140 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS: NARRATIVE. 



sufficiently high to be covered with perpetual snow. Bald Mountain is 

 an isolated dome standing in about the middle of Mayer Basin. 



The western face of this mountain afforded an excellent view of the 

 snow-clad peaks and ranges of the higher Andes, and of the numerous 

 glaciers that descended the slopes of the latter on the western border of 

 Mayer Basin. At the time of our visit each of these glaciers descended 

 far down among the forest-covered slopes, and from the front of each 

 there poured forth a considerable river. These flowed out at first in an 

 easterly direction, emptying their waters into Mayer River, which swept 

 away to the westward through a narrow, impenetrable mountain defile, 

 by which it enters the Pacific. In one of these glaciers on the extreme 

 left of the basin there is a grand cataract, where the ice plunges over a 

 mighty precipice several hundred feet in height. The different shades of 

 blue, green and white displayed by the ice in the front of this were ex- 

 ceptionally beautiful. 



On a particularly fine day late in February I laboriously climbed to a 

 position above timber line on the western end of Bald Mountain. Here, 

 with an entirely unobstructed view, I sat for some time enjoying the mag- 

 nificent panorama which lay before me. The great river rolled swiftly on 

 through the valley below. Beyond this lay the dark green forests of beech 

 which covered the basin and lower slopes of the mountains. In places the 

 foliage of the forests was already tinged with yellow, purple, red and other 

 autumnal colors, while beyond and above the whole towered the magnifi- 

 cently rugged central range of the Andes, buried beneath enormous fields 

 of snow and ice, which covered all as with a brilliantly white mantle, save 

 at intervals, where some particularly bold promontory or sharp and jagged 

 peak raised its giant form like a black sentinel high above the surrounding 

 fields of white. 



After some time passed in enjoying the splendid view which my posi- 

 tion afforded, I resumed my journey and continued the climb to the summit 

 of the mountain. I then walked along the crest until I came to a spot 

 directly opposite our camp, when I decided to descend the mountain slope 

 and thus make my way to camp. So long as I was above timber line I 

 succeeded very well, but when I approached the outskirts of the forest, my 

 progress was seriously interfered with by such a tangled growth of low 

 spreading beech bushes as made travelling well-nigh impossible. The 

 trunks of these bushes never grew erect, but wound and twisted about at 



