236 THE BRIDGE OF ROPES AT PENIPE. 



our hands and feet. At length we reached the summit : 

 and on looking at each other, we perceived all one side 

 of our clothes, one of our eyebrows, and half our beards, 

 stuck full of small frozen points, exhibiting a singular 

 spectacle." 



In one of their excursions to Riobamba, on the west- 

 ern slope of the volcano of Tunguragua the travellers 

 visited the delightful village of Penipe, where they saw a 

 famous bridge of ropes. It crossed the river of Chambo, 

 which separated the villages of Penipe and Guanando. 

 The ropes of this bridge, which were three or four inches 

 in diameter, were made of the fibrous part of the roots 

 of the agave Americana^ and were fastened on each bank 

 to a clumsy wooden framework. As their weight made 

 them bend towards the middle of the river, and as it 

 would have been imprudent to have stretched them with 

 too much force, the Indians were obliged, when the banks 

 were low, to form steps or ladders at both extremities of 

 the bridge. That which the travellers crossed at Penipe 

 was a hundred and twenty feet long, and seven or eight 

 broad. The great ropes were covered transversely with 

 small cylindrical pieces of bamboo. These structures, 

 of which the people of South America made use long be- 

 fore the arrival of the Europeans, reminded Humboldt of 

 the chain bridges at Boutan, and in the interior of Africa. 

 Mr. Turner, in his interesting account of his journey to 

 Thibet, gives the plan of the bridge of Tchintchieu, near 

 the fortress of Chuka, which is one hundred and forty 

 feet in length, and which may be passed on horseback. 



Travellers had often spoken of the extreme danger of 

 passing over these rope bridges, which look like ribanda 

 suspended above a crevice or an impetuous torrent ; but 



