returned.  To be sure, we still suffered from the effects of snow and sun.  On the ascent I had been very thirsty and foolishly had allowed myself to eat a considerable amount of snow.  As a result my tongue was now so extremely sensitive that pieces of soda biscuit tasted like broken glass.  Corporal Gamarra, who had been unwilling to keep his snow-glasses always in place and thought to relieve his eyes by frequently dispensing with them, now suffered from partial snow-blindness.  The rest of us were spared any inflammation of the eyes.  There followed two days of resting and waiting.  Then the smiling arrieros, surprised and delighted at seeing us alive again after our adventure with Coropuna, arrived with our mules.  The Tejadas gave us hearty embraces and promptly went off up to the snow line to get the loads.  The next day we returned to Chuquibamba.

In November Chief Topographer Hendriksen completed his survey and found the latitude of Coropuna to be 15 deg. 31’ South, and the longitude to be 72 deg. 42’ 40’’ West of Greenwich.  He computed its altitude to be 21,703 feet above sea level.  The result of comparing the readings of our mercurial barometer, taken at the summit, with the simultaneous readings taken at Arequipa gave practically the same figures.  There was less than sixty feet difference between the two.  Although Coropuna proves to be thirteen hundred feet lower than Bandelier’s estimate, and a thousand feet lower than the highest mountain in South America, still it is a thousand feet higher than the highest mountain in North America.  While we were glad we were the first to reach the top, we all agreed we would never do it again!

CHAPTER III

To Parinacochas

After a few days in the delightful climate of Chuquibamba we set out for Parinacochas, the “Flamingo Lake” of the Incas.  The late Sir Clements Markham, literary and historical successor of the author of “The Conquest of Peru,” had called attention to this unexplored lake in one of the publications of the Royal Geographical Society, and had named a bathymetric survey of Parinacochas as one of the principal desiderata for future exploration in Peru.  So far as one could judge from the published maps Parinacochas, although much smaller than Titicaca, was the largest body of water entirely in Peru.  A thorough search of geographical literature failed to reveal anything regarding its depth.  The only thing that seemed to be known about it was that it had no outlet.  General William Miller, once British consul general in Honolulu, who had as a young man assisted General San Martin in the Wars for the Independence of Chile and Peru, published his memoirs in London in 1828.  During the campaigns against the Spanish forces in Peru he had had occasion to see many out-of-the-way places in the interior.  On one of his rough sketch maps he indicates the location of Lake Parinacochas and notes the fact that the water is “brackish.”  This statement of General Miller’s and the suggestion of Sir Clements Markham that a bathymetric survey of the lake would be an important contribution to geographical knowledge was all that we were able to learn.  Our arrieros, the Tejadas, had never been to Parinacochas, but knew in a general way its location and were not afraid to try to get there.  Some of their friends had been there and come back alive!