The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1913-04-06

from its surface. all snmmering in the
sunlight. Beyond the plain. thirty
miles away. is a long line of red and
grey mountains. their sides all bare,
their crags pierced by deep. dark
gorges. SO that they seem fun of
shadows Behind tnese mountains
again. ana some fifty or sixty miles
distant. three gigantic mountains stand
up and close the prospect,
\ Quintet of Andean Giants
That farthest TO the south IS Il long
line of precipices. crowned here and
there bv spires and towers of rock,
seventeen thousand rect in height
This is Fichu Pichu It's faces are
too steep for snow, save in the gorges
fhat scar them here and there. but
lower down, where the slopes are less
abrupt, every gully is white with
desert sand blown up by the winds
Next TO the north is huge puf-
plish black cone. streaked near IT'S top
with snow beds. and lower down by
t lines of red or grey ASH ana olaSk
lava This is FL Misti, volcano MOI
nItlfe extinct. for though there has
been no eruption for centuries, falnt
/ ctlrls of steam still rise from the
/ crater 1t stands quite alone, evil
IDENTIFY Of far more recent origin thah
the third great mass its neighoor on
/ the north, Chachani, which. though
also a volcanic rock. has long s1hcs
Efost it's crater, and rises in three great
black pinnacles. divided by Valleys
filled with snow.
Both it and Misti exceed nineteen
/ thousand feet. They are not. now
/ ever, the Hottest ground visible. Far
+ far away to the north, there tower W
4 two white giants. Ampato. and tfar'
/ Their west) the still grander Coropuna
I Ii stands alone in vast wilderness
a fiat-topped cone at the end or q
/ long ridge. based on mighty but
tresses all deep with snow and fringed
with glaciers.
/ These five mountains belong to the
! line of. the great Western Cordillera
which. runs. apparently along the line
/ OF volcanic assure, all the way north
/ 70 Ecuador and Colombia
A Solitude That Can Never Be
Peopled.
This was our first view OF the Andes
a view to which few parts of the Ole
World furnish anything similar, FOL
nowhere else. except in Iceland, anc
in Tibet and Turkistan, do snow noun
tains rise out of waterless deserts.
Yet this contrast was only par
! of the strange weirdness of the land
! scape, a landscape unlike Alps Of
/ Pyrenees or Apennines, unlike thu
Caucasus or the Himalaya, unlike the
Rocky mountains and Sierra Nevads
/ OF North America. The foreground
Of wandering sand and black stones
the sense of solitude and OF bound
less space. a space useless to mar
and a solitude he can never people
/ the grimness of these bare walls %
rock and pinnacles of untrodden snow
rising out of a land with neither house
nor field nor flower nor animal life
but only two lines of steel runnins
across the desert floor. would havs
been terrible were il not for the ex
quisite richnes sand variety of the
colors.
4 In the foreground the black rocks
and the myriad glitter of sand crystals
were sharp and clear. The tints Were
more delicate on the red hills beyond
and the stern severity of the preci-
pieces in the far background was soft
ened into tenderness by distance. The
sunlight that burned upon these lines
of iron and danced In waves of hea'
upon the rocks, seemed to bring oui
on all the nearer hills and all tht
distant crags varieties of hue. some
times contrasted, sometimes blending
into one another, for which one coulC
find no names, for pink melted into
lilac and violet into purple.
i Two months later in the forests o.
Brazil, we were to see what the sur
4 of the tropics does in stimulating al
exuberant life: here we saw wha
I beauty he can give to sterility
Climbing the Stairways of the Andes;
I This "Pampa." or fiat stretch o
ground over which the railroad runs
is the first step eastward and upward
from the sea on to the great innel
\ plateau OF Peru. and has height o
from four to Eve or six thousand feet
l Its surface is generally level, We
4 broken by ridges and hnmmocks o.