We had almost reached the top, where only a few cedars stood before us. Suddenly I fancied I could hear a tremendous rustling some distance off. I cautiously ascended to the top of the hill, and saw here, about forty yards ahead of me, three enormous condors, one of which was standing on the ground with expanded wings, while the other two were springing round it, and rising each time some feet from the ground. I sank on one knee, and sent a bullet into the broad chest of the first, while the other two fluttered their wings with a frightful yell, and soon rose high in air above me. Just as I was going to fire the second barrel, Tiger's rifle cracked behind me, and the eagle I was aiming at turned over in the air and fluttered down. I turned round to the third, and fired at it as it was soaring over the depths near us. I saw the bullet enter the soft feathers under the belly, and it shot like a dart with outstretched wings between the hills, where it disappeared among the dark cedars. Tiger had cut off his eagle's head by the time I ran up to mine, and found under it an antelope, which the brave bird had just killed, and which had only lost its eyes and tongue. Its body was but slightly ripped up, but the whole back was covered with blood, which flowed from countless small holes produced by the eight-inch long claws of these rulers of the air. Tiger was beside himself for delight, for the wing and tail-feathers of these birds are the greatest ornaments an Indian knows, and he will readily give his best horse for them. He wears them on the band which confines his hair, and the claws, sewn on a strap, form a necklace. I told him I intended to skin mine, and take it home to stuff; but he was of opinion that he must fetch the feathers of the third condor, which had fallen into the valley, and he at once disappeared. I did not consider it possible to get down there, and utterly so to find the eagle, for I had watched it fly at least a mile. I at once set to work skinning my bird, and had not finished when Trusty growled, and Tiger really soon ran up with the spoils of the other bird. These condors rarely come down into the lower hills; they live exclusively on the highest points of the Andes, which no human foot treads, and from the lower lands can only be seen as black dots on the blue sky. The last night's storm must have surprised these wanderers in their eyrie, and carried them before it, till they sought shelter in these mountains. Starving from their involuntary journey, they wished to taste the delicate game of these countries, which are not situated so near the clouds, when our bullets cut off their return home. The condor I first shot was by far the largest, and probably the mother of the other two, which she was training to plunder; while, on the division of the spoil, she reserved the right of taking her share first. The outstretched wings of this bird measured from end to end very nearly fifteen feet.