164 



PASSAGE ACROSS 



The table, which had been fixed into the mor- 

 tar, was torn away ; and to obtain a momentary 

 warmth, the wretched people who had been con- 

 fined here had, in despair, burnt the very door 

 which was to protect them from the elements. 

 They had then, at the risk of their lives, taken out 

 the great wooden lintel, which was over the door, 

 and had left the wall above it hanging merely from 

 the adhesion of the mortar. This operation had 

 evidently been done with no instrument but their 

 knives, and it must have been a work of many 

 days. 



The state of the walls was also a melancholy tes- 

 timony of the despair and horror they had wit- 

 nessed. In all the places which I have ever seen, 

 which have been visited by travellers, I have al- 

 ways been able to read the names and histories of 

 some of those who have gone before me ; for when 

 a man has nothing to lament, but that his horses 

 have not arrived, or in fact that he has nothing to 

 do, the wall appears to be a friend to whom many 

 intrust their names, their birth-places, the place 

 they propose to visit, and sometimes even the fond 

 secrets of their hearts ; but I particularly observed 

 that, in these huts on the Andes, not a name was to 



