ASCENT OF THE SADDLE. 97 



equally impossible to hold by the grass, or to form steps 

 as they might have done in softer ground. This ascent, 

 which was attended with more fatigue than danger, dis- 

 couraged those who accompanied them from the town, 

 and who were unaccustomed to climb mountains. The 

 travellers lost much time in waiting for them, and they 

 did not resolve to proceed alone till they saw them 

 descending the mountain instead of climbing it. The 

 weather was becoming cloudy ; the mist already issued 

 in the form of smoke, and in slender and perpendicular 

 streaks, from a small humid wood which bordered the 

 region of alpine savannahs above them. It seemed as if 

 a fire had burst forth at once on several points of the 

 forest. These streaks of vapour gradually accumulated 

 together, and rising above the ground, were carried along 

 by the morning breeze, and glided like a light cloud 

 over the rounded summit of the mountain. 



Humboldt and Bonpland foresaw from these signs, 

 that they would soon be covered by a thick fog ; and 

 lest their guides should take advantage of this circum- 

 stance and leave them, they obliged those who carried 

 the most necessary instruments to precede them. The 

 familiar loquacity of the Creole blacks formed a striking 

 contrast with the taciturn gravity of the Indians, who 

 had constantly accompanied them in the missions of 

 Caripe. The negroes amused themselves by laughing at 

 the persons who had been in such haste to abandon an 

 expedition so long in preparation ; above all, they did 

 not spare a young Capuchin monk, a professor of mathe- 

 matics, who never ceased to boast of the superior physi- 

 cal strength and courage possessed by all classes of 

 European Spaniards over those born in Spanish America. 



5 



