for some distance. In one place the hill-side had slipped 

 somewhat, and the track was gone, but steep slopes of loose 

 stones had to be crossed between short lengths of the remaining 

 path. There was a deep drop into the river below. My horse 

 halted a second or two before each of these slopes, evidently well 

 knowing their treacherous nature and also the best way of 

 crossing them, and then went across with a quick run as fast as 

 he could make his way. 



Just so I should have crossed them myself on foot; the 



