tent was now covered with fine powdery snow, and the temperature still kept sinking. The thermometer registered 16° of frost inside; the wind howled round our tent in fierce onslaughts, at times making us fear that we should soon be buried alive. We hammered at the canvas sides to throw off the snow as much as possible, and thus we sat up through the long dreary night hour after hour, not knowing from one moment to another what would be our fate. As the dawn appeared we were quite exhausted with cold and fatigue after our long vigil. I saw it was imperative that we should get out of this situation at once, as every hour that we spent up there made our strength less, and we needed it all, for the descent in this storm would be a difficult and dangerous task. We therefore put on our boots, and all the clothes we could lay our hands on, and made a break for the open. I had not gone more than a few steps when I fell into a huge drift of soft snow. After considerable difficulty Vines rescued me, but we had not gone far before the same mishap occurred again. The wind cut to the bone, and being thus rolled in the snow was a terrible experience. For about an hour we struggled on in this way; then the wind abated slightly, and the snow stopped. We could now see about us, and though very weak and ill after thirty-six hours' confinement in that little tent, we crawled down to our 14,000 foot camp. Here our men soon made us comfortable with a hot meal, and we were so much refreshed that I suggested to Vines we should walk down that day to the Inca camp, some twenty-two miles over a rough country with two great fords to cross on foot. We set out at once, keeping as near the river-bed as possible, and reached our camp under the forked peak in two hours. We remained here a few minutes for some refreshment, and then continued our way to the Inca. About three in the afternoon we reached the first ford. Fortunately for us the snow was still falling, so there was not as much melted snow and ice-water rushing along as usual. We selected a place where there was a big boulder some ten feet high that we could jump off from and leap half-way across the stream, thus escaping the more rapid water which ran close to the boulder. We

WE TURN BACK

93 got across fairly well, though of course drenched to the skin. Vines came last, running up the stones at a tremendous pace, evidently with the desire to leap farther than anybody else, and thus perhaps save a wetting, but as he jumped he slipped, and fell headlong into the middle of the stream. We soon had him out again, none the worse for his adventure, but an object of much merriment to the men. I unfortunately sprained my ankle at this jump, so the rest of the journey was painful to me. When at seven o'clock we reached the last ford we found no convenient place to cross: there was indeed one huge boulder from which some of the men leapt over, but it was so high that with my sprained ankle I dared not attempt to do so. I called to the men who got across to go on to the Inca and send back some horses. Vines and I then hunted for an easier passage for more than an hour. Lanti thought he had found one, and got across, but as he was nearly swept away in the attempt, the water being much deeper than he expected, we thought it best not to follow. finally ended by returning to the great rock that the other two men had leapt from. By sitting upon the edge of it for about half an hour, and watching the ground below, I gradually accustomed myself to the distance, and at last ventured to jump. It was much higher, however, than I had thought, and I landed in a heap at the bottom, hurting my ankle again. I hobbled along towards the camp, but had not gone far before I met the men returning with the horses. I rode on from here and soon met Vines, who had crossed a couple of miles lower down, and we all reached camp half an hour later.

I

ΤΗ

CHAPTER IX

FURTHER ATTEMPTS ON ACONCAGUA

HE strain of the two nights spent in that fearful snowstorm at the 19,000 foot camp had told considerably upon us, and several days elapsed before Vines and I recovered. The weather meanwhile had been hopeless; snow fell even at our base camp at the Inca, while every day tremendous windstorms raged. If we had not been compelled to come down to recruit our strength, we should still have been unable to do anything on the mountain side. Aconcagua seemed always obscured in mist, but when occasionally we did get a glimpse of it through rifts in the racing storm-clouds, we were discouraged by seeing its whole face covered with fresh white snow, while the tops of all the surrounding peaks showed that the snow-fall above twelve or thirteen thousand feet had been considerable.

On 26th December I received a telegram from a friend in Valparaiso, saying: "National Observatory say no record similar extraordinary January weather. Should improve. Germans in Espinazito to north, abandoned attempt." This was intended to be a consolatory message, and indeed we needed consoling, for the weather did not improve, but grew worse day by day; hail, snow, sleet, and gales of wind following each other in grim succession.

On the 28th another kind telegram came, saying: "Weather definitely improving. From appearance mountain see you have suffered. Every Englishman and Englishwoman, from minister down, hopes you will succeed." The weather, however, continued to be bad in our valleys, though, as it had apparently cleared from the Chilian side, we hoped soon to be able to start again. Our time meanwhile was

GOSSE'S "ZOO"

95

spent in taking what observations we could round our base camp at Inca. We generally managed to get a few hours of clear weather every night, and continued our astronomical work to determine the longitude. longitude. All this time Philip Gosse was busy collecting botanical and zoological specimens, and he had got together in camp a miscellaneous lot of living creatures, which we called the "Zoo." It would perhaps be wrong to include among these captives a favourite staghound "Stella," and her little black mongrel puppies. The leader of the Zoo was certainly a fine horned owl (Bubo Magellanicus), which Gosse had procured from a Scandinavian gentleman in Los Andes. There was also a mouse or vole, which increased our population by eleven offspring in one day. In a tin box without a lid there lived four lizards. A fat toad added little to our amusement, for he would never stir. A little black scorpion, a fox, a dove, a waterdipper (Cinclodes fuscus), a greenfinch, a Chingolo sparrow with one wing, and two dear little sand-snipes, looking like fluffy partridges, completed Gosse's happy family. The end of this collection was extraordinarily tragic. The mice ate one another until only one was left, and that survivor died of over-feeding. The lizards dried up. The dove broke its wing, and served as dinner for the owl, whose name was Majordomo." This delightful bird was the most beloved of the whole collection, and the joy of everyone in camp except the puppies, who curled up and howled at his approach. He came to a most distressing end, being struck on the head by a stone, furtively thrown at him by a half-breed. Philip Gosse looked long for that native, with obvious intent, but could never be sufficiently sure of the culprit to take action. The sand-snipes Gosse took into his sleeping-bag at night to keep them warm, but unhappily woke up one morning to find that he had rolled upon them, and that they were quite flat. An exceptionally cold night was fatal to the dipper and the finch. The scorpion died from having been carried in a pill-box in Gosse's pocket, while he was racing Lightbody down the side of a mountain. Last of all the fox died of the bite of a guanaco dog, and the Inca "Zoo" put up its shutters.

Gosse was the richer by several amusing episodes, however, connected with tracking the specimens. I find the following entry in his diary :—

"One of our arrieros, Tomas Sosa by name, told me that at night a fox always visited the camp to pick up any odd scraps of food it found lying about. So the next night I slept in the open shed we called the 'scullery,' and, it being a fine moonlight night, my patience was rewarded by seeing, at about 1 a.m., what looked like a small slinking shadow within a few yards of me. Unfortunately I had my poncho on, and couldn't get my arms free quickly enough to shoot. The fox was very suspicious of me, probably because of the moonlight shining on the barrels of the gun, and he slunk off behind a small knoll. The moment he was out of sight, I arranged the poncho comfortably for shooting, and, getting the gun up to my shoulder, rested it with my elbows on my knees. I had been squatting in this position for what seemed a very long time, and was just beginning to think that Reynard had left for good, when, behind a bush, I saw two round lights watching me. I kept quite still, and presently the two burning eyes drew a little nearer, and soon I could make out the faint outline of the fox's body. After some hesitation he came out from the bushes into the open space before the camp, into the bright moonlight, his shining eyes looking quite uncanny. I waited quite still, hoping that he would come a little nearer, but he seemed to be suspicious that something was wrong with the bundle in the scullery. Thus we waited, watching each other, neither making any movement, except that now and then the fox raised or lowered his head. At last I got tired of waiting for him to come nearer, and, aiming as well as I could at his indistinct outline, I fired and-missed!"

As the weather was improving I began to prepare for another start, and on the morning of 7th February I sent up to our camp under the forked peak four porters and several pack-mules. The last two days had been mild and fine, but we knew that, owing to the immense amount of snow that had fallen on the mountains above 15,000 feet,