CHAP. X. THE HACIENDA OF ANTISANA, 189 



not trust myself upon the beds which they politely vacated (loose 

 straw strewn over wooden bunks) and passed the night by 

 preference on the top of a four-foot table. 



The length of the lava-stream of Antisanilla can hardly be 

 less than seven to eight miles. I clambered to the top^ and got 

 little reward, for the farther side, as well as its upper and lower 

 extremities, Avere lost in mist. Its red colouring is probably 

 superficial, and the nucleus of the mass, I conjecture, is a very 

 dark and compact lava, specimens of which were broken out with 

 some labour.^ The surface was extremely rugged, and bore an 

 amazing quantity of the lichen Usnea florida, Fries. 



On the morning of March 6 we left for the Hacienda of 

 Antisana, led by one of Senor Eebolledo's people, who dismounted 

 from time to time, and lit the grass to shew the way to our 

 laggards. The Hacienda was a barn-like building, occupying one 

 side of a large enclosure for herding cattle ; and had remained, 

 I was told, unaltered since the visit of Humboldt. We took up 

 quarters on the first floor, and kept constant watch from its 

 little gallery for the appearance of Antisana, which had been 

 completely invisible during the last few days. We should not, 

 indeed, have had the slightest suspicion that we were in the 

 neighbourhood of a mountain of the first rank, or a mountain of 

 any kind, if the herdsmen had not told us the contrary. 



In the course of the afternoon the mists opened lazily, and 

 revealed bits here and there, and then drifted across and shut 

 them out.'-^ These occasional glimpses lasted only a few minutes 



1 " A black, sub-vitreous rock, containing small crystals of white felspar, whose 

 diameter is commonly not more than 0-125 inch. The general aspect of the 

 specimen shews it to be one of the darker varieties of andesite, a member of the 

 group of rocks that have been variously named melaphyre, pitchstone-porphyrite, 

 etc. . . The rock on the whole agrees best with augite-andesite. Its specific 

 gravity, determined by Mr. J. J. H. Teall, is 2-656."— Prof. T. G. Bonney, Proc. 

 lioijal Soc, March 13, 1884. 



2 The view facing p. 190 has been constructed from several photographs which I 

 took at this time. We did not see so much of the mountain at any single moment. 



