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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1858 Excerpt: ...of far-distant scenes: a small circle of friends, perhaps at that moment thinking of us. Perhaps, to tell the truth, we wished to be with them; and, above all, as we looked to our sleeping-places, thought of the comforts of home. Nevertheless, we soon fell asleep. Toward morning, however, we were reminded of our elevated region. The ground was covered with a hoar-frost, and water was frozen a quarter of an inch thick. Our guide said that this happened regularly every night in the year when the atmosphere was clear. It was the first ice we had seen in the country. The men were shivering around a large fire, and, as soon as they could see, went out to look for the mules. One of them had strayed; and while the men were looking for her, we had breakfast, and did not get off till a quarter before eight. Our road traversed the ridge of the sierra, which for two leagues was a level table, a great part composed of immense beds of red slate and blue limestone or chalk rock, lying in vertical strata. At ten o'clock we began to descend, the cold being still severe. The descent surpassed in grandeur and magnificence all that we had yet encountered. It was by a broad passage with perpendicular mountain-walls, rising in rugged and terrific peaks, higher and higher as we descended, out of which gigantic cypress-trees were growing, their trunks and all their branches dead. Before us, between these immense walls, was a vista reaching beyond the village of San Andres, twenty-four miles distant. A stream of water was dashing down over TODOS SANTOS. 235 rocks and stones, hurrying on to the Atlantic; we crossed it perhaps fifty times on bridges wild and rude as the stream itself and the mountains between which it rolled. As we descended the temperature became milder. At twelve ...