The Sea and the Cave 69 



broad-gauge sleeper, spent a day there, and the following 

 morning took the narrow-gauge Trans-Andean line. But 

 everything turned out well. The officials of the railroad 

 allowed us to ride on the cowcatcher, getting on where the 

 real rise begins, at Punta de Las Vacas — where I found 

 two good toads in a small water tank which supplied the 

 locomotive — and from there riding to the end of the 

 line on the Argentine side. The railroad wove about, ris- 

 ing ever higher and higher. To right and to left we had 

 a splendid panorama of high mountains. The terminus was 

 at Puente del Inca, where a simple but clean and com- 

 fortable little bath house had been built in connection 

 with some hot springs that gushed out near the natural 

 bridge which gives the place its name. We stayed there 

 several days. Finding excellent sure-footed mules avail- 

 able, we took the opportunity to see some of the most 

 superb mountain scenery in the world and to catch 

 glimpses of the bird life of the highest elevations of this 

 southeastern portion of the Andes. 



Fitzgerald began his classic ascent of Mount Aconcagua 

 from the Horcones Valley whence the ascent is steep 

 and long but fairly direct. In this valley high up on the 

 hip of the highest mountain in either North or South 

 America there lies a charming little lake. It is called the 

 Laguna del Inca, although in all probability no Inca ever 

 laid eyes on it. The view of this little azure gem of a pond 

 sparkling in the brilliant sunlight, with the majestic snow- 

 clad slopes of the great mountain overshadowing it, was 

 one of the most ineifably lovely views I have ever seen. 



I don't know exactly what the altitude of the pond is, 

 but I suspect it to be about 14,000 feet. I rode up to its 



