parallel
ridges of the mountain chain, dropping one behind the other, are the
gigantic staircase by which the ice-crowned Chimborazo steps down to the
sea. A white sea of clouds covers the peaceful Pacific and the lower
parts of the coast. But the vapory ocean, curling into the ravines,
beautifully represents little coves and bays, leaving islands and
promontories like a true ocean on a broken shore. We seem raised above
the earth, which lies like an opened map below us; we can look down on
the upper surface of the clouds, and, were it night, down too upon the
lightnings....

The first to reach the brink of the crater were the French Academicians
in 1742. Sixty years after Humboldt stood on the summit. But it was not
until 1844 that any one dared to enter the crater. This was accomplished
by Garcia Moreno, now President of Ecuador, and Sebastian Wisse, a
French engineer. Humboldt pronounced the bottom of the crater
"inaccessible from its great depth and precipitous descent." We found it
accessible, but exceedingly perilous. The moment we prepared to descend
our guide ran away. We went on without him, but when half-way down were
stopped by a precipice.

On the 22d of October, 1867, we returned to Pichincha with another guide
and entered the crater by a different route. Manuel, our Indian, led us
to the south side, and over the brink we went. We were not long in
realizing the danger of the undertaking. Here the snow concealed an ugly
fissure or covered a treacherous rock (for nearly all the rocks are
crumbling), there we must cross a mass of loose sand moving like a
glacier down the almost vertical side of the crater; and on every hand
rocks were giving way, and, gathering momentum at each revolution, went
thundering down, leaping over precipices and jostling other rocks, which
joined in the race, till they all struck the bottom with a deep rumbling
sound, shivered like so many bomb-shells into a thousand pieces, and
telling us what would be our fate if we made a single misstep. We
followed our Indian in single file, keeping close together, that the
stones set free by those in the rear might not dash those below from
their feet; feeling our way with the greatest caution, clinging with our
hands to the snow, sand, rocks, tufts of grass, or anything that would
hold for a moment; now leaping over a chasm, now letting ourselves down
from rock to rock; at times paralyzed with fear, and always with death
staring us in the fa