over the precipice. We
had been scrambling up for a long way over places which it appeared
scarcely possible even goats would surmount, when one of the baggage
mules stopped short and refused to proceed. Several others followed his
example, and the whole cavalcade in the rear was brought to a
stand-still. Blows could not be administered, for the muleteers could
not get up to the beasts; and entreaties, coaxings, and persuasions were
all in vain. I could not help laughing at the variety of expressions
the men made use of to induce the animals to move. First they addressed
them by every endearing epithet they could think of, then they appealed
to their courage, their magnanimity, their perseverance--the deeds of
their ancestors.

"Have not I always treated you well?" exclaimed our muleteer Juan to his
beast. "Have not I always seen you housed and fed before I thought of
caring for myself? Have not I slept by your side and watched over you
as a father his son? Ungrateful as you are thus to behave at this
pinch! If we meet another party, we shall be all hurled headlong over
the rocks, or we shall have to fight desperately and have to hurl them
over, and all for your obstinacy, sons of donkeys that you are!"--and he
broke forth in a torrent of vituperation and abuse which it is not
necessary for me here to repeat.

"If the Montoneros should meet us now, what will become of us?" cried
the padre.

"It is the last place they would think of attacking us in," observed my
father. "Their object is to get possession of our purses and our
beasts; now if they attacked us here, the greater number of us would be
tumbled over into the torrent below, so they would lose their booty."

"That's a satisfaction truly," observed the padre; "but I wish the
beasts would move."

The beasts, however, seemed not a bit inclined to stir, and we had no
remedy for it but to wait patiently, or throw them and our luggage over
the precipice. As I looked up and saw the huge boulders of rock which
hung above our heads, appearing as if the touch of a vicuna's hoof would
send them rushing down to overwhelm us in their fall, I certainly did
feel anxious to get out of their way. At last the leading mule,
somewhat rested, began to move, the others followed him for a few
minutes, and they all stopped again. The same process of entreating,
coaxing, and abusing was gone over again; when the refractory cavalcade
moved on once more for a few paces,