144 The Axdes and the A^iazon. 



Ten miles farther south is the bare-headed Guamani 

 range, over which passes the road to the wild Xapo coun- 

 try."^ The view from the crest is magnificent ; but, like 

 every grand panorama, eludes description. As we look 

 eastward over the beginnings of the mighty forest which 

 stretches unbroken to the Atlantic, the vast ridges, trend- 

 ing north and south, and decreasing in height as they in- 

 crease in distance, seem like the waves of a great ocean 

 rolKng toward the mountains. 



N^ear by stands Antisana in his snowy robe. This vol- 

 cano ranks next to Chimborazo in dignity. It has a double 

 dome, and an elevation of 19,000 feet. Snow of Dian pu- 

 rity covers it for over 3000 feet ; but, judging fi'om the 

 enormous streams of lava on its sides, it must have been a 

 fierce volcano in ages past. The lava streams are worthy 

 of the great mou-ntain from which they flowed. One of 

 them (called "Yolcan d'Ansango") is ten miles long and 

 five hundred feet deep, with an average slope of 15^. It is 

 a magnificent sight, as seen from the surrounding paramo 

 — a stream of dark, ragged rocks coming down out of the 

 clouds and snows which cover the summit. The repre- 

 sentative products of Antisana are a black, cellular, vitre- 

 ous trachyte, a fine-grained, tough porphyroid trachyte, and 

 a coarse reddish porphjToid trachyte. An eruption, as late 

 as 1590, is recorded in Johnston^ s PJiys. Atlas. Humboldt 

 saw smoke issuing from several openings in March, 1802. 



We ascended this volcano to the height of sixteen thou- 

 sand feet. On its side is the celebrated hacienda of Anti- 

 sana, which, more than sixty years ago, sheltered the great 

 Humboldt fi'om the sleet and rain and blast of this lofty 

 region. It w^s a welcome refuge to us, for we had well 

 nigh perished with cold on the dreary paramo. It is one of 



* The culminating point of Guamani is Sara-urcu^ a volcano \vhich tln-ew 

 out a vast quantity of ashes in 1843 and 1856. 



