. The Spanish-American republics . stepping-stones, but which was now swollen into a formidable torrent tumblingalong violently through a rocky and pathless ravine. Here we spentsome time before we could find a spot where the mules could passwith safety, and even then we had to ford it with the water washingover our mules backs. I will here remark, without insisting uponsuch a trifling detail, that in fording these swift torrents, if you hap-pen to look down instead of straight ahead, the water and the muleseem to be stationary, while the banks are rushing past with alarmingrapidity. People wh
. The Spanish-American republics . stepping-stones, but which was now swollen into a formidable torrent tumblingalong violently through a rocky and pathless ravine. Here we spentsome time before we could find a spot where the mules could passwith safety, and even then we had to ford it with the water washingover our mules backs. I will here remark, without insisting uponsuch a trifling detail, that in fording these swift torrents, if you hap-pen to look down instead of straight ahead, the water and the muleseem to be stationary, while the banks are rushing past with alarmingrapidity. People who are subject to giddiness will do well not to at-tempt to cross the Andes. ACROSS THE ANDES. 43 In the course of the afternoon we arrived safely at the camp ofPunta de las Vacas, where an amiable Scotch engineer gave us hos-pitality and accepted with pleasure a little whiskey—a rarity at thisheight above the sea-level. This camp is one of the loneliest, mostdesolate, and most arid of the whole line, the only living things near. it being pumas, guanacos, andvultures. The engineer had asa pet a young guanaco, which wandered freely about the camp and fondled everybody. This spe-cies of animal—something between an antelope and a llama—is veryprolific and abundant in the upper valleys of the Cordillera. In thecamp of Punta de las Vacas, as in all the camps that I visited, I founda warm welcome, and spent a pleasant evening with my host and DonCarlos, the paymaster, who also stayed there that night. The nextmorning I left the track of the railway, crossed the Mendoza River ona shaky wooden bridge, rode along the Rio de las Cuevas for a shortdistance, among bowlders and rocks, and then rejoined the ordinarymule-road from Mendoza to Chili, a good broad path, very differentfrom the scarcely visible bridle-paths which I had been followinghitherto on the other side of the river. The scenery, too, began tostow less arid. Walls of loose stones enclosed vast potreros, for 44 THE SPANI
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