The famous Cuesta of San Mateo, on the Tarma road from Lima, we passed in the year 1834, and could not but wonder how, without any very serious accident, an army of cavalry, destined to celebrate the “fraternal embrace of Maquenguaio,”[19] had been able to pass the same route a few months before, when the path and staircases were yet wet and slippery from occasional showers; and when the lower or proper post-road was unfortunately impassable, from the destruction of one of the ordinary rustic bridges on the river or torrent, that runs at the bottom of the rock-locked ravine through which the regular mule-way has been opened, and by which the waters rush foaming and raging in time of heavy inland rains. This stream, like all such impetuous torrents, during the force of the rainy season on the high mountains and table-lands, carries in its course a vast number of rolling stones, the thundering noise of which rises far above the roar of the white waters as these are thrown back, and resisted incessantly, by large blocks of rocky fragments that half-choke the narrow channel, which at this remarkable place is bordered by immense rocks looking as if they had been separated by violence, or rent to give descent to the concentrated and united body of rivulets that come from many a snowy peak, mountain lake, and marsh. The hill along which runs the Cuesta road, rising on the face of the steep that overhangs this part of the stream, is of itself a grand object; but that which is seen opposite to it has the greatest elevation of any single mountain in these narrow glens: and nothing of the kind can be more strikingly magnificent than to behold it, girdled in verdure and capped in snow, from the summit of the Cuesta, where the traveller, tired with climbing, is invited to draw breath, and look around him from the cross planted here, as in almost every similar situation, by the pious among the natives, who love to decorate this emblem of their faith with wreaths of fresh and fragrant flowers. But from the better route, which winds by the river underneath, nothing of this sort is to be seen; for here the hills on each side shelve in towards their rugged foundations, until they come so close as completely to overshadow the stream. Here, too, the rider may strain his neck in looking overhead; but his eye only meets, besides a strip of the sky, pendulous succulents and tangling plants on the face of the incumbent ledge, with now and then a flower-enamoured “pica-flor,” (humming-bird,) as he fans, with a gracefully tremulous wing, the expanding blossoms that yield him delicate food and pastime. These wilds of San Mateo reminded us forcibly of the miniature wilds of Glencoe, remarkable in Scottish history; and we thought, as we passed them, of the bard of Cona (Ossian), who, in honour of the orb which the Peruvians once adored, sung with sublimity and touching pathos,