. A sketcher's tour round the world. k and mountains, backed by the snowy summits ofthe main range. The valley of Uspallata, where we were tostop that night, lay stretched below, and a narrow dark greenstripe pointed out the potreros, or horse-pastures. Thedescent was long and tiresome, but we arrived in the valleyby twelve oclock. It is called fifteen leagues from Mendozato Villa Vicentia, and fifteen more to Uspallata, but the distancecannot be near so much. The valley contained only two or three houses, one ofwhich was the Argentine police-station and custom-house,and another had been inhab
. A sketcher's tour round the world. k and mountains, backed by the snowy summits ofthe main range. The valley of Uspallata, where we were tostop that night, lay stretched below, and a narrow dark greenstripe pointed out the potreros, or horse-pastures. Thedescent was long and tiresome, but we arrived in the valleyby twelve oclock. It is called fifteen leagues from Mendozato Villa Vicentia, and fifteen more to Uspallata, but the distancecannot be near so much. The valley contained only two or three houses, one ofwhich was the Argentine police-station and custom-house,and another had been inhabited by an Englishman, an oldman, who had managed one of the mines. I had seen himin Mendoza, where he introduced himself to me, hearing thatI was English. He told me that he had left Uspallata afortnight before, as his wife had just died, and he could notstay there any longer, but he intended to return for the corpse,and take it to Buenos Ayres to be buried. The distance wasmuch less to Valparaiso, but he said it would be easier to. %iftSSai»^5»J^>*3:-;??^Vtfll^^-Jjf;^- THE MOUNTAIN PASSES. 145 carry her across the Pampas in a waggon, than over theCordilleras on the back of a mule. Two rapid streams joined at Uspallata, and formed theriver which ran down to Mendoza; one stream came fromthe northward, the other down the ravine we were to ascendon the morrow. The water was good, and continues so asfar as Mendoza, but lower down the river runs through somemarshes and brackish lakes, and at Desaguadero it is notdrinkable. The colour of the rocks and mountains here wasvery remarkable, and, as they were quite devoid of vegetation,they showed their strata and formation in a curious way—red, yellow, brown, purple, black, and white hills and rocks,all piled one over the other. We remained at Uspallata thewhole day, which Pavon said was the custom of all travellers,and we found a Spaniard, also bound for Chili, who had beenstaying here all the day before, having suffered mu
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade185, booksubjectvoyagesaroundtheworld
