Up the Andes. 43 



ters for the first time since leaving the hills of onr native 

 country. Fording this stream we know not how many 

 times, and winding through the dense forest in narrow 

 paths often blockaded by laden donkeys that doggedly dis- 

 puted the passage, we soon found ourselves slowly creeping 

 up the Andes. We frequently met mountaineers on their 

 way to Bodegas with loads of potatoes, peas, barley, fowls, 

 eggs, etc. They are generally accompanied by their wives 

 or daughters, who ride like the men, but with the knees 

 tucked up higher. On the slippeiy tracks wliicli traverse 

 this western slope, bulls are often used as beasts of burden, 

 the cloven hoofs enabling them to descend with great secu- 

 rity. But mules are better than horses or asses. " That a 

 hybrid (muses Darwin) should possess more reason, memo- 

 ry, obstinacy, social affection, powers of muscular endur- 

 ance, and length of life than either of its parents, seems to 

 indicate that art has here outdone nature." 



Toward- evening the ascent became rapid and the road 

 horrible beyond conception, growing narrower and rough- 

 er as we advanced. Indeed, our way had long since ceased 

 to be a road. In the dense forest, where sunshine never 

 comes, rocks, mud, and fallen trees in rapid alternation 

 macadamize the path, save where it turns up the bed of a 

 babbling brook. In the comparatively level tracts, the 

 equable step of the beasts has worn the soil into deep 

 transverse ridges, called camellones, from their resemblance 

 to the humps on a camel's back. In the precipitous parts 

 the road is only a gully worn by the transit of men and 

 beasts for ages, aided by torrents of water in the rainy sea- 

 son. As we ascend, this changes to a rocky staircase, so 

 strait that one must throw up his legs to sa^^ them from 

 being crushed, and so steep that horse and rider run the 

 risk of turning a somersault. It is fearful to meet in a 

 narrow defile, or where the road winds around the edge of 



