196 JOURNAL. 
24th. —— At seven o’clock we resumed our journey, in company with 
the peon Felipe; and about a mile from Bustamante, another peon 
with baggage joined us without ceremony, and performed the rest 
of the journey with us. As the new road over the Cuesta de Prado 
makes a circuit of several miles, Felipe wisely determined on leading 
us up the old mountain-path, which, but that we had been inured 
gradually to the sight of precipices, might have appeared tremendous. 
About half a mile from Bustamante we quitted O’ Higgins’s road, and 
entered what is here called a monte or thicket * of beautiful under- 
wood, and occasionally very large trees. The giant torch-thistle, 
starting up here and there among the lower shrubs, gave a pictur- 
esque peculiarity to the scene. About the centre of the monte, 
a large clear space presented a pleasing picture: it was the resting- 
place of a string of mules employed in carrying goods across the 
cordillera ; the packages were placed in a circle, two bales together, 
and in the midst the masters and ani nals were reposing or eating, 
as pleased them ; and at their little fire, close at hand, two or three 
of the men were employed in cooking. We soon began to ascend 
the sharp and rugged mountain, and could not help stopping every 
now and then to admire the beautiful scene behind us, and to look 
down into the leafy gulfs at our feet. Here and there the windings 
of the road were marked by strings of loaded mules on their way to 
the capital, and the long call of the muleteers resounding from the 
opposite cliffs harmonised well with the scene. 
At length we reached the summit, and the Andes appeared in 
hoary majesty above a hundred ranges of inferior hills; but we had 
not yet come to the most beautiful spot; that lies about three fur- 
longs from the junction of the old and the new roads of the Cuesta 
de Prado. Looking to one side, the long valleys we had passed 
stretched out into a distance doubled by the morning mist, through 
which the surrounding hills shone in every variety of tint; on the 
other hand, lies the beautiful plain of Santiago, through which the 
The application of the word Monte arose, it seems, in the plains of Buenos Ayres, 
which are so flat, that wherever there is a grove, the distant effect is in truth that of a hill. 
