[The story of the Andes and the great river to which this mountain-chain gives birth has never been better told than in Orton's "The Andes and the Amazon," from which we select the following description of Chimborazo and its mountain neighbors. James Orton, born at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1830, became a Congregationalist clergyman, and in 1867 headed an exploring expedition to South America. In 1873 he sought that continent again, and died on Lake Titicaca, September 24, 1877.] Coming up from Peru through the cinchona forests of Loja, and over the barren hills of Assuay, the traveller reaches Riobamba seated on the threshold of magnificence,--like Damascus, an oasis in a sandy plain, but, unlike the Queen of the East, surrounded with a splendid retinue of snowy peaks that look like icebergs floating in a sea of clouds. On our left is the most sublime spectacle in the New World. It is a majestic pile of snow, its clear outline on the deep blue sky describing the profile of a lion in repose. At noon the vertical sun, and the profusion of light reflected from the glittering surface, will not allow a shadow to be cast on any part, so that you can easily fancy the figure is cut out of a mountain of spotless marble. This is Chimborazo,--yet not the whole of it,--you see but a third of the great giant. His feet are as eternally green as his head is everlastingly white; but they are far away beneath the banana and cocoanut palms of the Pacific coast. Rousseau was disappointed when he first saw the sea; and the first glimpse of Niagara often fails to meet one's expectations. But Chimborazo is sure of a worshipper the moment its overwhelming grandeur breaks upon the traveller. You feel that you are in the presence-chamber of the monarch of the Andes. There is sublimity in his kingly look of which the ocean might be proud. "All that expands the spirit, yet appeals, Gathers around this summit, as if to show How earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave vain man below." [Illustration: THE MONARCHS OF THE ANDES]