SUMMIT OF THE CORDILLERA. 



61 



enough for one mule. The mercury in the barometer being below the 

 scale, we had to cut away the brass casing in front, and mark the height 

 of the column on the inside of the case with a pen-knife. 



June 2. — Got off at half-past ten. Road tolerably good, and not 

 very precipitous. At twelve we arrived on a level with the lowest line 

 of snow. We were marking the barometer, when a traveller rode up, 

 who proved to be an old schoolmate of mine, whom I had not seen, or 

 even heard of, since we were boys. The meeting at this place was an 

 extraordinary and very agreeable occurrence. It was also fortunate for 

 me, for my friend was head machinist at the mines of Morococha, and 

 gave us a note to the administrator, which secured us a hospitable re- 

 ception and an interesting day or two. Without this we should have 

 been compelled to pass on, for pasturage here is very scant, and the 

 people of the mines have to pay a high price for their barley straw, and 

 are not willing to give it to every stray traveller. At 2 p. m. we 

 arrived at the highest point of the road, called the pass of Antarangra, 

 or copper rock. (The pass of the Piedra Parada, or standing rock, 

 which passes by the mines of Yauli, crosses a few miles to our right.) 

 Some scattering mosses lay on a hill-side above us ; but Gibbon and I 

 spurred our panting and trembling mules to the summit of the hill, 

 and had nothing around us but snow, granite, and dark gray porphyry. 



I was disappointed in the view from this place. The peaks of the 

 Cordillera that were above us looked low, and presented the appearance 

 of a hilly country, at home, on a winter-day; while the contrast between 

 the snowy hills and the bright green of lower ranges, together with the 

 view of the placid little lakes which lie so snug and still in their midst, 

 gave an air of quiet beauty to the scene very distinct from the savage 

 and desolate grandeur I had expected. 



Gibbon, with the camera lucida, sketched the Cordillera. I ex- 

 pended a box of matches in boiling the snow for the atmospheric 

 pressure ; and poor Richards lay shivering on the ground, enveloped in 

 our pillons, a martyr to the veta. 



Veta is the sickness caused by the rarity of the atmosphere at these 

 great elevations. The Indians called it veta, or vein, because they be- 

 lieve it is caused by veins of metal diffusing around a poisonous infection. 

 It is a remarkable thing, that, although this affection must be caused by 

 absence of atmospheric pressure, yet in no case except this, (and Rich- 

 ards was ill before,) that I have known or read of, was it felt at the 

 greatest elevation, but always at a point below this — sometimes on one 

 side, sometimes on the other. The affection displays itself in a violent 

 headache , with the veins of the head swollen and turgid, a difficulty of 



