THE MOUNTAINS AT PIRU 261 



ing; such events as came within Whittaker's experience lie 

 recounted to us, as an abandoned claim, deserted cabin, or 

 thicket-grown grave stirred his memory. 



The Condor's home was in a narrow canon with walls 

 some 200 feet in height, of conglomerate rock, polished by 

 the rush of waters at the base of the canon, like mosaic. The 

 birds had lived — they build no nest — in a cave some 50 

 feet from the top of the canon and 150 feet from the bottom. 

 This they had occupied for a number of years and probably 

 would have been nesting there now if the inevitable "man 

 with a rifle" had not tested his gun on one of the pair. 

 Doubtless he considered the shot successful and the bird 

 was left where it fell ; to be carried later away by high 

 water. While I was climbing up the more sloping wall of 

 the canon to photograph the cave-entrance, a pair of Con- 

 dors, the first I had ever seen in nature, swept majestically 

 overhead, near enough to impress me not only with their 

 great size, but with their personality. We hoped that they 

 might prove to be in possession of the old nest-site, but they 

 soon passed out of view over an adjoining mountain and 

 were seen no more. 



The following day, Mr. Hittell returned to the canon to 

 complete his sketch, braving the quicksands of the Piru 

 unaccompanied, while Mrs. Chapman and I, under the 

 leadership of Whittaker, went up the Agua Blanca to see 

 the site of a second Condor's nest. This proved to be a 

 small cave, about 100 feet from the top of a vertical cliff 

 some 500 feet in height. The surroundings being far less 

 susceptible of treatment in group form than the Piru canon 

 site, no attempt was made to examine this nest, and we con- 

 tinued our journey to the ranch in the Devil's Potrero. 



The country was wilder than that visited the preceding 

 day, the trail rougher, and on reaching an exceptionally pic- 

 turesque canon, known as the Devil's Gate, we dismounted 

 to clamber over the rocks, while Whittaker led the horses a 

 mile or more around through the woods. 



