In The Evening The Stream Is Muddy
And Full, But About Daybreak It Becomes Clearer, And Much
Less Impetuous.
This we found to be the case with the Rio
Vacas, and in the morning we crossed it with little difficulty.
The scenery thus far was very uninteresting, compared
with that of the Portillo pass. Little can be seen beyond the
bare walls of the one grand flat-bottomed valley, which the
road follows up to the highest crest. The valley and
the huge rocky mountains are extremely barren: during the
two previous nights the poor mules had absolutely nothing
to eat, for excepting a few low resinous bushes, scarcely a
plant can be seen. In the course of this day we crossed some
of the worst passes in the Cordillera, but their danger has
been much exaggerated. I was told that if I attempted to
pass on foot, my head would turn giddy, and that there was
no room to dismount; but I did not see a place where any
one might not have walked over backwards, or got off his
mule on either side. One of the bad passes, called _las
Animas_ (the souls), I had crossed, and did not find out
till a day afterwards, that it was one of the awful dangers.
No doubt there are many parts in which, if the mule should
stumble, the rider would be hurled down a great precipice;
but of this there is little chance. I dare say, in the spring,
the "laderas," or roads, which each year are formed anew
across the piles of fallen detritus, are very bad; but from
what I saw, I suspect the real danger is nothing.
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