utions of nature."--_Helms_.
"More sublime than the Alps by their _ensemble_, the Andes lack those
curious and charming details of which Nature has been so lavish in the
old continent."--_Holinski_.]

Beneath the Southern Cross, out of a sea perpetually swept by fearful
gales, rise the rocky hills of Terra del Fuego. It is the starting-point
of that granite chain which winds around the earth in a majestic curve,
first northwesterly to the Arctic Sea, thence by the Aleutian and
Japanese Isles to Asia, crossing the Old World southwesterly from China
to South Africa.

Skirting the bleak shores of Patagonia in a single narrow sierra, the
Andes enter Chile, rising higher and higher till they culminate in the
gigantic porphyritic peak of Aconcagua. At the boundary-line of Bolivia,
the chain, which has so far followed a precise meridional direction,
turns to the northwest, and, at the same time, separates into two
Cordilleras, inclosing the great table-land of Desaguadero. This
wonderful valley, the Thibet of the New World, has four times the area
of New York State, and five times the elevation of the Catskill Mountain
House. At one end of the valley, perched above the clouds, is silvery
Potosi, the highest city in the world; at the other stands the once
golden capital of Cuzco. Between them is Lake Titicaca[58] (probably an
ancient crater), within which is an island celebrated as the cradle of
the strange empire of Peru, which, though crushed by Pizarro in its
budding civilization, ranks as the most extraordinary and extensive
empire in the annals of American history. The Cordillera, of which
Sahama, Sorata, and Illimani are the pinnacles, so completely inclose
this high valley that not a drop of water can escape except by
evaporation. At the silver mines of Pasco the Andes throw off a third
cordillera, and with this triple arrangement and a lower altitude, enter
the republic of Ecuador. There they resume the double line, and surpass
their former magnificence. Twenty volcanoes, presided over by the
princely Chimborazo and Cotopaxi, rise out of a sublime congregation of
mountains surrounding the famous valley of Quito. In New Granada there
is a final and unique display of Andine grandeur: the Cordilleras
combine just above the equator into one dizzy ridge, and then spread out
like a fan, or, rather, like the graceful branches of the palm. One
sierra bends to the east, holding in its lap the city of Bogota, and,
rolling off a