32 Historical 



elsewhere, the poncho or white cloak of a person on horseback can be 

 seen with the naked eye at a horizontal distance of 14,022 fathoms, and 

 consequently at an angle of 13 seconds. (P. 78.) 



The revolutions by which the Spanish colonies of America shook 

 off the yoke of the mother country resulted in the crossing by 

 troops of several thousands of men of certain passes of the Andes 

 usually frequented by only a few travellers. The stay in rarefied 

 air certainly brought an increase of suffering to these little armies; 

 but the historians seem to have paid but little attention to it, pre- 

 occupied as they are by the natural effect of the cold, the lack 

 of food, and the excessive fatigue. 



Early in the year 1817, General Saint-Martin, at the head of 

 3000 Independents, invaded Chile by the difficult pass which leads 

 from Mendoza to Santa Rosa, the highest point of which has an 

 elevation of more than 4300 meters. 



The expedition (says M. Gustave Hubbard 1S ) presented such great 

 difficulties that the troops from Santiago and the governor of Chile re- 

 fused to give credence to such a dangerous attempt .... A great num- 

 ber of men perished from cold in the rarefied and frigid atmosphere 

 through which they had to pass .... When the army left Mendoza it 

 had 9,281 mules; only 4,300 were left on the other side of the Andes, 

 and out of 1,600 horses only 500 survived. (Vol. I, p. 346.) 



The army which Bolivar led against Morillo in June 1819 from 

 Venezuela to New Grenada, across the Andes of Colombia encoun- 

 tered the same difficulties. The Englishmen who formed a con- 

 siderable part of his expeditionary forces died in great numbers. 

 The celebrated historian Gervinus says in this reference: 19 



The way is unmistakably marked by the bones of numerous vic- 

 tims who die during these crossings. ... In fact, those who, overcome 

 by weariness and cold, abandon themselves to the peculiar drowsiness 

 to which the traveller in lofty places becomes an easy prey fall into a 

 numbness which takes their strength from them (emparamados from 

 paramos, a name given to the highest plateaux) and delivers them over 

 to death without any hope of rescue (page 88). 



Upper and lower Peru also witnessed such expeditions. In 1821, 

 the Spanish viceroy La Serna, forced to abandon Lima, retreated 

 across the Cordillera, and established himself in the high valley of 

 Jauja. Thence his troops often descended to attack the Independ- 

 ents, until Bolivar undertook against them the campaign which 

 ended in the battle of Ayacucho (1824), and the whole of which 

 was carried on at a height of more than 3000 meters. It was at a 

 still greater height, 4500 meters, that General Santa Cruz defeated 

 the Spaniards in 1822 on the slopes on Pichincha. 



