Mountain adventures in various parts of the world . ercome, occasionally, by the force of thevegetation. Wandering in this thick wood of musacese orarborescent plants, we constantly directed our coursetowards the eastern peak, which we perceived fromtime to time through an opening. On a sudden wefound ourselves again enveloped in a dense mist;the compass alone could guide us, but in advancingnorthward we were in danger at every step of findingourselves on the brink of that enormous wall ofrocks which descends almost perpendicularly tothe depth of six thousand feet towards the sea. Wewere oblig
Mountain adventures in various parts of the world . ercome, occasionally, by the force of thevegetation. Wandering in this thick wood of musacese orarborescent plants, we constantly directed our coursetowards the eastern peak, which we perceived fromtime to time through an opening. On a sudden wefound ourselves again enveloped in a dense mist;the compass alone could guide us, but in advancingnorthward we were in danger at every step of findingourselves on the brink of that enormous wall ofrocks which descends almost perpendicularly tothe depth of six thousand feet towards the sea. Wewere obliged to halt. Surrounded by clouds sweep-ing the ground, we began to doubt whether weshould reach the eastern peak before night. Hap-pily, the Negroes who carried our water and pro- 318 MOUNTAIN ADVENTURES. visions soon reached us, and we resolved to takesome refreshment. We were three quarters of an hour in reachingthe summit of the pyramid. Having arrivedthere, we enjoyed for a few minutes only the se-renity of the sky. We were at thirteen hundred. Bridge in the Cordilleras. and fifty fathoms of elevation. We gazed on anextent of sea, the radius of which was thirty-sixleagues. It was half-past four when we finished our ob-servations. Satisfied with the success of our journey,we forgot that there might be danger in descendingin the dark steep declivities covered by a smoothand slippery turf. The mist concealed the valleyfrom us, but we distinguished the double hill of LaPuerta, which, like all objects lying almost per-pendicularly beneath the eye, appeared extremely THE SILLA OF CARACAS, 319 near. We relinquished our design of passing thenight between the two summits of the Silla, andhaving again found the path we had cut throughthe thick wood of the heliconia, we soon arrived atPejual, the region of odoriferous and resinousplants. As there is scarcely any twilight in the tropics,we pass suddenly from bright daylight to moon was on the horizon, but her disk wasveile
Size: 2156px × 1159px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorheadleyj, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookyear1876
