Pichincha

“ Once clear of the city, he left the paved highway that ran for many leagues over the mountains until it joined the coast-road of the west, and with the long, swift tireless stride of his race struck out along a narrow path which led out of the valley, winding upwards towards the heights of Yavirá, which hid the dark peaks of Pichincha from the view of the city. ”

“ A path, for instance, zigzags up the falda of Pichincha, steeper than any Gothic roof, through the scattering of red-tiled Indian huts called Guarico, and climbs until all Quito in its Andean pocket sinks to a toy city far beneath. Another road mounts doggedly round and round mountain-spurs and headlands until it is lost in clouds, and only the immediate world underfoot remains visible. The air grows almost wintry; oxen and Indian women, and now and then a man of the same downcast race, come hobbling down out of the mist above, with bundles of cut brush on their backs. ”

“ Since the great earthquake of August 16th, Pichincha has continued to send forth dense columns of black smoke, and so much fine sand that it is not possible to reach the crater. The solid products of Pichincha since the Conquest have been chiefly pumice, coarse-grained and granular trachyte, and reddish porphyroid trachyte. The roads leading to Quito cut through hills of pumice-dust. On the plain of Iñaquito and in the valley of Esmeraldas are vast erratic blocks of trachyte, some containing twenty-five cubic yards, having sharp angles, and in some cases a polished, unstriated surface. ”

“ But the vapory ocean, curling into the ravines, beautifully represents little coves and bays, leaving islands and promontories like a true ocean on a broken shore. We seem raised above the earth, which lies like an opened map below us; we can look down on the upper surface of the clouds, and, were it night, down too upon the lightnings. [Pg 138]
The crater of Pichincha has a sharp, serrated edge, which, happily for Quito, is broken down on the west side, so that in the next eruption the volcano will doubtless pour its contents into the wilds of Esmeraldas. The highest pinnacle is 15,827 feet ”

“ The adventurers scaled the Pichincha, a mountain near Quito, the eruptions from which had more than once been fatal to the inhabitants, but they were not slow in discovering that they could not succeed in carrying their implements to the summit of the mountains, and that they must be satisfied with placing the signals upon the hills. ”

“ The volcanic mountain Pichincha is the basis on which this celebrated city rests; and its crevices are so numerous in the environs, that many of the suburbian houses are built on arches, and from the acclivity of the ground the streets are very irregular and uneven. The city has in [294] its vicinity the great plains Turubamba and Inna Quito, covered with country-seats and cultivation, and the junction of these plains forms a neck of land on which some of the streets are built.
The temperature of the climate is such, that neither heat nor cold are felt in extremes ”

“ The beauty of the appearance of Cayambe urcu is rendered more interesting at sunset, on a clear evening; Huahua Pichincha, little Pichincha, being due west of it, the shadow of this may be observed gradually covering the foreground of that, and a few seconds before the sun dips in the horizon, the shadow ascends the mountain with great rapidity, and finally, [Pg 328] in a moment, the whole is dissolved in darkness. An impression is made on the mind of the observer, that this is caused by an overshadowing, and he remains gazing in expectation that the mountains will again emerge ”

“ In the evening our friends arranged to visit the summit of Pichincha, the volcano which towers above Quito, and is easily reached. Mules can be ridden to the very edge of the crater, but there are not a dozen gentlemen of Quito who have ever made the journey to it; they are intending to do so at some future time, and this future never comes. Apart from the guides, it is probable that the mountain has been ascended more frequently by strangers than by native-born residents of the city. ”

“ As we looked back, we could see the lofty heights of Pichincha, Corazon, Rumiñagui, Cotopaxi, Antisana, and many others.
We had a mountain before us. Our patient mules slowly climbed up it. The summit reached, the ridge was so narrow that parts of the same rocks might have been hurled, the one down into the valley towards the setting sun, the other in the direction of the Atlantic. We there stood fifteen thousand feet at least above the ocean, our animals panting with the exertion, and we ourselves, though inured to the air of the mountains, breathing with difficulty. ”

“ In the city of Quito, we never thought of rising from our beds when, during the night, subterraneous rumblings (bramidos) , which seem always to come from the volcano of Pichincha, announced a shock, the force of which, however, is seldom in proportion to the intensity of the noise. The indifference of the inhabitants, who bear in mind that for three centuries past their city has not been destroyed, readily communicates itself to the least intrepid traveller. ”

“ And now we pass in rapid succession numerous picturesque mountains, some of them extinct volcanoes, as Iliniza, presenting two pyramidal peaks, the highest seventeen thousand feet above the sea, and Corazon, so named from its heart-shaped summit, till we reach Pichincha, whose smoking crater is only five miles distant in a straight line from the city of Quito, or eleven by the travelled route. ”

“ Cats do not flourish at all in high altitudes; and probably the lion, transplanted from the low jungle to the table-lands, would lose much of his ferocity. Still, cock-fights seem to prosper; and the battle of Pichincha was fought on an elevation of nearly 11,000 feet. Bolivar and the Spaniards, also, fought like tigers on the high plain of Junin. ”

“ There is also a remarkable coincidence (which may not be wholly accidental) in the renewed activity of Pichincha, and the great eruption of Mauna Loa, both occurring in March, 1868. It is generally believed by the natives that Cotopaxi and Tunguragua are sympathetic.
There are fifty-one volcanoes in the Andean chain. Of these, twenty girdle the Valley of Quito, three active, five dormant, and twelve extinct. [65] Besides these are numerous mountain peaks not properly volcanic. Nowhere on the face of the earth is there such a grand assemblage of mountains. ”

“ The Blanco, which rises in the neighbourhood of Tacunga, after [Pg 368] collecting part of the waters of el Corason and Pichincha, and receiving those of several tributary streams, becomes navigable at its junction with the Piti. The country on the western side of the river is to a considerable extent very level, the soil good, but the trees neither so numerous nor so lofty as in other parts, owing perhaps to a scanty depth of soil, which seems extremely well calculated for a rice country ”

“ In all times, alas! the sparrow has yielded to the fascination of the vulture.
In all this the Piccinino gave way to an inborn passion for increasing the difficulties of an adventure to his profit, or simply for amusement. To be sure, he had no better way of enticing Abbé Ninfo to his house than by offering a bait to his lust. But he might well have chosen some other woman than the innocent Mila to play, with the aid of some slight resemblance or of a similar costume, the part of the person who was to appear in his garden. ”

“ Lord God! you will die of the heat. Our roads are so rough! Come to the house; I will pour the first glass for you, and then I will go, as your lordship kindly permits me to do so."
"My cousin will not go away until you are in the house," said Mila, in obedience to a meaning glance from the Piccinino.
The abbé, seeing that he could not get rid of his obsequious host except by complying with his wish, passed through the arbor without an opportunity to address a word or a glance to Mila; for the Piccinino, still playing the part of a respectful peasant and zealous host, walked between them. ”

“ Poor Quito has suffered severely from this dangerous neighbourhood; for, on the 22nd of March 1859, a violent shaking of the mountain laid the whole city in ruins.
Pichinca, you will observe, has a most irregular outline, but very graceful withal. Instead of a single cone like Cotopaxi, it has a group of cones, some of which are very pointed. It has four principal summits, of which the most southerly contains the active crater. Here the celebrated traveller Baron Humboldt nearly lost his life. ”

“ Tell me, my boy, have you never heard of the Piccinino and his band since you have been in Sicily?"
"It seems to me that I have. Yes, yes, uncle, my sister Mila has some fantastic stories about this Piccinino, who is the principal subject of conversation among the young silk-weavers of Catania. He is a redoubtable brigand, they say, who kidnaps women and kills men at the very gates of the city. I have never believed these fables."
"There is some truth at the bottom of all the popular legends," rejoined the monk. "The Piccinino exists and plies his trade. ”

“ The Piccinino had an impressionable brain and a fickle humor. His whole life was a constant alternation of meditation and curiosity. The simple and graceful conversation of Mila, her kindly thoughts, the generous outflow of her affections, and an indefinable touch of grandeur of soul, courage, and cheeriness of temperament, which she inherited from her father and uncle, gradually fascinated the brigand. ”

“ But when they had quitted the ravine, and had left the Destatore's Cross behind them, the Piccinino began to hum, in a voice as sweet and pure as the breath of the night, a ballad in the Sicilian dialect, of which the refrain was:
"Wine makes madness, love makes folly; my nectar is the blood of cowards, my mistress is my rifle."
After this outburst of bravado, addressed to himself as well as to the ears of any Neapolitan police who might happen to be within hearing, the Piccinino began to talk with Michel in a remarkably self-possessed and tranquil strain. ”

“ At the end of the ventilating corridor, which ran from end to end of the upper floor, he opened a double door, the inner one being bound with iron, and ushered Mila into the truncated tower which he had incorporated into his house, so to speak, and where he had fitted up a dainty and mysterious boudoir.
No princess ever possessed one more sumptuous, more sweetly perfumed or adorned with rarer objects. But no artisan had ever put his hand to it. The Piccinino himself had concealed the walls beneath hangings of Oriental silk stitched with gold and silver. ”

“ Could so young a maid risk a tête-à-tête of this sort without a moment of fear or embarrassment?
The Piccinino, observing that she had a very beautiful ring on her finger, and thinking that he could follow the thread of her thoughts by following the direction of her glances, said to her, with a smile: "You love jewels, my dear Mila, and, like all girls, you think more of personal adornment than of anything else in this world. My mother left me a few trinkets of some value, which are in that lapis lazuli casket by your side. ”

“ These words were at once harsh and flattering to the Piccinino's sensitive self-love. The criticism of his past life cut him to the quick, but the favorable judgment concerning his capacity for usefulness in the future healed the wound. He blushed, turned pale, reflected and understood. He was too intelligent to contend against the truth. Agatha and Michel affectionately took his hands, and begged him on their knees to accept half of a fortune the whole of which they owed to him. Tears of pride, hope, joy, and perhaps of gratitude as well, started from his glistening eyes, and he accepted. ”

“ The Piccinino's situation and the circumstances of his capture were as follows. The murder of Abbé Ninfo had been executed and proclaimed with an insane audacity altogether contrary to the young chief's habitual prudence. To kill a man, and to boast of it by an inscription left upon the very spot where the crime was committed, instead of concealing his body and removing every trace of the deed—a very simple matter in a region like that of Ætna—was certainly a desperate performance, a sort of challenge hurled at destiny in a moment of frantic excitement. ”

“ Michel saw that the Capuchin had touched the right chord at last; for when he was appealed to as the son of the Prince of Castro-Reale, a title which nobody dared or chose to give him openly, the Piccinino started, sat up and sprang to his feet as if he were ready to start at once. But suddenly he put his hand to his leg and fell back on the couch.
"It is impossible," he said, "I am in too much pain."
"What is the matter?" asked Fra Angelo. "Are you wounded? Is that spent ball of last year still troubling you? In the old days we used to march with bullets in our bodies. ”

“ A knowledge of their language might assist much to make us better acquainted with their country, for their nomenclature of places, as well as of persons, is rarely insignificant. I have already stated that the Pehuenches derive their name from pehuen, the pine-tree, which abounds on the slopes of the Cordillera where they dwell. The Ranqueles are so called from ranquel, the thistle, which covers the plains which they inhabit. The Picunches take their name from picun, the north. The Puelches signify the people to the east, and the Huilliches those to the south: che means people. ”

“ Agatha had conquered. The bandit's head was completely turned, and another passion, which was contending with greed in his heart, gained the upper hand in a twinkling. He put both of the signora's trembling hands to his lips and bestowed upon them a kiss so long and so passionate that Michel and the marquis himself shuddered. Another hope than that of wealth took possession of the Piccinino's brain. A violent passion had sprung to life within him on the night of the ball, when he saw her admired and coveted by so many men whom she did not even deign to notice, himself included ”