The excursion was known to be hazardous. Mr. Millican thus describes its fatal termination:

'Early in the morning, after breakfast, I started into the forest with four of the men, leaving the other two in ambush to watch the canoe, for fear the Indians should take away our only means of getting back to the Magdalena. I was delighted to find the trees on the rising ground from the banks of the river hung with fine clumps of Miltonia vexillaria, intermixed with Oncidium carthaginense and several smaller orchids, and I was priding myself upon reaping a glorious harvest. But that night all my plans were destined to be crushed. Everybody was in good spirits at our evening meal, but we had scarcely finished and lighted our roll of tobacco when the twang of an arrow, as it whistled past my head, startled everyone to his feet. In another moment one of our number was pierced with three of the deadly poisoned arrows, and mortally wounded.'

There is something so cruel in the use of deadly arrows, and something so insufferably conceited on the part of these natives in wishing to keep their lands to themselves and to resist the intrusion of Europeans and Chinese, that every Christian heart will be gratified to learn that their impertinence was well chastised, when a blaze of fire poured out ' of five trusty rifles, and a terrible howl rose from the 'throats of the surprised and wounded Indians.'

The accomplished Swedish naturalist, Dr. Carl Bovallius, had to pay the same kind of toll as the other travellers for enjoying the wonderful sights and obtaining the remarkable products of the tropical regions. At San Juan del Norte he was made almost a prisoner by weeks of rain. To be sure it often ceased raining for an hour or two in the middle of the day, but twice it rained for seven days at a stretch, and once for nine days without a minute's cessation. At Panama his progress was stopped and his life endangered by one of the fevers for which that particular locality is celebrated. Once, when desiring to secure a specimen and determine the species of the Nicaraguan tapir, he was posted by his Indian guide at a spot where many wild creatures were accustomed to come and drink after sundown. Here he stood for two hours without shooting anything but a monkey and a couple of toucans, but meantime,' he says, 'I was so 'bitten to pieces by mosquitoes that my whole face swelled up, and I could scarcely open my eyes sufficiently to find my way back to the farmstead.' Another time, when about to repack his valuable collection of animals in spirit, he made the unpleasing discovery that his store of it was almost exhausted. Not to put the sobriety of the servants

at the farm where he lodged to too violent a test, he had deposited his cask of spirit with the superintendent of the telegraph station, the only official dignitary in the neighbourhood. This eminent personage drank it dry, and, as at that time and place it could not be replenished, Dr. Bovallius was forced to throw away his reptiles and valuable anatomical preparations. This was a sufficiently heartrending loss. A friend seriously assured the culprit that half a dozen very poisonous snakes had been preserved in the spirit. Upon this the man fell on his knees and confessed his guilt. Terror presently threw him into a fever, with the result that Dr. Bovallius suffered the further damage of having to spend a portion of his scanty store of quinine upon the mischievous wretch.

The disgusts and hardships, however, of an explorer's life are not without some compensations. When the orchid hunter was engaged on his painful tramp, the path, he says, all the while lay through the midst of a vegetation of indescribable luxuriance and beauty

gigantic timber trees, from 70 to 100 feet in height, festooned to the very summit with creeping Allamandas, all aglow with their golden trumpet-like flowers, mixed and varied with the scarlet stars of the Tacsonia van Volxemi, or the rich blue of the Ipomoea, and the undergrowth of palms of the elegant Phoenix and Cocos families These were supplemented by a carpet of the most beautiful mosses and low flowering shrubs; while on the banks of the streams the deep crimson flowers of the creeping Cyrtodeira fulgida contrasted beautifully with its richly pencilled leaves of velvet and gold. . . . Large and small lizards, of the most exquisite markingssome of which seemed to possess a coat of mail made of silver and turquoise disturbed in their afternoon nap, hurried quickly out of sight in the long grass, while birds of every fantastic shape and colour flitted in and out of the feathery palms.'

Nor is it always nature alone as distinguished from man that affords a pleasing prospect. In crossing the Paramo Mr. Millican became separated from the boy who carried his provisions. It grew towards evening; a mist came on. The intersecting tracks were almost obscured. Belated and

forlorn, he and those with him reached at length the mountain top. Here, at about 12,000 feet above the level of the sea, was a solitary hut, the refuge for which they had been striving. A recent hurricane had torn away more than half of the roof. The cold was intense, near to the freezing point. In these unpromising quarters lived a family of the poorest Indians; their only visible resources were a few potatoes. But what they had they gladly shared with

those who for the moment were worse off than themselves. Their hospitality and good nature were scarcely credible.' Under similar circumstances of distress Mr. Whymper came unexpectedly upon a cottage in the wilderness, and there received that

'honest offered courtesy,

Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds
With smoky rafters, than in tapestry halls
In courts of princes, where it first was named,
And yet is most pretended.'

After being lost in a snowstorm and passing the night in a lair of the wild cattle, he and his dog, or, more properly speaking, his dog and he, found their way down a disused track with the result, he says, that

66

'About 7.30 A.M. we suddenly emerged on to the open, and at the foot of a grassy hill saw a little Indian hut, emitting blue smoke, curling upwards in front of the plain, with a man and woman outside busy at their morning work. I smelt breakfast, and pounced down on them like a hawk. "Have you locro?" Yes, Señor." "Give me some locro" (said very peremptorily). "That I will, Señor (said heartily), and he brought out a basinful at once, with another for the dog, and we all sat outside in the sunshine, eating potato-soup together. They were an old, homely couple, unencumbered either by bashfulness or servility. He pressed us to take more, and came down the river's side until the outlying houses of the village were seen, and then, with a polite salutation, was about to take leave; but I detained him, and, pouring my loose money into his hand, left him in stupefied adoration, uncertain whether he had seen a vision or entertained a gringo.'

In recalling this idyllic episode the mind of the traveller may find as much satisfaction as in dwelling upon the rare opportunity which he enjoyed on his second ascent of Chimborazo. On this occasion, in a serene sky, long before dawn, the explorer could perceive the cone of Cotopaxi, 60 miles away, clear cut against a cloudless horizon. For once the crater of the great volcano was quite free from smoke and steam. Suddenly two puffs of steam were emitted, and then there was a pause. In five minutes more a column of inky blackness began to issue and went straight up in the air with such prodigious velocity that in less 'than a minute it had risen 20,000 feet above the rim of the crater.' The top of the column was, therefore, 40,000 feet above the level of the sea. At that height it encountered a powerful wind blowing from the east, and was rapidly borne towards the Pacific. From their own lofty position the travellers had a magnificent view. Between

6

them and the sea the whole expanse from north to south was filled by the Pacific range of Ecuador, with countless 'peaks and ramifications-valleys, vallons, dells and dales, 'backed by the ocean, rising above the haze which obscured the flat coast land.' When the clouds from Cotopaxi began to intervene between them and the sun, the face of that luminary turned green, an effect which is said to be sometimes produced on the human countenance by fear. High up in the sky were smears of verdigris, changing to bloodred hues and gleams as of tarnished copper or shining brassstrange tints and tones of colour, impressive beyond expression or compare, uniquely wild. After no long time the dust of which the magic clouds were composed began to settle on the summit of Chimborazo. Then all the view was blotted out. Bitter cold ensued, with a sharp wind and darkness that might be felt. But for all that the explorers, from a wonderful vantage-ground, had been present at the birth of a great volcanic eruption.

It must not be supposed that Mr. Whymper was always contented with viewing Cotopaxi from a standpoint 60 miles distant. On the contrary he entertained the idea of camping upon or close to the apex of its cone. He reasonably thought that if he and his party could remain at this height, 19,500 feet, for a length of time, without suffering inconvenience from the low reigning pressure, there might be good grounds for hope that exploration elsewhere might be carried 4,000 or 5,000 feet higher. He did not take the Carrels into his confidence in regard to the experiments upon mountain sickness, well knowing the effect of prejudice or preconception upon the unscientific mind. But a residence on the top of Cotopaxi might give an opportunity such as does not often occur of looking by night into the bowels of ' a first-rate active volcano.' This was a chance which Mr. Whymper himself by no means despised, and to JeanAntoine Carrel it was sure to be a considerable allurement. That shrewd and excellent mountaineer was, therefore, led to ponder on the fame and mystery attaching to Cotopaxi, till at last he observed to his employer: You have raised 'within me a great desire to look into this animal.' When the edge of the crater was eventually reached the 'animal proved to be alive, for it gave a roar, but it was not at the time in a dangerously excited condition. During the twentysix hours passed on the summit there was no recurrence of the sickness felt on an earlier occasion. Except for an overpowering desire to sit down and a disposition to breathe

through the open mouth, no perceptible effects were here produced by the low atmospheric pressure experienced. At night time the longed-for view of the interior of the crater was obtained. Within the great rugged amphitheatre cavernous recesses belched forth smoke; even halfway down were chasms shining with ruddy light. At lower depths the fiery fissures became more numerous, and near the centre, 1,200 feet below the margin of the crater, was a rudely circular opening, 'filled with incandescent, if not 'molten lava, glowing and burning, with flames travelling to and fro over its surface, and scintillations scattering as 'from a wood fire, lighted by tongues of flickering flame ' which issued from cracks in the surrounding slopes.'

He

The scientific spirit of the present day is little disposed to exaggeration. The real wonders of nature, brought to light by the improvement in our instruments of research, are so many and so astonishing that the imaginative faculty has enough to do to keep pace with the matter-of-fact record. In Mr. Whymper's book some noteworthy reductions are made upon old measurements and calculations. The slopes of the cone of Cotopaxi, for instance, have been heretofore stated to form angles of 40° and upwards. In an old picture, often copied, its northern and southern slopes are represented as rising at an angle of 50°.' Mr. Whymper, however, found that the general angles of these slopes were rather less than 30°, and that those of the eastern and western sides, though somewhat steeper, scarcely exceeded 32°. lowers the proud head of Chimborazo by some 900 feet. He deducts about twice as many from the previously accepted height of Sara-urcu, and will not allow it to be a volcano even of dowager rank. The population of Quito, commonly said to 'range from 60,000 to 80,000,' he estimates at a total of 30,000, or at 35,000 if the suburbs be included. But scarcely anything suffers more at his hands than the magnificent condor. The size and strength of this awe-inspiring vulture he does not indeed undervalue. It is in regard to the range and speed of its flight that his scepticism is displayed. According to Humboldt, the massive pinions of the bird enable it to soar over all the summits of the Andes, to circle for hours in those regions of low pressure, and thence on a sudden to descend to the seashore, thus passing rapidly through all gradations of climate. From Professor Orton is quoted the statement that the condor can dart in an instant from the dome of Chimborazo to the sultry coast of the 'Pacific.' Such declarations appear to have aroused no