PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OP PERU. 



33 



is by the heavy load of his body, is capable of ascending. 

 Thou art not yet deserving of the laurels of Nature, constantly 

 just in her awards. She reserves them for those who ascend 

 the elevated tops of the Andes mountains ; and surveys with 

 complacency the weak mortal seated on the lofty summit on 

 which the eagle dares not alight, nor even venture a regard. 

 It is there that she shines in her most pompous array, crown- 

 ing the temples of the hero, not with the opaque metals with 

 which we strive to imitate the splendor of glory*, but with 

 the translucent and beautiful colours of the iris-f. 



If 



* An allusion is here made to the golden suns worn by the ancient sovereigns of 

 Peru. 



t The academicians who visited Peru to measure a degree of the meridian under 

 the Equator, have, in their different works, described, in terms of the highest ad- 

 miration, the extraordinary phenomenon which is seen at sun-rise on our cordilleras, 

 and which they discovered for the first time in the wild heaths of Pambamarca. " At 

 day-break," observes Ulloa, " the whole of the mountain was enveloped in dense 

 clouds, which at sun-rise were dissipated, leaving behind them vapours of so extreme 

 a tenuity as not to be distinguishable to the sight. At the side opposite to that where 

 the sun rose on the above mountain, and at the distance of about sixty yards from 

 the spot where we were standing, the image of each of us was seen represented, as 

 if in a mirror, three concentric irises, the last, or most exterior colours of one of 

 which touched the first of the following one, being centered on the head. Without 

 the whole of them, and at an inconsiderable distance, was seen a fourth arc purely 

 white. They were all perpendicular to the horizon ; and in proportion as any one 

 of us moved from one side to the other, he was accompanied by the phenomenon, 

 •which preserved the same order and disposition. What was, however, most re- 

 markable, was this, that although six or seven persons were thus standing close to- 

 gether, each of us saw the phenomenon as it regarded himself, but did not perceive 

 it in the others. This is a kind of apotheosis," adds Bouguer, " in which each of 

 the spe£lators, seeing his head adorned with a glory formed of three or four concen- 

 tric crowns of a very vivid colour, each of them presenting varieties similar to those 



F of 



