“By the faith of a soldier and a Christian,” said Carvahal as he rounded one of the hillspurs on the forenoon of the seventh day, riding beside Alonso de Molina, “methinks much more of this would pass human endurance. Look at yonder line of snow and ice sharp-edged against the sky! Hast thou ever seen the purity of such whiteness as that on earth? Doth it not seem as though this ever upward mountain road would take us rather to the gates of Heaven than to those of El-Dorado? Santiago! it would need but little faith to see the gleam of the Gates of Pearl amidst yon peaks of snow and ice--may my good St. Francis pardon me for naming things earthly and heavenly in one breath!” The young cavalier looked at him with a grave face, but with the twinkle of a smile in his eyes, and said-- “In good truth, Carvahal, this is a land of strange and mighty marvels that we are coming into, and the best proof of that is that I have never heard thee speak with such reverence of anything in any other land. Even now I feel as though I were hanging ’twixt Heaven and earth, and yet Filipillo had it from the guides this morning that, ere we descend into the valley in which Cajamarca lies, we must even pass between those same shining peaks and pyramids, and, from all they tell, nothing that we have yet seen or done will compare with the labour or the soreness of it.” “The holy Saints forfend!” said Carvahal, making a show of crossing himself, “for even El-Dorado might be too dearly won or even Heaven itself--may the Saints again forgive me--what blasphemy am I talking! Surely the strange air of this heathen land hath set my old wits a-wandering. Yet well might such a journey daunt the firmest mind.” He was right; for they, first of all Europeans, were beginning to experience that strange disorder of mind and body which is only known to those who have travelled long at great elevations, and as they went ever higher and higher their sufferings increased even as their wonder and their fear did. Men who would have charged a host single-handed at the call of faith or duty reined up their trembling steeds on the brink of frightful precipices with hands that shook as though they had never held lance or sword, and their eyes gazed blankly down into the awful voids and their hearts fluttered in their labouring breasts like the hearts of little children left alone in the darkness. Then, at length, they passed through the region of burning sun and piercing wind which lay above the soft summer of the valleys into the eternal winter that reigns unbroken through the centuries on its everlasting thrones of ice and snow.