HARMONIES. 



rendered it a scene most truly wild and surpris- 

 ing."* 



Can animal life habitually exist in these awful 

 solitudes? Is it possible that any creature can 

 make its home amidst this waste of stark granite 

 and everlasting ice? Yes; the guanaco, or Peru- 

 vian camel, delights to dwell here, and is as truly 

 characteristic of the region as the Arabian camel 

 is of the sandy desert. It snuffs the thin air in 

 its wild freedom, and specially delights in those 

 loftier ridges which the Peruvians term punas, 

 where the elements appear to have concentrated 

 all their sternness. It was the sudden appearance 

 of a guanaco, on a lofty peak above the party, 

 that gave occasion to the above description. The 

 peons, with their dogs, had pursued it, and hav- 

 ing overtaken it, had dragged down the carcase, 

 and were now roasting its flesh over their camp- 

 fire. 



The wild reindeer, in his native snows, is seldom 

 visited by civilised man; and it is a thing to be 

 remembered during life to have seen him there. 

 Climb the precipices of that rugged mountain- 

 chain that forms the backbone of Norway ; cross 

 plain after plain, each more dreary than the last, 

 as you reach a higher and a yet higher elevation, 

 till you stand, in the sharp and thin air, catching 

 your breath on the edge of the loftiest, the wild- 

 est, and most barren of those snowy f jelds. The 

 highest hut you have left far below. You will 

 spend the day and the night, (such night as an 

 unsetting sun allows,) too, in traversing its 

 lonely waste, and you will see neither habitation 

 nor human being, nor trace of human works ; no 

 tree, nor shrub, nor heath, nor even earth ; noth- 

 ing but hard, bare, barren, lichen-clad rocks, or 



* Brand's " Travels in Peru," p. 102. 

 55 



