Here and there the channel widened out, and we caught a glimpse of the sun; and at an immeasurable height above us towered the _nevados_ (snowy slopes) of the Cordillera.
The stream, if that can be called a stream which does not move, had many branches, and we could well believe, as Gondocori told us, that it was as easy to lose one's self in this watery labyrinth as in a tropical forest.
In all Pachatupec there were not ten men besides himself who could pilot a boat through its windings.

He told us, also, that this was the only pass between the eastern and western Cordillera in that part of the Andes, that the journey from San Andrea to Pachatupec by any other route would be an affair not of days but of weeks.

The water was always warm and never froze.

Whence it came nobody could tell.

Not from the melting of the snow, for snow-water was cold, and this was always warm, winter and summer.