I 



VOLCAI^O OF PlCHINCHA, 137 



Yesuvius. Humboldt, after standing on this same brink, 

 exclaimed, " I have never beheld a grander or more remark- 

 able picture than that presented by this volcano ;" and La 

 Condamine compared it to " the Chaos of the poets." Be- 

 low us are the smouldering fires which may any moment 

 sjDring forth into a conflagration ; around us are black, rag- 

 ged cliffs — fit boundary for this gateway to the infernal re- 

 gions. They look as if they had just been dragged up from 

 the central furnace of the earth. Life seems to have fled 

 in terror from the vicinity ; even lichens, the children of 

 the bare rocks, refuse to clothe the scathed and beetling 

 crags. For some moments, made mute by the dreadful 

 sight, we stood like statues on the rim of the mighty cal- 

 dron, with our eyes riveted on the abyss below, lost in con- 

 templating that which can not be described. The pano- 

 rama from this lofty summit is more pleasing, but equally 

 subhme. Toward the rising sun is the long range of the 

 Eastern Cordillera, hiding fi-om our view the great valley 

 of the Amazon. To right and left are the peaks of an- 

 other procession of august mountains from Cotocachi to 

 Chimborazo. We are surrounded by the great patriarchs 

 of the Andes, and their speaker, Cotopaxi, ever and anon 

 sends his muttering voice over the land. The view west- 

 ward is like looking down from a balloon. Those parallel 

 ridges of the mountain chain, dropping one behind the oth- 

 er, are the gigantic staircase by which the ice-crowned 

 Chimborazo steps down to the sea. A white sea of clouds 

 covers the peaceful Pacific and the lower parts of the 

 coast. But the vapory ocean, curling into the ravines, 

 beautifully represents little coves and bays, leaving islands 

 and promontories like a true ocean on a broken shore. We 

 seem raised above the earth, which lies like an opened map 

 below us ; we can look down on the upper surface of the 

 clouds, and, were it night, down too upon the lightnings. 



