300 FIEST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC. 



resque ; yet I viewed them with a gratification heightened 

 almost into delight by the particular interest and pleasure 

 with which, in early childhood, I had looked at the shape of 

 this Asiatic inland sea on maps. That which is thus excited 

 in us ( 19 ) by childish impressions, or by accidental circum- 

 stances in life, takes at a later period a graver direction, and 

 often becomes a motive for scientific labours and distant 

 enterprises. 



When after many undulations of the ground, on the 

 summit of the steep mountain ridge, we finally reached the 

 highest point, the Alto de Guangamarca, the heavens which 

 had long been veiled became suddenly clear : a sharp west 

 wind dispersed the mist, and the deep blue of the sky in the 

 thin mountain air appeared between narrow lines of the 

 highest cirrQus clouds. The whole of the western declivity 

 of the Cordillera by Chorillos and Cascas, covered with large 

 blocks of quartz 13 to 15 English feet long, and the plains 

 of Chala and Molinos as far as the sea shore near Truxillo, 

 lay beneath our eyes in astonishing apparent proximity. 

 We now saw for the first time the Pacific Ocean itself; and 

 we saw it clearly : forming along the line of the shore a 

 large mass from which the light shone reflected, and rising 

 in its immensity to the well-defined, no longer merely 

 conjectured horizon. The joy it inspired, and which was 

 vividly shared by my companions Bonpland and Carlos 

 Montufar, made us forget to open the barometer until we 

 had quitted the Alto de Guangamarca. From our measure- 

 ment taken soon after, but somewhat lower down, at 

 an isolated cattle-farm called the Hato de Guangamarca, 



