the Pacific from about the second degree north to the thirty-seventh
degree of south latitude; a line, also, which describes the western
boundaries of the modern republics of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chili.
Its breadth cannot so easily be determined; for, though bounded
everywhere by the great ocean on the west, towards the east it spread out,
in many parts, considerably beyond the mountains, to the confines of
barbarous states, whose exact position is undetermined, or whose names
are effaced from the map of history. It is certain, however, that its breadth
was altogether disproportioned to its length.1

The topographical aspect of the country is very remarkable. A strip of
land, rarely exceeding twenty leagues in width, runs along the coast, and
is hemmed in through its whole extent by a colossal range of mountains,
which, advancing from the Straits of Magellan, reaches its highest
elevation-indeed, the highest on the American continent--about the
seventeenth degree south, 2 and, after crossing the line, gradually subsides
into hills of inconsiderable magnitude, as it enters the isthmus of Panama.
This is the famous Cordillera of the Andes, or "copper mountains," 3 as
termed by the natives, though they might with more reason have been
called "mountains of gold." Arranged sometimes in a single line, though
more frequently in two or three lines running parallel or obliquely to each
other, they seem to the voyager on the ocean but one continuous chain;
while the huge volcanoes, which to the inhabitants of the tableland look
like solitary and independent masses, appear to aim only like so many
peaks of the same vast and magnificent range. So immense is the scale on
which Nature works in these regions, that it is only when viewed from a
great distance, that the spectator can, in any degree, comprehend the
relation of the several parts to the stupendous whole. Few of the works of
Nature, indeed, are calculated to produce impressions of higher sublimity
than the aspect of this coast, as it is gradually unfolded to the eye of the