AT THE I'OOT OF THE CLIFFS 237 



I have seen many lofty peaks in the Colombian Andes. 

 The double crest of the Sierra Nevada, clothed in perpetual 

 white, is an imposing sight ; but none of these peaks can 

 inspire that sense of awe I felt, standing a helpless and 

 insignificant atom at the foot of that mighty wall, beside 

 which the most imposing monument erected by the 

 arrogance of man would be but a toy. What epochs of 

 time must have elapsed since the solid rock before which 

 we stood had been deposited grain by grain at the mouth 

 of some mighty river or in the bed of the ocean ! 



For hours we walked along the base of the cliffs, until 

 we came to a deep narrow gorge with a small stream 

 running along its bottom. The gorge ended abruptly in 

 a perpendicular wall of rock down which the stream, 

 along whose banks we had picked our way, dashed in an 

 unbroken fall of considerable height. This was probably 

 the thread of water we had noticed when we viewed the 

 mountain from the river on the day of our arrival. As it 

 was getting late we decided to return to our camp, so we 

 followed the stream for some distance until we came to 

 a part where its banks widened out. Maite said that 

 if we cut across parallel to the cliffs we would hit our 

 camping-place. For hours we scrambled over rocks and 

 fallen trees, and I was beginning to fear that we had lost 

 our way, when we struck the track we had cut in the 

 morning about half a mile above our destination. The 

 men had left their blankets and hammocks hanging 

 around the huts. "When we arrived myriads of flies 

 which had settled upon them arose and kept buzzing 

 around us until it was almost dark. These flies had 

 deposited their disgusting larvae on everything that had 

 been left exposed, so that the men were busy until late 

 passing their things over the fire. At dusk I shot a 



