122 TRAVELS AMONGST THE GREAT ANDES, chap. vi. 



short time on the top, and had only obtained fragmentary 

 views of the crater, and had given rather divergent accounts of 

 it. .Opportunities do not often occur of looking by night into 

 the bowels of a first-rate, active volcano, and the idea of camp- 

 ing upon the apex of the cone grew upon me, the more I 

 thought about it. By doing so, I proposed to kill two birds 

 with one stone. The project could not be executed without the 

 active co-operation of both the Carrels, and it was useless to 

 mention it so long as the frost-bitten feet of Louis remained 

 unhealed. 



I therefore kept the scheme to myself until the times 

 appeared favourable ; and when Louis began to mend, and 

 there was a prospect of his being able to get to work again, 

 I broached the matter diplomatically and circuitously ; and, 

 concealing my principal motive, harped upon the secondary 

 ones ; spoke of the famous eruptions of Cotopaxi, referred to 

 the discrepancies in the determinations of its height, to the 

 uncertainty of the nature of its crater, the delights of being 

 warm in camp, and the opportunity of having a peep into the 

 subterranean world, and contrasted the dicta of various eminent 

 authorities to shew how little volcanic knowledge had advanced, 

 and spoke long without effect. At last, my Chief of the Staff 

 said one day, in his own peculiar idiom', " You have raised 

 within me a great desire to look into this animal," and I knew 

 then that the matter was as good as settled, for the younger 

 man seldom opposed the wishes of his imperious cousin. 



When the gashes in the frost-bitten feet of Louis began to 

 heal, and he could hobble about, preparations for our adventure 

 were set agoing. To lessen risks, I divided the instruments ; 

 we studied economical methods of cooking ; added to our wraps, 

 and rehearsed generally ; and then we recrossed the TiupuUo 

 ridge ' to the farm of Eosario, to get a profile view of the mount- 



1 Stopj)ed for a time at the tambo of S. Ana, and inquired of the man who 

 kept it if he had ever known stones thrown out by Cotopaxi as far as his place, 



