THE BELL OF aUILLOTA. 331 



prise, in his voyage, at the distance at which his 

 vessels were discovered from the coast ; but he did 

 not sufficiently allow for the height of the land, and 

 the great ti'ansparency of the air. 



The setting of the sun was glorious ; the valleys 

 being- black, whilst the snowy peaks of the Andes 

 yet' retained a ruby tint. When it was dark, we 

 made a fire beneath a little arbour of bamboos, 

 fried our charqui (or dried slips of beef), took our 

 mate, and were quite comfortable. There is an 

 inexpressible charm in thus living in the open air. 

 The evening was calm and still ; the shrill noise of 

 the mountain bizcacha, and the faint cry of a goat- 

 sucker, were occasionally to be heard. Besides 

 these, few birds, or even insects, frequent these 

 di-y, parched mountains. 



Augiist 11th. — In the morning we climbed up 

 the rough mass of greenstone which crowns the 

 summit. This rock, as frequently happens, was 

 much shattei'ed and broken into huge angular frag- 

 ments. I observed, however, one remarkable cir- 

 cumstance, namely, that many of the surfaces pre- 

 sented every degTee of freshness — some appearing 

 as if broken the day before, whilst on others lich- 

 ens had either just become, or had long gi-own, at- 

 tached. I so fully believed that this was owing to 

 the frequent earthquakes, that I felt inclined to 

 hurry from below each loose pile. As one might 

 very easily be deceived in a fact of this kind, I 

 doubted its accuracy until ascending INIount Wel- 

 lington, in Van Diemen's Land, where earthquakes 

 do not occur, and there I saw the summit of the 

 mountain similarly composed and similarly shat- 

 tered, but all the blocks appeared as if they had 

 been hurled into their present position thousand 

 of years ago. 



We spent the day on the summit, and I never 



