"The blue of Titicaca is peculiar, not deep and dark as that of the tropical ocean, nor opaque like the blue of , nor like that warm purple of the Aegean which Homer compares to dark red wine, but a clear, cold, crystalline blue, even as is that of the cold skye vaulted over it. Even in the blazing sunlight it had that sort of chilly glitter one sees in the crevasses of a glacier; and the wavelets sparkled like diamonds."