168 



PASSAGE ACROSS 



Proceeding among some broken ground along 

 the summit, I saw a very large wooden cross, which 

 I rode up to. It was supported by a heap of stones 

 piled round the bottom of it, but it did not stand 

 perpendicular. It was roughly hewn, morticed 

 together, and fixed by a large spike nail, which had 

 rusted the wood, and being loosely clinched, the 

 cross creaked with the wind. There was a rough 

 inscription, cut out with a knife, along the bar of 

 the cross; but it was so much above my head, and 

 so bleached by the weather, that I could not read 

 it. In the wild desolate situation in which it stood, 

 it certainly looked very appropriate and interesting, 

 and I stood at the foot of it leaning over my mule 

 until the party came up ; and then the peon told 

 me that it was placed there by two arrieros to 

 commemorate the murder of their friend. Thus 

 reminded that we had not yet risen above the bad 

 passions of man, it was painful to see the emblem 

 of his hopes standing as the monument of his 

 guilt ! 



We now found it extremely cold ; the snow was 

 very deep, and the mules' path a most extraordinary 

 one A deep narrow passage had been cut by the 



