ed near us.

Well may the condor be called 'king of the air,' I thought, for never
before had I seen so majestic a bird. He was near us now, and scrutinizing
us with that bold fierce eye of his, as some chieftain in the brave days
of old might have gazed upon spies that he was about to order away to
execution. I believed then--and I am still of the same opinion--that there
was something akin to pity and scorn in his steadfast looks, as if we had
been brought here for his especial delectation and study.

'Poor wretched bipeds!' he seemed to say; 'not even possessed of feathers,
no clothes of their own, obliged to wrap themselves in the hair and skins
of dead quadrupeds. No beaks, no talons; not even the wings of a miserable
bat. Never knew what it was to mount and soar into the blue sky to meet
the morning sun; never floated free as the winds far away in the realms of
space; never saw the world spread out beneath them like a living panorama,
its woods and forests mere patches of green or purple, its lakes like
sheets of shimmering ice, its streams like threads of spiders' webs before
the day has drunk the dew, its very deserts dwarfed by distance till the
guanacos and the ostriches[15] look like mites, and herds of wild horses
appear but crawling ants. Never knew what it was to circle round the
loftiest summits of the snow-clad voiceless Andes, while down in the
valleys beneath dark clouds rolled fiercely on, and lightnings played
across the darkness; nor to perch cool and safe on peak or pinnacle, while
below on earth's dull level the hurricane Pampero was levelling house and
hut and tree; or the burning breath of the Zonda was sweeping over the
land, scorching every flower and leaf, drinking every drop of dew,
draining even the blood of moving beings till eyes ache and brains reel,
till man himself looks haggard, wild, and worn, and the beasts of the
forest, hidden in darkling caves, go mad and rend their young.'

The hermit returned with us to our camping-ground just as great bats began
to circle and wheel around, as butterflies were folding their wings and
going to sleep beneath the leaves, and the whole woodland glen began to
awake to the screaming of night-birds, to the mournful howling of strange
monkeys, and hoarse growl of beasts of prey.

We sat together till far into the night listening to story after story of
the wild adventures of our new but nameless hero, and till the moon--so
high above us now that the