ronic inflammation, swelling of
the eyelids, dimness of sight, and even total blindness are the
frequent consequences of the surumpe. In the Cordillera, Indians are
often seen sitting by the road-side shrieking in agony, and unable to
proceed on their way. They are more liable to the disease than the
Creoles, who, when travelling in the mountains, protect their eyes by
green spectacles and veils.

Heavy falls of snow in the Cordillera are usually accompanied by
thunder and lightning. During five months of the year, from November to
March, storms are of daily occurrence. They begin, with singular
regularity, about three o'clock in the afternoon, and continue until
five or half-past five in the evening. After that time storms of
thunder and lightning never occur; but the falls of snow sometimes
continue till midnight. As evening approaches, cold mists are drifted
from the mountain-tops down upon the plains; but they are dispersed by
the rays of the morning sun, which in a few hours melt the snow. The
furious tempests in these regions exceed any idea that can be formed
of them, and can only be conceived by those who have witnessed them.
Some of these mountain districts have acquired an ominous character for
storms; Antaichahua is one of the places to which this sort of fearful
celebrity belongs. For hours together flash follows flash, painting
blood-red cataracts on the naked precipices. The forked lightning darts
its zig-zag flashes on the mountain-tops, or, running along the ground,
imprints deep furrows in its course; whilst the atmosphere quivers
amidst uninterrupted peals of thunder, repeated a thousandfold by the
mountain echoes. The traveller, overtaken by these terrific storms,
dismounts from his trembling horse, and takes refuge beneath the
shelter of some overhanging rock.

In these sterile heights, Nature withholds her fostering influence
alike from vegetable and animal life. The scantiest vegetation can
scarcely draw nutriment from the ungenial soil, and animals shun the
dreary and shelterless wilds. The condor alone finds itself in its
native element amidst these mountain deserts. On the inaccessible
summits of the Cordillera that bird builds its nest, and hatches its
young in the months of April and May. Few animals have attained so
universal a celebrity as the condor. That bird was known in Europe, at
a period when his native land was numbered among those fabulous
regions which are regarded as the scenes o