How little life had the sun yet wakened around me! The dull yellow Puna grass, scarcely the length of one's finger, blended its tint with the greenish hue of the glaciers. Advancing further on my onward course, how joyfully I greeted as old acquaintance the purple gentiana and the brown calceolaria! With what pleasure I counted the yellow blossoms of the echino-cactus! and presently the sight of the ananas-cactus pictured in my mind all the luxuriance of the primeval forests. These cacti were growing amidst rushes and mosses and syngeneses, which the frost had changed to a rusty brown hue. Not a butterfly fluttered in the rarefied atmosphere; no fly nor winged insect of any kind was discernible. A beetle or a toad creeping from their holes, or a lizard warming himself in the sun, are all that reward the search of the naturalist.
As I journeyed onward, animate life awakened in rich variety around me. Birds, few in species, but numerous in individuals, everywhere met my view. Herds of vicuñas approached me with curious gaze, and then on a sudden fled with the swiftness of the wind. In the distance I observed stately groups of huanacus turning cautiously to look at me, and then passing on. The Puna stag (_tarush_) slowly advanced from his lair in the mountain recesses, and fixed on me his large, black, wondering eyes; whilst the nimble rock rabbits (_viscachas_) playfully disported and nibbled the scanty herbage growing in the mountain crevices.
I had wandered for some hours admiring the varieties of life in this peculiar alpine region, when I stumbled against a dead mule. The poor animal had probably sunk beneath his burthen, and had been left by his driver to perish of cold and hunger. My presence startled three voracious condors, which were feeding on the dead carcass. These kings of the air proudly shook their crowned heads, and darted at me furious glances with their blood-red eyes. Two of them rose on their giant wings, and in narrowing circles hovered threateningly above my head, whilst the third, croaking fiercely, kept guard over the booty. I cocked my gun in readiness for defence, and cautiously rode past the menacing group, without the least desire of further disturbing their banquet. These condors were the only hostile animals I encountered in this part of the Puna.