EDGE OF THE CRATEE. 247 



tains, appeared lialf immersed in the clonds, wbicli were 

 now rolling up the sides of Pichincha, threatening to de- 

 stroy our view of the crater. Apprehending this, we 

 spui'red on our horses as rapidly as possible, being obliged 

 to ascend the sides of the mountain in a zigzag course. 

 The effect of the rarefied atmosphere was very apparent 

 upon our animals, which breathed with great difficulty. 

 Arriving within a short distance of the summit, we were 

 obliged to dismount, the sides growing veiy precipitous, 

 and covered with ashes and scoriae, which afforcted only a 

 treacherous footing. Securing our horses to some rock- 

 masses, that had been arrested in their fall by a transversal 

 depression in the slope of the mountain, we commenced 

 to ascend on foot. Light snow a few inches in depth cov- 

 ered the debris, rendering our j^rogress exceedingly toil- 

 some ; so that we could mount but a few yards, when, 

 breathless, we would sink upon the snow. Half an hour 

 was thus consumed in reaching the summit ; when, ex- 

 hausted with the ascent, we threw ourselves upon the edge 

 of the crater, and gazed over Into the frightful opening, 

 which appears about a mile in diameter, and, according to 

 barometrical observation, is' over twenty-five hundred 

 feet in depth, its precipitous walls rising, in some places, 

 almost perpendicularly from the bottom. From the deep, 

 «ulphur-incrusted crevices rolled slowly up heavy columns 

 of steam and smoke. It was a scene of the wildest and 

 most awful grandeur. The clouds below cut us off from 

 the world beneath, and we w^ere standing upon a fiery 

 island, an illimitable sea rolling away on every side, its 

 expanse relieved only by the ice-crowned summits of the 

 volcanoes, which pierced its surface like vast icebergs, rend- 

 ering the whole a most dismal arctic scene. Cotopaxi, Avith 

 its smoke-clouds, was the Erebus amid the drear desola- 

 tion of ice, and cloud, and smoke. The easterly trade- 

 winds swept over the mountain, but with little momentum ; 



