All the high peaks are said to be of volcanic origin. Those from Mercedario to Tupungato are precipitous and craggy and decked with great glaciers. The sky line is jagged, like the walls of a ruined castle. Below the snow, the rocks are richly colored. There are vast palisades of dark reds and browns, slopes of purple streaked with yellow, and all sorts of other gorgeous combinations, and, down in the lower valleys, brilliant greens. The streams of melting snow pouring down the sides seem to take on tints that correspond. In some places they flow red, as with blood from the breast of a giant; in others, with the sun gleaming on them, they look like molten gold. The main branch of the Rio Mendoza, for instance, above Cuevas on the Argentine side, seems pink at first, and, lower down, after mixing with the waters of its tributaries, changes to a golden brown. It is one of those scenes that artists are always accused of exaggerating and adding fanciful touches to when they attempt the poor reproductions that the greatest only can give, so far are they beyond human skill to portray—one of those scenes that few mortals are gifted enough to comprehend the unutterable majesty and magnificence of even when they have an opportunity to view the originals. Even Burton Holmes, the great globe-trotter and lecturer, in relating his impression in a recent article, confesses that he could not appreciate it at first. “Naturally, we were eager at least to see this monarch mountain—Aconcagua, the King of the Cordillera,” he says. “Accordingly, we organized a little expedition, and, under the guidance of the capable young Britisher who is in charge of the livestock of the camp at Puente del Inca, and his Chilean ‘_Capitaz_,’ or chief man, we rode away up a lateral valley toward a well-known point of view, whence Aconcagua could be clearly seen. A snow-clad mountain looms up at the end of that barren valley. ‘That’s a rather fine peak,’ I remarked. ‘Well, rather,’ replied the Englishman. ‘That’s the one you have come to see; that’s Aconcagua.’ We were astounded, for the mountain seemed no huger than the Jungfrau, as viewed from Interlaken. In fact, it greatly resembles the Jungfrau in form and outline, and its setting, from this point of view, is similar. We had expected to be overwhelmed at sight of some sharp, tremendous, towering shape—some magnified Matterhorn. What we beheld was like a section of a snowy range—a culminating section of that range, perhaps—but not a sharply defined peak. Yet we were looking at the highest crest of the Western Hemisphere. Everything about us was on a scale so vast that even Aconcagua was dwarfed by the tremendous setting.”