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.