ACROSS THE ANDES 133 



mountains rose near by; one was a snow-clad 

 volcano with a broken cone which not many 

 years ago was in violent eruption. Another, 

 even more beautiful, was a lofty peak of vir 

 ginal snow. At the farther end of the lake 

 we lunched at a clean little hotel. Then we 

 took horses and rode for a dozen miles to an 

 other lake, called Esmeralda or Los Santos. 

 Surely there can be no more beautiful lake any 

 where than this! All around it are high moun 

 tains, many of them volcanoes. One of these 

 mountains to the north, Punti Agudo, rises in 

 sheer cliffs to its soaring summit, so steep that 

 snow will hardly lie on its sides. Another to 

 the southwest, called Tronador, the Thunderer, 

 is capped with vast fields of perpetual snow, 

 from which the glaciers creep down to the 

 valleys. It gains its name of thunderer from 

 the tremendous roaring of the shattered ice 

 masses when they fall. Out of a huge cave 

 in one of its glaciers a river rushes, full grown 

 at birth. At the eastern end of this lake stands 

 a thoroughly comfortable hotel, which we 

 reached at sunset. Behind us in the evening 

 lights, against the sunset, under the still air, 

 the lake was very beautiful. The peaks were 

 golden in the dying sunlight, and over them 

 hung the crescent moon. 



