150 The Aj^des and the Amazon. 



of ice-water flow out of the volcano side by side. Here, 

 too, the fierce youth of the Pastassa, born on the pumice 

 slopes of Cotopaxi, dashes through a deep tortuous chasm 

 and down a precipice in hot haste, as if conscious of the 

 long distance before it, ere it reaches the Amazon and the 

 ocean. Tunguragua was once a formidable mountain, for 

 we discovered a great stream of lava reaching from the 

 clouds around the summit to the orange-groves in the val- 

 ley, and blocking up the rivers which tumble over it in 

 beautiful cascades. It has been silent since 1780 ; but it 

 can afford to rest, for then its activity lasted seven years.* 



Close by rises beautiful Altar, a thousand feet higher. 

 The Indians call it Capac-urcu, or the " Chief." They say 

 it once overtopped Chimborazo ; but, after a violent erup- 

 tion, which continued eight years, the walls fell in. Its 

 craggy crest is still more Alpine than Caraguairazo ; eight 

 snowy peaks shoot up like needles into the sky, and sur- 

 round an altar to whose elevated purity no mortal offering 

 will ever attain. The trachyte which once formed the sum- 

 mit of this mountain is now spread in fragments over the 

 plain of Riobamba. 



Leaving this broken-down volcano, but still the most pic- 

 turesque in the Andes, we travel over the rough and rug- 

 ged range of Cubillin, till our attention is arrested by ter- 

 rific explosions like a naval broadside, and a column of 

 smoke that seems to come from the furnace of the Cy- 

 clops. It is Sangai, the most active volcano on the globe. 

 From its unapproachable crater, three miles high, it sends 

 forth a constant stream of fire, water, mud, and ashes.t 



* Spruce asserts that he saw smoke issuing from the western edge in 1 857 ; 

 and Dr. Terry says that in 1 832 smoke ascended almost always from the 

 summit. Dr. Taylor, of Riobamba, informs the writer that smoke is now 

 almost constantly visible. The characteristic rock is a black vitreous tra- 

 chyte resembling pitchstone, but anhydrous. 



t La Condamine (1742) adds " sulphur and bitumen." 



