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CH. xix IN THE ECUADOREAN ANDES 195
intense kind. Its approach is indicated by the
wind beginning to whistle shrilly in the distance
among the dead grass-stalks. When he hears that
ominous sound, the horseman takes a pull at his
flask, draws his wraps close around him, and his
and his horse too seems
hat down over his eyes ;
to nerve himself for the encounter of the withering
blast carries his head low, and throws forward
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his shaggy mane.
It seems to be the first shock
of the cold blast that kills. If a man can sustain
it unscathed, he generally escapes with his life.
Horses are much more rarely frozen to death than
men. Indeed, the amount of cold and wet these
mountain horses will bear is surprising ; but they
are to the manner born, and have never known
the luxury of sleeping under cover.
The descent from the southern side of the
paramo of Sanancajas is along a ravine, worn deep
into the black turfy soil and subjacent volcanic
alluvium by
Chimborazo.
the rains and melting snows from
One of my two horses carried my
trunks, and got along so slowly that night closed
over us as we reached San Andres, a village nearly
9 miles from Riobamba. We would fain have
remained there for the night, but there had been a
bull-fight that day in the plaza, and the houses were
so thronged with noisy, drunken men, that we saw
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I have been reminded l>y this sound on the p.iramos of the Audi--- of our
bleak Yorkshire, moors and moor-paMiire*, \\here the \\intiy \\ind whistles
through the "\vindlestra\vs" the dead flo\\ er-Malk> of lient-gravs and Dog'stail
grass {Agrostis niniiia and Cynosurus cristatus). In the Pyre'ne'es, the
strings of Kolus's harp are the slendn talks and rigid pungrni leaves of
/\s/n,-,i Eskia the " ''
Ksc|iiisse of the shepherds which grows on bleak
mountain -ides at great elevations. In the Andes the whistling gi
chiefly I'\-xtnca Tolnccnsis and .SW/V /.rrwrw. whose thread-like leaves ami
stalks are nio-,t apt for the \\ind to play upon.