16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
Two hundred feet below them he lay, and the
cliff dropped sheer. They pondered, searching
in vain for any way down; they measured the
declining sun, the shadows rising below them;
unwillingly they turned, and as they turned first
the male condor and then his mate began
their first wheeling sweeps high overhead.
Another day, on the high puna yet again,
coming back from a small alpine lake, the
source of a stream that eventually flowed into
the Amazon and so on to the Atlantic (though
from here on clear mornings they could make
out the gleam of the South Sea), a lake on
whose frozen bank Eduardo had shown
Stephen that handsome goose the huachua
with a white body and dark green wings, they
paused in still another group of puyas, some
of them growing among rocks so conveniently
placed that Stephen was able to gather seed
from the lower flower. It was late, but for once