is not
permanently covered with snow is a circumstance which may probably be
accounted for by the direction of the atmospheric currents. The east
winds penetrate into the deep recesses of the valleys, which are
sheltered against the cold south wind by the adjacent mountain ridge.
The passes have a gloomy character, and the rugged grandeur of the
surrounding country presents an aspect of chaotic wildness and
disorder. The ground is covered with huge masses of rock; and the
ungenial fruitless soil is shunned alike by plants and animals. The
thin tendrils of a lichen, here and there twining on a damp mass of
stone, are the only traces of life. Yet the remains of human industry
and activity are everywhere observable. On all sides are seen the deep
cavities which formed the entrances to the now exhausted mines. These
cavities are sometimes situated at elevated points of the almost
inaccessible walls of rock, and are occasionally found in the level
part of the valley, and close on the roadway. Instances have occurred
of travellers being killed by falling into these holes, when they have
been covered by thick falls of snow.

It is curious to observe, on the Pass of Antarangra, the partition of
the waters flowing into the two great oceans, the Atlantic and the
Pacific. Scarcely thirty paces distant from each other there are two
small lagunas. That situated most to the west is one of the sources of
the Rio de San Mateo, which, under the name of the Rimac, falls into the
Pacific. The other laguna, that to the eastward, sends its waters
through a succession of small mountain lakes into the Rio de Pachachaca,
a small tributary to the mighty Amazon river. It is amusing to take a
cup of water from the one laguna and pour it into the other. I could not
resist indulging this whim; and in so doing I thought I might possibly
have sent into the Pacific some drops of the water destined for the
Atlantic. But the whim, puerile as it may be, nevertheless suggests
serious reflections on the mighty power of nature, which has thrown up
these stupendous mountains from the bosom of the earth; and also on the
testaceous animals found on these heights, memorials of the time when
the ocean flowed over their lofty summits.

From the ridge the road runs eastward along a branch of the principal
mountain chain. This branch forms the southern boundary of a
gently-sloping valley. The declivity is terrace-formed, and on each
terrace there is a small clear