Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/55

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PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF PERU.

33

is by the heavy load of his body, is capable of ascending. Thou art not yet deserving of the laurels of Nature, constantly just in her awards. She reserves them for those who ascend the elevated tops of the Andes mountains: and surveys with complacency the weak mortal seated on the lofty summit on which the eagle dares not alight, nor even venture a regard. It is there that she shines in her most pompous array, crowning the temples of the hero, not with the opaque metals with which we strive to imitate the splendor of glory^[1], but with the translucent and beautiful colours of the iris^[2]

If

↑ An allusion is here made to the golden suns worn by the ancient sovereigns of Peru.
↑ The academicians who visited Peru to measure a degree of the meridian under the Equator, have, in their different works, described, in terms of the highest admiration, the extraordinary phenomenon which is seen at sun-rise on our cordiileras, and which they discovered for the first time in the wild heaths of Pambamarca. "At day-break," observes Ulloa, "the whole of the mountain was enveloped in dense clouds, which at sun-rise were dissipated, leaving behind them vapours of so extreme a tenuity as not to be distinguishable to the sight. At the side opposite to that where the sun rose on the above mountain, and at the distance of about sixty yards from the spot where we were standing, the image of each of us was seen represented, as if in a mirror, three concentric irises, the last, or most exterior colours of one of which touched the first of the following one, being centered on the head. Without the whole of them, and at an inconsiderable distance, was seen a fourth are purely white. They were all perpendicular to the horizon; and in proportion as any one of us moved from one side to the other, he was accompanied by the phenomenon, which preserved the same order and disposition. What was, however, most remarkable, was this, that although six or seven persons were thus standing close together, each of us saw the phenomenon as it regarded himself, but did not perceive it in the others. This is a kind of apotheosis," adds Bouguer, "in which each of the spectators, seeing his head adorned with a glory formed of three or four concentric crowns of a very vivid colour, each of them presenting varieties similar to those

F

of

[1] An allusion is here made to the golden suns worn by the ancient sovereigns of Peru.

[p33-2] The academicians who visited Peru to measure a degree of the meridian under the Equator, have, in their different works, described, in terms of the highest admiration, the extraordinary phenomenon which is seen at sun-rise on our cordiileras, and which they discovered for the first time in the wild heaths of Pambamarca. "At day-break," observes Ulloa, "the whole of the mountain was enveloped in dense clouds, which at sun-rise were dissipated, leaving behind them vapours of so extreme a tenuity as not to be distinguishable to the sight. At the side opposite to that where the sun rose on the above mountain, and at the distance of about sixty yards from the spot where we were standing, the image of each of us was seen represented, as if in a mirror, three concentric irises, the last, or most exterior colours of one of which touched the first of the following one, being centered on the head. Without the whole of them, and at an inconsiderable distance, was seen a fourth are purely white. They were all perpendicular to the horizon; and in proportion as any one of us moved from one side to the other, he was accompanied by the phenomenon, which preserved the same order and disposition. What was, however, most remarkable, was this, that although six or seven persons were thus standing close together, each of us saw the phenomenon as it regarded himself, but did not perceive it in the others. This is a kind of apotheosis," adds Bouguer, "in which each of the spectators, seeing his head adorned with a glory formed of three or four concentric crowns of a very vivid colour, each of them presenting varieties similar to those

[1]

[2]