16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
life, animal or vegetable. Yet I have already
achieved one of my greatest ambitions:
I have seen the condor. And
you will be pleased to learn that I have
already collected seven distinct species
of mouse (five inhabit the fringe of the
desert, one its very heart, and the seventh
was making a nest in my papers),
while the rivers, of course, which are
fed from the high far-off snows and
which therefore flow their strongest in
the summer, provide their valleys and
their irrigated fields with a valuable
flora and fauna. But it is the high mountain
that I long to see, with its plants
and creatures unlike any others in the
world; at this moment I am booted and
spurred for a journey to the moderate
heights. My mule stands in a courtyard
close at hand, and across his saddle-