"It was rather late in the autumn, and he was going alone from Mendoza to Santa Rosa, having been hired by a merchant of the former place to take an important message over the mountains. He had passed the summit in safety, and reached this casucha just at sunset, when he saw a temporale sweeping down from the north. He dismounted in front of the casucha, and just as he had loosened his saddle and thrown it to the ground the mule sprang from him, dashed down the path, and was out of sight in a moment. The storm came, and he entered the building for safety; he afterwards ascertained that the mule tumbled over a precipice, and was killed by the fall into the chasm below. [Illustration: TRAVELLING IN THE SNOW.] "All night the snow whirled around the little dwelling, and in the morning the drifts reached to the top of the doorway. Road, cliff, and chasm were obliterated, and it would have been certain death to go on. There he remained day after day; the storm continued, and was so violent that, for much of the time, he could not see a dozen yards away. The hut was without a door, the cold was intense, and his little store of charcoal was of no use to give warmth to the wind-swept building. "He was threatened with death by starvation, as his stock of provisions was small. He ate as little as possible consistent with supporting life; hour after hour he sat and gazed at his possessions, wondering whether they would hold out until he could venture to descend from his mountain prison. On the seventeenth day the last mouthful was consumed, and on the morning of the eighteenth he had the option of dying for want of food or risking his life among the cliffs and chasms which lay beneath him and the wide stretch of forest and fertile land visible below. [Illustration: A NATURAL HIGHWAY.] "Enfeebled by his privations and trembling with the cold, he crawled from the hut and began the perilous descent. Slowly he crept forward, feeling with a stick every foot of the path, hugging closely against the cliff, standing sometimes on the edge of precipices, where another inch would have carried him sheer downwards for thousands of feet, cutting a pathway through the drifts, picking his way over streams covered with ice that threatened to crumble beneath him, fainting at times from loss of strength, and lying helpless for minutes which seemed like hours. He finally passed below the snow-line and reached the smiling valley, where he found relief. [Illustration: CUTTING STEPS ALONG THE MOUNTAIN.] "He tells me that once during this journey he actually slipped over the edge of a precipice, but caught with his hands on the rock, and saved himself from death. I drew the story from him with considerable difficulty, and his face was ashy pale as he narrated his experiences in those dreadful eighteen days. Since that time no amount of money could tempt him to venture over the mountains in the season when the temporales may be expected."