The frosts of winter and an eternal spring are nowhere found in closer proximity than in the Peruvian highlands, for deep valleys cleave the windy Puna; and when the traveller, benumbed by the cold blasts of the mountain-plains, descends into these sheltered gorges he almost suddenly finds himself transported from a northern climate to a terrestrial paradise. Situated at a height where the enervating power of the tropical sun is not felt, and where at the same time the air is not too rarefied, these pleasant mountain vales, protected by their rocky walls against the gusts of the Puna, enjoy all the advantages of a genial sky. Here the astonished European sees himself surrounded by the rich corn-fields, the green lucerne meadows, and the well-known fruit trees of his distant home, so that he might almost fancy that some friendly enchanter had transported him to his native country, if the cactuses and the agaves on the mountain-slopes by day, and the constellations of another hemisphere by night, did not remind him of the vast distance which separates him from the land of his birth. There are regions in this remarkable country where the traveller may in the morning leave the snow-decked Puna hut, and before sunset pluck pine-apples and bananas on the cultivated margin of the primeval forest; where in the morning the stunted grasses and arid lichens of the naked plain remind him of the arctic regions, and where he may repose at night under the fronds of gigantic palms. [Illustration: GUANO ISLAND.] CHAPTER IV. THE PERUVIAN SAND-COAST. Its desolate Character--The Mule is here the ‘Ship of the Desert.’--A Shipwreck and its Consequences--Sand-Spouts--Medanos--Summer and Winter--The Garuas--The Lomas--Change produced in their Appearance during the Season of Mists--Azara’s Fox--Wild Animals--Birds-- Reptiles--The Chincha or Guano Islands. Between the Cordilleras to the east and the Pacific to the west extends, from 3° to 21° S. lat., 540 leagues long and from 3 to 20 leagues broad, a desert coast, the picture of death and desolation. Traversed by spurs of the mighty mountain-chain, which either gradually sink into the plain, or form steep promontories washed by the ocean, it rises and falls in alternate heights and valleys, where the eye seldom sees anything but fine drift-sand or sterile heaps of stone.