162 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
and some quite aged ones, and at first we could 
not understand it for it was quite a toilsome climb; 
but presently we saw that there was a cross on the 
top and these were devout people going up to pray. 
When we reached the summit we found groups of 
kneeling women and children around the monument 
of a Jesuit Mission surmounted by a cross, and as 
we approached we heard the low murmurs of their 
“Aves” and “Credos.” We wandered on to the far- 
ther brow of the hill and waited for sunset. The whole 
panorama of the Andes, magnificent from this point, 
grew purple and rosy in the glow, and all the outlines 
of the peaks of the abrupt jagged walls and volcano- 
like summits were clearly defined against the eastern 
sky. It was beautiful, but the Andes have none of the 
loveliness of the Alps; none of the lower green slopes 
and soft pasturage grounds that lead you gently up 
to the rocky summits. The Andes rise arid, rugged, 
stern from base to crest; there is nothing to break a 
something in their character which seems to me for- 
bidding, terrible almost. We stood watching till the 
last rays of the sun died upon them, lighting up the 
cross too and the kneeling people on the hillside, 
gathered now in numbers. As we went down we saw 
the candles glimmering at the foot of the cross, and 
here and there a single lamp burning at some of the 
intermediate stations where they kneel to rest and 
pray on their way up. 
We returned at six o’clock and dined in our room 
(it was not much the habit for senhoras to go to the 
table d’hote and there are no hotel parlors), waited on 
