We came
to many towns, for this land was thickly populated, and for the most
part slept in one of them each night. But always my fame had gone before
me, and the _Curacas_, or chiefs of the towns, waited upon me with
offerings as though I were indeed divine.
For the first five days of that journey I saw little of Quilla, but at
length one night we were forced to camp at a kind of rest-house upon the
top of a high mountain pass, where it was very cold, for the deep snow
lay all about. At this place, as here were no _Curacas_ to trouble me, I
went out alone when Kari was elsewhere, and climbed a certain peak which
was not far from the rest-house, that thence I might see the sunset and
think in quiet.
Very glorious was the scene from that high point. All round me stood
the cold crests of snow-clad mountains towering to the very skies, while
between them lay deep valleys where rivers ran like veins of silver. So
immense was the landscape that it seemed to have no end, and so grand
that it crushed the spirit, while above arched the perfect sky in whose
rich blue the gorgeous lights of evening began to gather as the great
sun sank behind the snowy peaks.
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