162 TRAVELS AMONGST THE ORE AT ANDES, chap. viri. 



nacles like the teeth of a saw, and terminated at the immediate 

 summit by sheer precipice. Tlie western side was equally un- 

 assailable, and the only way by which the top might be reached 

 was from the north, along the snow ar^te at the crest of the 

 mountain. 



In two hours we rose more than another thousand feet, and 

 (having turned sharply to the right and climbed the snow on 

 the left of the engraving) passed under the cliffs of the minor 

 (northern) peak. We were nearly sixteen thousand feet high, 

 with a clear sky, and the summit not far off ; men in good spirits, 

 rather inclined to crow, and to vaunt the superiority of the old 

 style, wdien — Heaven knows where it came from — a hailstorm 

 sent us flying for protection to the cliffs, crouching in their 

 fissures, covering our faces with our hands to save them from the 

 half-inch stones which bounded and ricochetted in all directions, 

 and smote the rocks with such fury that they dislodged or actually 

 broke fragments from the higher ledges. Twice we left our refuge 

 and were beaten back. These ice-balls were as unpleasant as a 

 shower of bullets. 



Then came a lull. Snow began to fall, at first mixed with 

 the hail, and afterwards in large flakes, thickly. The hail 

 ceased, and was succeeded by lightning. Emerging from our 

 retreat, we traversed the glacier to a small island in its midst,^ 

 and stormed the slope banked-up against the wall which forms 

 the summit ridge, and found the drifted snow along its crest 

 surmounted a sheer precipice on the eastern side. The narrow 

 way along the top led to the foot of the final peak. The route 

 could not be mistaken, though the summit was invisible and our 

 arite, rising at an increasing angle, disappeared in the thunder- 

 clouds. 



Hitherto the flashes had only glanced occasionally through 



1 This was the fifth mountain in the neighbourhood of the Equator upon which 

 we had already found glaciers. The others were Chimborazo, Carihuairazo, Illiniza 

 and Cotopaxi. 



