n the sun as the proud bird fearlessly wheels over the
dizzy chasm, and then, ascending above your head, sails over the dome of
Chimborazo.[71] Could the condor speak, what a glowing description could
he give of the landscape beneath him when his horizon is a thousand
miles in diameter. If

"Twelve fair counties saw the blaze from Malvern's lonely height,"

what must be the panorama from a height fifteen times higher!

[Footnote 71: Humboldt's statement that the condor flies higher than
Chimborazo has been questioned; but we have seen numbers hovering at
least a thousand feet above the summit of Pichincha. Baron Mueller, in
his ascent of Orizaba, saw two falcons flying at the height of full
18,000 feet; Dr. Hooker found crows and ravens on the Himalayas at
16,500 feet; and flocks of wild geese are said to fly over the peak of
Kintschinghow, 22,756 feet.]

Chimborazo was long supposed to be the tallest mountain on the globe,
but its supremacy has been supplanted by Mount Everest in Asia, and
Aconcagua in Chile.[72] In mountain gloom and glory, however, it still
stands unrivaled. The Alps have the avalanche, "the thunderbolt of
snow," and the glaciers, those icy Niagaras so beautiful and grand. Here
they are wanting.[73] The monarch of the Andes sits motionless in calm
serenity and unbroken silence. The silence is absolute and actually
oppressive. The road from Guayaquil to Quito crosses Chimborazo at the
elevation of fourteen thousand feet. Save the rush of the trade wind in
the afternoon, as it sweeps over the Andes, not a sound is audible; not
the hum of an insect, nor the chirp of a bird, nor the roar of the puma,
nor the music of running waters. Mid-ocean is never so silent. You can
almost hear the globe turning on its axis. There was a time when the
monarch deigned to speak, and spoke with a voice of thunder, for the
lava on its sides is an evidence of volcanic activity. But ever since
the morning stars sang together over man's creation, Chimbo has sat in
sullen silence, satisfied to look "from his throne of clouds o'er half
the world." There is something very suggestive in this silence of
Chimborazo. It was once full of noise and fury; it is now a _completed_
mountain, and thunders no more. How silent was Jesus, a completed
character! The reason we are so noisy is that we are so full of wants;
we are _unfinished_ characters. Had we perfect fullness of all things,
the beatitude of being without a want, we sho