Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Steeps Appeared Still More Dangerous Than They
Really Were; And, During Six Hours Of Continual Descent, We Seemed
To Be Always Equally Near The Farms At The Foot Of The Silla.
We
heard very distinctly the voices of men and the notes of guitars.
Sound is generally so well propagated
Upwards, that in a balloon at
the elevation of three thousand toises, the barking of dogs is
sometimes heard.* (* Gay-Lussac's account of his ascent on the 15th
of September, 1805.)
We did not arrive till ten at night at the bottom of the valley. We
were overcome with fatigue and thirst, having walked for fifteen
hours, nearly without stopping. The soles of our feet were cut and
torn by the asperities of a rocky soil and the hard and dry stalks
of the gramina, for we had been obliged to pull off our boots, the
soles having become too slippery. On declivities devoid of shrubs
or ligneous herbs, which may be grasped by the hand, the danger of
the descent is diminished by walking barefoot. In order to shorten
the way, our guides conducted us from the Puerta de la Silla to the
farm of Gallegos by a path leading to a reservoir of water, called
el Tanque. They missed their way, however; and this last descent,
the steepest of all, brought us near the ravine of Chacaito. The
noise of the cascades gave this nocturnal scene a grand and wild
character.
We passed the night at the foot of the Silla.
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