(about 13,000 feet above the sea) strangers do not become thoroughly
accustomed to the atmosphere for an entire year. The inhabitants all
recommend onions for the puna; as this vegetable has sometimes been
given in Europe for pectoral complaints, it may possibly be of real
service:--for my part I found nothing so good as the fossil shells!
When about half-way up we met a large party with seventy loaded mules.
It was interesting to hear the wild cries of the muleteers, and to
watch the long descending string of the animals; they appeared so
diminutive, there being nothing but the black mountains with which they
could be compared. When near the summit, the wind, as generally
happens, was impetuous and extremely cold. On each side of the ridge,
we had to pass over broad bands of perpetual snow, which were now soon
to be covered by a fresh layer. When we reached the crest and looked
backwards, a glorious view was presented. The atmosphere resplendently
clear; the sky an intense blue; the profound valleys; the wild broken
forms: the heaps of ruins, piled up during the lapse of ages; the
bright-coloured rocks, contrasted with the quiet mountains of snow, all
these together produced a scene no one could have imagined. Neither
plant nor bird, excepting a few condors wheeling around the higher
pinnacles, distracted my attention from the inanimate mass. I felt
glad that I was alone: it was like watching a thunderstorm, or hearing
in full orchestra a chorus of the Messiah.
On several patches of the snow I found the Protococcus nivalis, or red
snow, so well known from the accounts of Arctic navigators. My
attention was called to it, by observing the footsteps of the mules
stained a pale red, as if their hoofs had been slightly bloody. I at
first thought that it was owing to dust blown from the surrounding
mountains of red porphyry; for from the magnifying power of the
crystals of snow, the groups of these microscopical plants appeared
like coarse particles. The snow was coloured only where it had thawed
very rapidly, or had been accidentally crushed. A little rubbed on
paper gave it a faint rose tinge mingled with a little brick-red. I
afterwards scraped some off the paper, and found that it consisted of
groups of little spheres in colourless cases, each of the thousandth
part of an inch in diameter.
The wind on the crest of the Peuquenes, as just remarked, is generally
impetuous and very cold: it is said [3] to blow steadily from the
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