142 TRAVELS AMONGST TEE GREAT ANDES, chap. vii. 



in diameter. The atoms of the finer dusts may not be so much 

 as a thousandth of an inch in diameter, or, as I shall relate in 

 Chapter XVIII., weigh one twenty-five-thousandth part of a grain. 



The night of February 15-16 passed away without excite- 

 ment. There were occasional rumblings in the bowels of the 

 mountain, and a few noises of a sharper sort, which sounded like 

 slams of doors in an ordinary stone corridor. Snow fell for 

 several hours, and in the morning the tent and packing-cases 

 were laden with it, though it was rapidly disappearing on the 

 cone. We found this usually happened.^ Several inches of snow 

 fell every day, but it remained only a short time, notwithstand- 

 ing the temperature of the air, which was sometimes as low as 

 24° Faht. The warmth of the cone quickly liquefied it ; the 

 snow-water descended immediately into the porous soil, and the 

 mountain steamed from head to foot. It is in this way the 

 atmosphere of haze is produced to which I have already referred. 



Our first business in the morning was to improve the shelter 

 for our people, and to sort them off — for there were too many 

 mouths to feed. The whole of the Machachi men were told 

 they might go home, or stop, as they pleased ; and that those 

 who stopped should receive a silvered cross in addition to their 

 pay.^ '^'^ If I did not believe in that/' said the oldest of the 

 troop, Gregorio Albuja, " I would not have come liere. I will 

 stop with you '' ; and, taking the cross, which I held out, he 

 pressed it reverently to his lips, and then passed it to his com- 

 panions, who did the same. Two others agreed to stop, and the 

 rest returned home. 



Those who remained we now proceeded to dress up in accord- 



1 Snow fell on Cotopaxi, in February, quite 1000 feet lower than upon Chim- 

 borazo in January. 



"^ I took to Ecuador a number of gilt and silvered crosses, and made use of them 

 as rewards for special services. The worship of the cross was introduced into this 

 country at the point of the sword, and has been developed by means of the whip. 

 It is now firmly rooted there, amongst all classes. Even the Indians voluntarily 

 make for themselves such rude crucifixes as that in the illustration upon p. 156. 



