Chimbokazo. 129 



But the traveler needs no such steps to lift him up to 

 the grand conception of the divine Architect as he be- 

 holds the great white dome of Chimborazo. It looks 

 lofty from the very first. Now and then an expanse of 

 thin, sky -like vapor would cut the mountain in twain, and 

 the dome, islanded in the deep blue of the upper re- 

 gions, seemed to belong more to heaven than to earth. 

 We knew that Chimborazo was more than twice the alti- 

 tude of Etna. We could almost see the great Humboldt 

 struggling up the mountain's side till he looked like a black 

 speck moving over the mighty white, but giving up in de- 

 spair four thousand feet below the summit. We see the 

 intrepid Bolivar mounting still higher; but the hero of 

 Spanish-American independence returns a defeated man. 

 Last of all comes the philosophic Boussingault, and attains 

 the prodigious elevation of nineteen thousand six hundred 

 feet — the highest point reached by man without the aid of 

 a balloon ; but the dome remains unsullied by his foot. Yet 

 none of these facts increase our admiration. The mountain 

 has a tongue which speaks louder than all mathematical 

 calculations. 



There must be something singularly sublime about Chim- 

 borazo, for the spectator at Riobamba is already nine thou- 

 sand feet high, and the mountain is not so elevated above 

 him as Mont Blanc above the vale of Chamouni, when, in 

 reality, that culminating point of Europe would not reach 

 up even to the snow-limit of Chimborazo by two thousand 

 feet.* It is only while sailing on the Pacific that one sees 

 Chimborazo in its complete proportions. Its very magni- 



* But Chimborazo is steeper than the Alp-king ; and steepness is a quality 

 more quickly appreciated than mere massiveness. "Mont Blanc (says a 

 writer in Frazers Magazine) is scarcely admired, because he is built with a 

 certain regard to stability ; but the apparently reckless architecture of the 

 Matterhorn brings the traveler fairly on his knees, with a respect akin to that 

 felt for the leaning tower of Pisa, or the soaring pinnacles of Antwerp " 



I 



