Being duly equipped, and having rested three days, we departed and began to creep up the frowning battlements of the Andes. Sometimes we seemed lost in deep and dark ravines; sometimes we threaded our way amid rocks that lifted their shaggy pinnacles over our heads, which seemed to threaten us with destruction, and sometimes, we reached a lofty peak from which we could see the rugged valley stretched out behind, and still loftier pinnacles rising up to the heavens in front. How striking the contrast between these savage mountains and the level prairie!--yet the emotions they excited were nearly the same; the same overpowering sense of vastness in nature; the same oppressive sense of my own insignificance, visited me here as upon the Pampas. There was, indeed, something exhilarating in the mountain air, and the consciousness of danger frequently experienced as we wound along the edges of the mountains with a yawning chasm of five hundred feet below, imparted something of a romantic interest to our journey. The scenery, too, was often amazingly grand, and when at last we reached the highest ridge of the Andes, and I gazed upon its glittering peaks covered with everlasting snow, I experienced a sensation which I shall never forget. They seemed indeed like bluish-white clouds piled up to the very heavens. They appeared like the ghosts of mountains, dreamy and mist-like, rather than those eternal barriers of snow-capped granite which they really are. Winding for several days along the devious path, amid the wilderness of rocky peaks and cliffs, we began to emerge from the labyrinth, and the western slope of the Andes soon opened before us. Creeping over a succession of ridges, we finally reached the undulating plain, and from an eminence, we caught a distant view of the Pacific. Proceeding through a country of great fertility we arrived at the place of our destination, thankful indeed that I had reached it in safety. CHAPTER XII. I found the city of Valparaiso to be much smaller than its commercial importance had led me to suppose. It is the chief port on the western coast of America. From this point, the principal commerce is carried on with the Islands of the Pacific and the coast of Asia. Indeed, Valparaiso is the centre of trade in this quarter of the world. Still, at the time I was there, more than twenty years ago, its population did not exceed 15,000. In 1822, it suffered from a dreadful earthquake, but it has now increased, and since the independence of Chili, it has become even more important than in former times. It is built along a bending beach, at the foot of a high bluff, which overlooks the town. The buildings are ornamented with piazzas, painted with different colors, giving the place a very lively appearance. The present number of inhabitants is about 25,000.