Aspects of the Valley. 45 
there would appear a sinuous shiny line, like a 
serpent with glittering skin lying at rest on the 
grass. For the river must have been to the abori- 
ginal inhabitants of the valley the one great central 
unforgettable fact in nature and man’s life. If as 
nomads or colonists from some cis- or trans- 
Andean country, they had originally brought hither 
The River by moonlight. 
traditions, and some super- 
natural system that took its form and colour from a 
different nature, these had been modified, if not wholly 
dissolved and washed away in that swift eternal 
green current, by the side of which they continued 
to dwell from generation to generation, forgetting 
all ancient things. he shining stream was 
always in sight, and when, turning their backs 
on it, they climbed out of the valley, they saw only 
