228 SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES REGIONS. 



that its base has been eroded by the river. Presenting a clean outline up to its 

 truncated summit, this volcano is draped in snows and glaciers like the other 

 giants of Ecuador. Its action is extremely irregular — quiescent for long periods, 

 then suddenly bursting into violent explosions. In 1886 it ejected ashes to great 

 distances, some falling on the port of Guayaquil, avalanches of mud at the same 

 time rushing down its flanks and filling up the valleys at its base. The deluge 

 was comparable to the tremendous outburst of Cotopaxi itself, but, instead of 

 taking the direction of the Pacific across the intervening plateaux, it ran out 

 in the valley of the Pastaza, on the Amazonian slope. 



Tunguragua, like Imbabura, is one of those volcanoes which are most frequently 

 mentioned as having ejected myriads of live fish together with the waters of 

 some underground lake. But no direct observation has ever confirmed these reports, 

 which are entirely discredited by Whymper. " As it is stated that the fish which 

 are supposed to have been ejected from the crater, or to have been expelled from 

 the subterranean reservoirs, were frequently alive, and had their flesh in good pre- 

 servation, it appears to me there is stronger evidence agiiinst the notion that they 

 dwelt in subterranean reservoirs than in favour of it. Fish cannot emerge in this 

 rough manner from boiling water or from superheated steam alive, and with their 

 skins intact. Possibly after some eruptions and earthquakes large numbers of these 

 fish haveheen found out of water, but this would not prove ejection by or from volca- 

 noes. Floods occasionally pour down the slopes of Cotopuxi, causing rivers to swell 

 and to overflow their banks, and it would be no marvel if, during such inundations, 

 multitudes of fish were borne from their native haunts, and left stranded when the 

 waters subsided. Also, during earthquakes, fissures opening in the earth may 

 change the course of streams, or might, by intersecting the beds of pools, drain 

 them and leave shoals of fish high and dry, living and unscathed. In these possi- 

 bilities there is, I imagine, the substratum of truth upon which a mountain of fable 

 has been raised." * 



The Altar, the Capac-Urcu ("Head Mountain ") of the Quichuas, and called 

 also Cerro de Collanes,t was, perhaps, at one time the loftiest mountain in Ecuador. 

 According to the local tradition, the summit collapsed after a series of eruptions 

 which lasted eight years and which occurred not long before the arrival of the 

 Spaniards. To this collapse of the supreme cone has also been attributed the pre- 

 sent picturesque form of the volcano, terminating in an altar encircled by peaks 

 and needles. The old crater, which has the shape of a horseshoe broadly opening 

 westwards, is at present filled with a glacier, above which hang long stalactites 

 formed by the melting and re-freezing of the upper snows. 



This nearly extinct cone is followed by Sangay, or the volcano of Macas, which 

 rises in the midst of the woodlands, and which is said to have formerly been the 

 most active in the whole region. Its upper slopes are at present clothed in a 

 snowy mantle, except round about the rim of the crater blackened by fine dust 



* Op. cit., p. 254. 



t Probably from Co//a^;«, which in Aymara (a sister language to Quichua) means " grand " or 

 '■ sublime" (A. Stiibel). 



