Were
it not for that jar or _tinaja_ of _aguardiente_ which the old man
keeps so snugly in the corner of his burrow, he would have withered up
long ago, like the mummies of the Great Saint Bernard.
But I am not going to work up the old man of the _vigia_; for he was of
little consequence on the 10th day of April, 1853, except as a
wondering spectator on the top of Conchagua, in a group consisting of
an ex-minister of the United States, an officer of the American navy,
and an artist from the good city of New York, to whose ready pencil a
grateful country owes many of the illustrations of tropical scenery
which have of late years lent their interest to popular periodicals and
books of adventure. I might have added to this enumeration the tall,
dark figure of Dolores, servant and guide; but Dolores, with a good
sense which never deserted him, had no sooner disencumbered his
shoulders of his load of provisions, than he bestowed himself in the
burrow, out of the wind, and possibly not far from the _aguardiente_.
The utilitarian reader will ask, at once, the motive of this gathering
on the top of the volcano of Conchagua, five thousand feet above the
sea, wearily attained at no small expenditure of effort and
perspiration.
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