“The Heart of the Andes”/Part 5

When our mortal nature is dazzled and wearied with too long gazing on the golden mount, where silence dwells and glory lingers longer than the day, we may descend to the Arcadian levels of the Llano at the “Heart of the Andes.” See how the plain slides, smooth as water, carrying sunshine up to the stooping forests at the left-hand base of the central mountain. On the reaches of this savanna is space and flowery pasturage for flocks and herds. Llamas may feed there undisturbed by anacondas. No serpent hugs; no scorpion nips; never a mosquito hums over this fair realm. Perpetual spring reigns. If the Arcadians wish perpetual summer, with its pests and its pleasures, they have only to mount a mule and descend; the torrid zone is but a mile below. Life here may be a sweet idyl; and the great mountains at hand will never let its idyllic quiet degenerate into pastoral insipidity.