Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/178

156 Tala, Mimosa, &c, that cover the gentle slopes rising one above another to the foot of the mountains, and, following the cattletracks, had great difficulty in preserving our skins and clothes whole from the almost impassable barrier of formidable thorns. Of course, Indian-file was the order of the day for another league, which brought us to the foot of the mountains,—a bold and towering range, flanked by a rushing mountain torrent, which we had to cross, and thence, excelsior, through dense forests of very fine growth, the trees averaging sixty to eighty feet, with a dense brushwood of sweetly-scented medicinal herbs, with which the Sierras abound, and which, crushed by the horses' hoofs, presented us with a real mountain bouquet.

Hard work for the horses! for besides having to cross mountain streams every five minutes, granitic slippery boulders of two or three feet high everywhere blocked our path and had to be surmounted, the rider generally clinging to the horse's neck. A sudden turn in the path brought us to an open space from which the view was exquisite, hill and dale melting into that airy purple gauze which separates the physical from the ideal. No sound to break the solemn stillness, save the distant roar of some mountain torrent or the plaintive cooing of some solitary dove. Here both Nature and our own bodily wants invited us to rest; and what fitter place for horse or man? Luxuriant herbage for the former, for the latter the sombre shade of the towering Quebracho, Algarroba, Tala, Coco, Espinillo, Tintitaco, and the Chanà, the latter of which produces a fruit much resembling the date in flavour. A bubbling stream at our feet, a back-ground of picturesque boulders, many of which, half-hidden in the dense foliage, weighed hundreds of tons, and beds of moss inviting to the midday siesta. Lazily reclining, "sub tegmine fagi," and watching those richly ornamented flying-flowers chasing one another through space, grandeur, solitariness and thoughts of home and distant friends flit through the mind. But time is inexorable; we resume our march, and, leaving the woods behind, emerge upon ground covered with long coarse grass springing from between the stones. The absence of animal life is characteristic of this elevated region; for with the exception of here and there an Eagle perched on a giddy rocky eminence, or a noble Condor circling high, like a moving speck, in the lofty air, nothing relieves the monotony of the noiseless scene; and yet how the