THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 



381 



The scene on all sides showed desolation, brightened and 

 made palpable by a clear, unclouded sky. For a time such 

 scenery is sublime, but this feeling cannot last, and then it 

 becomes uninteresting. We bivouacked at the foot of the 

 " primera linea," or the first line of the partition of waters. 

 The streams, however, on the east side do not flow to the 

 Atlantic, but into an elevated district, in the middle of which 

 there is a large saline, or salt lake ; thus forming a little Cas- 

 pian Sea at the height, perhaps, of ten thousand feet. Where 

 we slept, there were some considerable patches of snow, but 

 they do not remain throughout the year. The winds in these 

 lofty regions obey very regular laws : every day a fresh 

 breeze blows up the valley, and at night, an hour or two after 

 sunset, the air from the cold regions above descends as 

 through a funnel. This night it blew a gale of wind, and the 

 temperature must have been considerably below the freezing- 

 point, for water in a vessel soon became a block of ice. No 

 clothes seemed to oppose any obstacle to the air ; I suffered 

 very much from the cold, so that I could not sleep, and in 

 the morning rose with my body quite dull and benumbed. 



In the Cordillera further southward, people lose their lives 

 from snowstorms; here, it sometimes happens from another 

 cause. My guide, when a boy of fourteen years old, was 

 passing the Cordillera with a party in the month of May; 

 and while in the central parts, a furious gale of wind arose, 

 so that the men could hardly cling on their mules, and stones 

 were flying along the ground. The day was cloudless, and 

 not a speck of snow fell, but the temperature was low. It is 

 probable that the thermometer could not have stood very 

 many degrees below the freezing-point, but the effect on 

 their bodies, ill protected by clothing, must have been in pro- 

 portion to the rapidity of the current of cold air. The gale 

 lasted for more than a day; the men began to lose their 

 strength, and the mules would not move onwards. My guide's 

 brother tried to return, but he perished, and his body was 

 found two years afterwards, lying by the side of his mule 

 near the road, with the bridle still in his hand. Two other 

 men in the party lost their fingers and toes; and out of two 

 hundred mules and thirty cows, only fourteen mules escaped 

 alive. Many years ago the whole of a large party are sup- 



