162 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



and some quite aged ones, and at first we could 

 not understand it for it was quite a toilsome climb; 

 but presently we saw that there was a cross on the 

 top and these were devout people going up to pray. 

 When we reached the summit we found groups of 

 kneeling women and children around the monument 

 of a Jesuit Mission surmounted by a cross, and as 

 we approached we heard the low murmurs of their 

 "Aves" and "Credos." We wandered on to the far- 

 ther brow of the hill and waited for sunset. The whole 

 panorama of the Andes, magnificent from this point, 

 grew purple and rosy in the glow, and all the outlines 

 of the peaks of the abrupt jagged walls and volcano- 

 like summits were clearly defined against the eastern 

 sky. It was beautiful, but the Andes have none of the 

 loveliness of the Alps; none of the lower green slopes 

 and soft pasturage grounds that lead you gently up 

 to the rocky summits. The Andes rise arid, rugged, 

 stern from base to crest; there is nothing to break a 

 something in their character which seems to me for- 

 bidding, terrible almost. We stood watching till the 

 last rays of the sun died upon them, lighting up the 

 cross too and the kneeling people on the hillside, 

 gathered now in numbers. As we went down we saw 

 the candles glimmering at the foot of the cross, and 

 here and there a single lamp burning at some of the 

 intermediate stations where they kneel to rest and 

 pray on their way up. 



We returned at six o'clock and dined in our room 

 (it was not much the habit for senhoras to go to the 

 table d'hote and there are no hotel parlors), waited on 



