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entertainments in the towns through which they passed, and had frequently been given food and lodging by kindly disposed Indians, although often they had been very rudely received. They had walked around Lake Titicaca, and had reached Cuzco, followed the old trail to Lima, walked up the coast, and penetrated the equatorial rain-belt in Ecuador before disaster overtook them. Weakened by months of exposure, they were in no condition to encounter tropical fevers, and all were soon flat on their backs. Two of them never recovered and were buried in Ecuador. Smith, now alone, cabled to the New York “Herald” for instructions, stating that he was too weak to continue the journey alone, and had no funds. The answer came back: “Return to Buenos Aires.” Although he had been dismayed by the difficulties that lay ahead of him in Ecuador and Colombia, he knew enough of the road over which he had come to believe that he could safely get back to Buenos Aires and that then the “Herald” and the “Prensa” would probably reward him for his foolhardy excursion. Accordingly, he was retracing his steps, and had reached Chincheros that noon. He had intended to go along further in the afternoon, but hearing of the expected arrival of two Americans, and being invited to the banquet, he had stayed over.
It was a dismal story that he told, but he took great pride in it, and his eyes flashed as he recounted his exploits. The only bitter in the sweet was that he had lost his friends, and that we had not heard of him.
“What, you don’t know about me? Why, I am the foot-walker. I go from Buenos Aires to New York. I don’t get there. I go back to Buenos Aires. You haven’t heard of me? You haven’t heard of me, Emilio Smith, the foot-walker? That is very strange. And the Prefect of Abancay? He is a good fellow. Didn’t he tell you about me? Didn’t he show you my picture? My picture of me and my two friends?”
I think he felt that we really hadn’t been to Abancay after all. Poor fellow, living for months on the narration of his exploits, it was a hard pill for him to swallow that the only Americans he had seen who had come over the road where he had passed several months before, had never heard any mention made of his overland journey. The reason was not far to seek. He travelled on foot. No one but an Indian travels on foot. It is perfectly inconceivable to the Spanish mind that any one should do any feat of pedestrianism unless compelled to, either by poverty or the instincts of a vagabond. Poor people and vagabonds are too common to attract much attention. We never heard of him again. He left early the next morning.
Thenext morning we were furnished fresh horses by our kind hosts, and accompanied by five or six of them, climbed out of the beautiful valley of Chincheros up to the heights of Bombon overlooking the river Pampas. Here in 1824, the patriot forces under General Sucre, marching along this road to Lima, encountered the Royalists under La Serna, trying to cut off their retreat. The advance guard of each army met on the 20th of November on the heights of Bombon. The Royalists were driven down into the valley and across the river Pampas.
After reaching the level of the river, our path followed the Pampas, down stream, in a northerly direction, for some distance among groves of mimosa trees and cacti. This is a famous place for mosquitoes, and there is said to be a great deal of malaria in the vicinity. The altitude is slightly over six thousand feet.
My interest in the Pampas valley was considerably increased by finding the trees and cacti covered with white land shells, some of them reminding me of those tree shells that I had gathered as a boy in the beautiful valleys of the Island of Oahu. I filled my pockets, and later spent the evening cleaning the shells, much to the amusement of my hosts. My labor was amply rewarded by finding, after reaching home, that among the shells were three new species which Dr. Dall, the Curator of the Division of Mollusks in the United States National Museum, has named and described.[7]
The bridge over the Pampas has long attracted the notice of travellers. The approach to it is at the foot of perpendicular cliffs. The surrounding scenery although not so imposing as that of the Apurimac is nevertheless magnificent. The bridge is about 150 feet long, and at the time of my visit, February, 1909, was 50 feet above the river. There are two pictures of the old bridge in Mr. Squier’s book, and although wire rope has replaced the old cables that the Incas made from maguey fibre, it is still the most unwelcome feature of the road from the point of view of the mules.
One of our mules simply would not cross the bridge. No amount of pushing and pulling, beating and shouting, would make him budge an inch. Finally he was blindfolded and a rope tied to each front leg. His hind legs were tied securely together, to prevent him from kicking, and by alternately pulling the ropes attached to his front feet, he was forced in a most ignominious manner to come onto the bridge and go a third of the way across. Then the ropes were loosened and the blind taken off.
Image unavailable: THE LARGE PLAZA OF AYACUCHOTHE LARGE PLAZA OF AYACUCHO
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We expected to see him turn and bolt for the nearest side but he was too frightened to do anything of the sort, and became at once most docile, and finished the trip in peace.
He was not the only one who did not like the bridge. The priest of Chincheros, who had been delayed from accompanying us by the arrival of a visiting cleric that morning, overtook us here. Although a sturdy native Indian, he was rather portly and preferred not only to leave to some one else the leading across of his mule, but even to have a poor Indian bearer give him his shoulder to steady him on the swaying structure.
From the other end of the bridge we ascended the precipitous cliff by a narrow winding path and found ourselves on a lofty terrace where the enterprising Parodi Brothers have planted waving fields of sugarcane. Here we were met by the Gobernador of Tambillo and the Parodis who escorted us to their sugar factory at Pajonal, a most attractive hacienda nestled in a valley at the foot of beetling crags. Our hosts had inherited from their father an unusual stock of energy and skill. Owing to his efforts, a good irrigation ditch had been constructed that furnished the canefields with an abundant supply of water. The houses were in good repair and everything bore the marks of prosperity. It was a pleasure to see such evidence of enterprise and energy in this wild region. One brother, who ordinarily practices medicine in Lima, was here on a visit. Another brother is being educated in the States.
We left Pajonal the next morning, accompaniedby the Gobernador of Tambillo, a very agreeable person of German-Peruvian descent. From Pajonal the road ascends a little valley and then climbs a mountainside to the village of Ocros, a most forlorn and wretched place, with an elevation of nearly ten thousand feet.
The adobe church, like that at Chincheros, was set back from the plaza, and had a new adobe wall around it. Earth for this seemed to have been taken right out of the plaza. No attempt had been made to fill up the huge holes that remained. The only building at Ocros that seemed to be in any kind of repair was the local telegraph office where the officer from Ayacucho who accompanied us, went to send a despatch to the Prefect.
On the way we had been struck by the extraordinary method of hanging telegraph wires that prevails in this country. The linesmen had thought nothing of planting three poles together on the top of one hill and the next three not less than a quarter of a mile away on the top of another, stretching their wire across the intervening distance in midair. This occurred not once or twice but whenever they could save poles by so doing. The strain on the wire must have been tremendous. We learned that the service was “frequently interrupted.”
The road up from Ocros was the worst that we encountered anywhere. It was really the bed of a mountain stream and our animals had the greatest difficulty in picking their way among the rocks and boulders. It was hard to imagine that this was really the highway between Cuzco and Lima. The“road” grew worse and worse until it reached a bleakparamoat an elevation of thirteen thousand feet, where snow, hail, and sleet, driven in our faces by a high wind, added to our discomforts. A steep descent on the other side of the range greatly tried the patience of our animals. The ground seemed to be a hard clay that offered no support to their feet and they slid and slipped, sometimes eight or ten feet at a time, without being able to stop. Night was falling as we reached the little collection of wretched huts called Matara. No one seemed to have any desire to receive us. In fact, the Indian who had charge of the only dry hut in the place, locked the front door and disappeared into the night. Unlike vigorous Caceres, who would sooner have died than allow an inhospitable Indian to refuse admission to the foreigner in his charge, the officer from Ayacucho was a timid soul who had gone through the world bemoaning his ill fortune and doing nothing to make it better. He could think of no solution of the problem except that we make ourselves as comfortable as possible in the shelter of a kind of a porch in front of this thatched hut. So we passed an exceedingly uncomfortable night and experienced some of the hardships that the British soldiers, who aided the patriot army in that last campaign against the Spanish viceroy, must have suffered in this very locality.
The next morning our road led across half a dozen deep gulches whose streams feed the river Colpahuayo. In one of these I was so fortunate as to find in a gravel-bank at the side of the road, whichhad been heavily washed by recent rains, a portion of an ancient Inca stone war-club shaped like a huge doughnut.
The road continued to be extremely slippery and was not improved by the almost continuous rain. At half past two we reached Tambillo. Here we were welcomed by the pleasant wife of the Gobernador who had ridden ahead to have a good breakfast prepared while we had waited in vain on a hilltop hoping the rain would hold up sufficiently to let us photograph a magnificent panorama that included the distant city of Ayacucho and the heights of Condorkanqui and the famous battlefield.
After lunch we crossed another gulch whose treacherous sides more than once caused our mules to fall heavily. In the village of Los Neques, we were met by a very courteous emissary of the Prefect of Ayacucho who turned out to be proprietor of the hotel. He had been sent out in the rain to apologize for the fact that there was no committee to meet us and to explain that the notables had mounted and ridden out to await us until driven back by the inclemency of the weather, for all of which we were duly thankful, as it meant that we had escaped the necessity of hurting anybody’s feelings by declining to drink morecopitasof brandy on an empty stomach.
Here at Los Neques the Indians were getting ready to celebrate the days of Carnival which were soon to be upon us. A hundred men and women had gathered in the courtyard of an old house. In one corner a red cloth shelter had been erected
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under which sat the old men around a table on which was scattered popcorn, roast maize, and dishes of succotash. The other men and women squatted on the ground with dishes of succotash and bowls ofchichain front of them. As long as we looked on, all was orderly and quiet except that two musicians with a violin and a primitive old harp were endeavoring to cheer them up.
Soon after dark, in a pouring rain, we passed the high walls of the Ayacucho cemetery, clattered over the cobble-stones of the narrow streets, entered the plaza, and were ushered with a flourish through a stone arch into the courtyard of the hotel. Acting on the orders of the Prefect, the proprietor had reserved for our use an enormous parlor or reception room where at least forty people could be comfortably seated, and a great bedroom of nearly the same dimensions in which were four large bedsteads. Notwithstanding the attractiveness of the hotel bedsteads, such is the perversity of human nature that I decided to use my own little “Gold Medal” folding cot that had served me faithfully for many weeks, and my own blankets which, as they were folded up every morning as soon as I arose and not unfolded until I was ready to sleep, could be relied upon to be free from fleas, etc.
The plaza of Ayacucho is surrounded on three sides with private houses that have arcades supported by stone pillars. The ground floors are taken up with shops, while over the arcades are balconies that lead to the principal rooms of the dwelling houses. Our hotel had been once occupied by one ofthe principal families of the town and was a good specimen of the old Spanish method of building. It had a large courtyard from which a flight of stone steps led up to the galleries, and was ornamented by potted plants and caged birds.
Hardly had we examined our rooms when we received a call from the Prefect, Don Gaspar Mauro Cacho, a tall, finely proportioned Peruvian with a remarkable sense of humor and an unfailing store of courtesy. On the following day he took upon himself to show us the sights of the town, including the fine old cathedral, the large public market, clean and well kept, the picturesque old churches, and the Prefecture, a large double quadrangle where were located the offices of the Department, the barracks of the few troops stationed here, and the rooms allotted for the use of himself and his family.
His wife and children had arrived from Lima not many months previous, and the terrors of the overland journey were vividly in their minds. His señora assured me that she had feared she would never reach Ayacucho alive, notwithstanding the fact that the government had made every possible provision for their comfort on the journey. One of the “guides” lost his way, and they were quartered at an abandonedtambowhere there was nothing to eat or drink and no firewood. Having lived in Lima all their lives, they felt the discomforts keenly. It was an interesting commentary on the state of the roads that even a Prefect could not be sure that his family would travel with a moderate degree of comfort.
I had sometimes felt that the life of an official in Peru was as easy as the life of the poor Indians was hard, but I had to reverse that opinion before leaving the country. While the Prefects are appointed directly by the President and are responsible only to him, they are likely to be considered troublesome by the local magistrates who, although elected by the citizens, exercise very limited prerogatives. Were it not for the dozen or more soldiers that take their orders directly from the Prefect, he would often be in a precarious position. He must govern as well as he can, and yet if he does not make himself popular with the people of the city in which he lives, his lot is not at all an easy one. With such men as the Prefects whom we met in Arequipa, Abancay, and Ayacucho, the central government is fortunate in being able to be sure that the power which it delegates to them will be used firmly and wisely and without causing friction.
This city, one of the largest in Peru, occupies an excellent central situation and from it diverge roads in every direction. Yet so great is the difficulty of bringing foreign merchandise over these mountain roads, that we found few shops here of any importance, and almost all seemed to be owned by natives of the country. The streets were all of the same pattern, paved with rough stones, sloping, not away from the centre as with us, but towards the centre, where in the middle there is invariably a ditch, practically an open sewer. For those walking on the sidewalk, it is certainly much pleasanter to have this ditch in the middle of the street.
In anticipation of the joys of eating and drinking connected with Carnival, Indian women with huge cauldrons ofchupeand immense jars ofchichawere preparing to take up all-night stands, sometimes in the centre of the street or else on a busy corner where they would be sure to attract trade. The effect of the women’s head-gear was most curious. It was exactly as though the lady had found her shawl a bit too warm and had taken it off, folded it into a square, and proceeded to carry it on her head for convenience. We went through one old crumbling archway, attracted by some beautiful clay jars, and found ourselves in a backyard that would have delighted a painter. Not all painters, but the kind that loves a natural combination of picturesque ruins, fine old jars tumbled about helter-skelter, dirty little Indian children in dirtier hats and ponchos, very much too big for them, a cat, and a long-legged pig who nosed about among the jars trying to see which one containedchichafit to gratify his thirst.
From the tower of one of the oldest churches we secured a splendid view of the city and the surrounding country including nearly the entire region occupied by the forces of Sucre and La Serna in the week preceding the final battle of Ayacucho.
The old name of Ayacucho was Guamanga, which is said to have been a Spanish adaptation of the Inca Huaman-ca (Take it, Falcon), a name that was given to the district by an incident that followed a fierce battle in which a warlike tribe of this vicinity was defeated and almost annihilated by the armies
Image unavailable: A PICTURESQUE CORNER IN AYACUCHOA PICTURESQUE CORNER IN AYACUCHO
Image unavailable: CROSSING THE PONGORA RIVER ON THE SHAKY SUSPENSION BRIDGECROSSING THE PONGORA RIVER ON THE SHAKY SUSPENSION BRIDGE
of the Inca Viracocha. It is said that when serving out rations of flesh to his troops after the battle, the Inca threw a piece to a falcon that was soaring over his head, saying “Huaman-ca.” However this may be, the town of Guamanga was one of the earliest to be founded by Pizarro and was later the site of a bloody encounter between Vaca de Castro, the legitimate Viceroy, and young Almagro and his followers, who had assassinated Pizarro.
The name Ayacucho was given to the town after the famous battle of December 9, 1824, which was fought near the village of Quinua, thirteen miles north. “Ayacucho” means “corner (or heap) of dead men” and refers to the bloody character of this conflict and of those that had preceded it in the Inca Conquest and in the Spanish Conquest of Peru.
On February 21, the three days of Carnival began. Although I had often read of the impossibility of doing anything in Peru during that period of jollification, I succeeded in persuading the kind-hearted Prefect to procure us animals that we might ride to Quinua, thirteen miles away, and spend a day or so investigating the battlefield. He tried to dissuade us, but as he knew that it was for this purpose that we had come to Ayacucho, everything was soon ready. The Gobernador of Quinua had been given orders to be on hand, to act as our guide. Accompanied by him and the Secretary of the Department and a small military escort, we left the hotel and took the road to the northwest.
Our little cavalcade was strung out over a block or more by the time we reached the suburbs as thestreets were narrow and not in particularly good repair. Suddenly the horses of our guides wheeled and bolted and were with difficulty kept in the road. The cause was a characteristic piece of carelessness on the part of somebody. A horse had recently died and his thrifty owner had at once skinned him to save his hide, leaving the hideous carcass in the very centre of the narrow road. It was necessary to make a considerable detour through the neighboring fields, for none of our animals would go within fifty feet of the disgusting spectacle.
For the first two leagues we followed the regular road to Lima and the north, branching off when we reached the ford over the Pongora River, then passing through several small plantations and near two vineyards, we crossed the river Yucaes on a new suspension bridge and climbed the face of a steep cliff by a zigzag trail. We had good animals and kept them going at a comfortable trot so that we arrived at the little village of Quinua in three and a half hours after leaving Ayacucho.
The plaza of Quinua is surrounded on three sides by houses and ruins, the fourth side being taken up by the church. Like the other houses in the vicinity, these were built of stone and earth and roofed with red tiles. Many of the roofs had been allowed to fall into decay, and the house which was pointed out as the place where the truce was signed after the battle, and where the Spanish General surrendered to General Sucre, had entirely lost its covering.
A hasty lunch was prepared for us at a little mud hut called a tavern, and as soon after as possible were-mounted and rode north for half a mile up the face of a little hill and found ourselves on the plain where was fought the last great battle of the South American Wars of Independence. A monument, apparently made of some kind of plaster, and naturally in a very bad state of repair, marked the centre of the plain. Near by was a kind of shed or shelter for the horses, and a little to the westward the walls of a memorial chapel that had not yet been completed. North of the plain the heights of Condorkanqui rise abruptly. A new road had recently been constructed over them to the warm valleys beyond, but it was still perfectly possible to see the old trail down which the Spanish troops marched in their attack on the patriots.
The altitude of the field is nearly eleven thousand feet, and romantically inclined writers have sometimes spoken of this as the “battle above the clouds.” As a matter of fact, we had considerable difficulty in taking photographs owing to the low hanging clouds that continually swept down from the summits of Condorkanqui. Fortunately it did not rainallthe time.
Few battles have ever been fought on a height that offered such a magnificent view. From all parts of the battlefield, a superb panorama is spread out to the east, south, and west, embracing the entire valley of Ayacucho.
After spending the afternoon on the field, we returned to the little tavern where the evening passed very pleasantly and we were entertained by the Indian villagers who were celebrating the Carnival.They came in throngs bringing us parched corn, popcorn, andchicha, swearing eternal friendship, and expressing their appreciation that we should come such a long distance to see their famous battlefield. The village appeared to be divided into three wards, and the alcalde of each ward was anxious that we should eat and drink just as much of his offering as we had of the others.
They were easily satisfied, however, and appeared to be having a very good time. I never saw Indians enjoy themselves more. As a conclusion to the entertainment, two Indian women were instructed to sing for us. Their performance consisted in a wailing duet, beginning loud and high, ascending with a powerful crescendo to screeching falsetto notes and then gradually descending and diminishing into a wheeze like a very old parlor organ with leaky bellows.
We spent the next morning photographing different parts of the battlefield and trying to get a better idea of the reasons for Sucre’s victory. I was very forcibly impressed by the skill with which he had chosen his position.
The little plain, really a plateau, is literally surrounded by ravines. It was just large enough to allow Sucre to use his seven or eight thousand men to the best advantage. An enemy attacking him must perforce come up hill on every side, even though it would seem as though the Spanish troops descending from Condorkanqui would have had some advantage. But they were under fire all the time they were descending to the plain, and just
Image unavailable: THE BATTLEFIELD OF AYACUCHOTHE BATTLEFIELD OF AYACUCHO
Image unavailable: THE BATTLEFIELD AS IT APPEARED TO THE SPANIARDSTHE BATTLEFIELD AS IT APPEARED TO THE SPANIARDS
before they reached it, they found themselves in a little gully up the sides of which they had to scramble at a disadvantage before they could actually be on a level with the defenders. La Serna was too good a general not to have appreciated the strength of Sucre’s position. In fact, as General Miller points out, the mistake of the Viceroy in attacking originated in allowing himself to be over-persuaded by the eagerness of his troops. Their patience had been exhausted by terrible marches which seemed to them to be endless. Only a few days before the battle, the tents of the Viceroy and his chief general had had lampoons pasted on them, accusing them of cowardice. It may fairly be said that he was goaded into action contrary to his own judgment.
The battle of Ayacucho, besides being the final combat, was one of the most brilliant in the history of the Wars of Independence. The troops on both sides were well-seasoned veterans. The generals in command were among the ablest that the long wars had developed. Every man fought with bravery. Although the Patriots were outnumbered, they made up for it by enthusiasm and by a knowledge that there was no opportunity for them to retreat. They were aided by the lay of the land, but the result was due to a most determined valor and a heroic daring that must always gratify lovers of Peruvian history.
We returned to the city in the middle of the afternoon in time to take a little walk in the streets and be bombarded by little Carnival balloons filled with scented water, egg-shells filled with colored powder,and the other missiles that are commonly employed to bear witness to the fact that Lent is approaching. The ladies and children, who occupied points of vantage in the second-story windows, kept up a brisk fire on everyone who ventured along the streets, and we had to do some very rapid dodging to avoid being entirely soaked and colored with all the hues of the rainbow.
In the evening, notwithstanding a terrific downpour of rain, the “society of Ayacucho,” including the Archbishop, the Prefect, and fifty or sixty of their friends, “tendered us” an elaborate banquet which quite took the palm for variety of food and drink. There were no less than fourteen courses besides seven kinds of wine including champagne. The after-dinner speeches were also quite remarkable. Hitherto, the chief interest in us had been the fact that we had “visited the lost city of Choqquequirau,” but here Choqquequirau meant little or nothing. The battlefield of Ayacucho meant everything, and the fact that we weredelegadosfrom a country whose aid Peru hoped to receive in case Chile became troublesome meant a great deal more. Whether it was at this banquet or at one of those that preceded it in the past three weeks, I do not remember, but the opinion was expressed more than once that, rather than have another war with Chile, they would surrender to the United States and become a protectorate. I mention this not as an indication of national sentiment, but merely to show the state of feeling that prevailed in the interior of Peru at the time, and the attitude withwhich they regarded the possibility of another war with Chile.
A large part of the hatred that exists between Chilean and Peruvian is due to their native ancestry. In the Chilean there is a large percentage of Araucanian blood. In the Peruvian there is as much of the blood of the Quichuas. The Araucanians are the hereditary foes of the Quichuas. For centuries there was no peace between them. The Incas pushed their army of Quichuas as far south as possible, but they never could conquer the lands where the Araucanians roved. Even the all-conquering Spanish soldiers were blocked in southern Chile. It is not necessary to repeat here the long story of the Araucanian wars and the heroic deeds of Lautaro and his kinsmen. Instead of being easily conquered by the handful of Spanish adventurers as were the Incas and Quichuas, the Araucanians kept the Spaniards at bay for centuries, and were in fact never subdued.
The Araucanians and the Quichuas had as different racial characteristics as can be imagined. Although the Araucanians did not constitute a nation in the proper sense of the word but were divided into a large number of clans, each independent and recognizing no master, they never allowed any outside people to interfere with their national life. They were intensely independent. Even the chiefs lacked authority in time of peace. There were no serfs or slaves. More important still, there were no laws; private wrongs had to be settled privately. All of these elements must be taken into consideration when contemplating the character of the Chilean of to-day. His Spanish ancestors brooked no interference and recognized no central government, but his Araucanian forebears were still more intensely fond of individual liberty. His Spanish ancestors were brave and fearless. No better soldiers existed in Europe in the sixteenth century. The Araucanians were even more warlike, and after their first few defeats by the invaders, they successfully assumed the offensive, storming Spanish towns and carrying off cattle and horses. They organized troops of cavalry, learning to excel on an animal that their fathers had never heard of, and which the Quichuas even now rarely dare to mount. The entire Araucanian nation was less numerous than the army of Quichuas that surrounded Atahualpa when he was successfully attacked by Pizarro, yet they killed more Spanish soldiers than fell in the conquest of the entire remainder of the continent. With such an ancestry, it is not remarkable that the Chileans are notoriously the best fighters on the continent to-day. Contrast their inheritance with that of the Peruvians.
The Quichuas were and are a timid, peaceful folk lacking in dignity, defending themselves rather with cunning and falsehood than by deeds of arms. The servile sentiment is deeply rooted in the Quichua nature. He maintains a sense of loyalty for his former masters, but he has absolutely no idea of liberty or independence. The Quichuas had reached a higher state of culture than the Araucanians but their manly characteristics were far less developed.In fact, at the time of the Spanish conquest, they seem to have been already in a decadent condition. With such blood in their veins, it is not surprising that the Peruvians were easily defeated by the Chileans, their country overrun and humiliated, their valuable nitrate fields seized, and the seeds of intense national hatred planted that will take generations to eradicate.
Everyone had told us that it would be “absolutely impossible” to leave Ayacucho until two or three days had elapsed after the end of the Carnival. Possibly because we were a trifle homesick, and possibly because we had been assured so positively that it could not be done, we determined to try to leave Ayacucho on the last day of the three devoted to Carnival. I must confess that it was rather cruel, not only to the two soldiers who were ordered to accompany us, but also thearrierowho was informed that he must provide us with mules and go when we were ready to start. The morning was spent in a great row over the mules and the question as to how far they were to go with us, in which many tears were shed by drunken Indian women who declared that they were sure they would never see their husbands or animals back again. If it had not been for the Prefect’s willingness to help us, we could never have persuaded any one to go, but he did his part splendidly. We at length got off just at noon. The Prefect and his friends, to the number of fourteen, escorted us for the first league out of the city. Then we bade them an affectionate farewell and started off on the last stage of our journey, determined, if possible, to travel henceforth as muchlike private citizens as we could. To be sure, we had our little military escort. Without them we should have found it almost impossible to proceed at all for the next few days. Our first two leagues were over the same road which we had used in going to Quinua, then, instead of fording the river, we kept on its left bank until we reached a shaky suspension bridge. Its floor was made of loose planks that were so easily misplaced by the mules that Hay declared he had to set them all over again after I had passed in order to avoid falling into the river.
We met on the road many Indians, celebrating Carnival, marching along gayly, beating primitive little drums and blowing on bamboo-fifes. They stopped at almost every house they passed, shouting and hullabalooing and getting a few drinks ofchicha.
As we were crossing the rocky bed of a little stream we met an itinerant musician, a blind harpist, who was being helped across by a friend. His harp was very curious, being a wooden box shaped like half a cone with two wooden legs tacked into its base, and two eye-holes on the flat side which made it look very much like some dwarfish animal. With great difficulty we tried to persuade him to set up his harp in the dry bed of the stream and play us a tune while we took his picture. Not having the slightest conception of what we were trying to do, the poor blind musician was rather frightened, and as he understood no Spanish whatever, we should not have succeeded had it not been for the kind offices of a pleasant-faced mestizo family party whowere picnicking on the bank of the stream and who translated our poor Spanish into Quichua. In the evening we reached Huanta, an historic little town where savage Indian tribes from the Amazonian forests have frequently come into collision with armed Peruvian forces. Although we hoped to be able to slip into town unnoticed, we were met, a mile out, by the usual dozen of hospitably inclinedcaballeroswho, with the Gobernador at their head, had been “celebrating” for the past two or three days. We were by this time so fatigued by the labors of crossing Peru in the wet season, that we found it very difficult to be as polite as we were expected to be to the reception committees that had been our lot hitherto. However, in this case, to put it bluntly, the Gobernador was very drunk, which made him only the more friendly, and he insisted that we were two “princes of America,” and that his house would be everlastingly famous in history as having been the place where we stayed!
His wife and daughters behaved splendidly. They seemed to realize that we knew it was customary for all the men to get drunk at this season of the year. At the same time they did their best to make us comfortable and to see that the male members of the family did not annoy us any more than they could help.
Naturally, the “morning after” was a sad occasion, and had it not been for our excellent soldiers, who had gone to bed sober, it would have been very difficult to have persuaded our hosts to let us go. The Gobernador was extremely cross. He had
Image unavailable: THE BRIDGE OVER THE HUARPATHE BRIDGE OVER THE HUARPA
forgotten all about our princely lineage, and only remembered to charge us treble for everything he could think of. Although we had gotten up at five o’clock, no Indians sober enough to act as guides could be found for several hours, and it was after ten before we finally left Huanta.
The son of the Gobernador was the only person who had energy enough, or had sufficiently recovered from the debauch of the night before, to do us the honor of escorting us out of town. This had come to be such a regular feature of our travels since leaving Cuzco that we always looked forward with curiosity to see what would happen. This young fellow was very polite and went with us as far as the entrance of the local cemetery, a bizarre white-washed adobe gate, protected from the weather by a little covering of red tiles. There must have been something prophetic about his bidding us good-by at the gates of a cemetery, for he was the last honorary escort that we had in Peru.
Our road led us through a thickly populated region. Here and there on the roadside, unfortunate individuals, both men and women, who had been too far gone to reach home the night before, were sleeping off the effects of the Carnival. Ordinarily one does not see much drunkenness in Peru, but this certainly was an exception.
Small towns and villages followed in quick succession. Then we descended into the valley of the Huarpa River and across a well-built toll-bridge. The bridge was so long and so high above the stream that my mule concluded he would stay on the eastbank. He yielded to our combined efforts, but only after much beating. We now passed through a semi-arid region of cactus and mimosa trees like the basin of the Pampas River, until we began to climb an extremely steep ravine. Several times we lost our way, and in places the path had been completely washed out by the rains. The crux came at a little waterfall only five feet high. So smooth was the face of the rock over which the little stream of water trickled that our sure-footed animals found it impossible to reach the upper level until we had built a rude stone stairway which they cheerfully essayed to climb. Their energetic scrambles were finally rewarded by success. For three hours the trail wound upwards as steeply as it was possible to go, until we reached the bleakparamonear Marcas.
A magnificent panorama lay spread out before us. In the foreground were hillsides dotted with thatched huts and fields where sheep and cattle grazed; in the middle distance, deep valleys whose rivers had cut their way down into gorges out of our sight; and far beyond, a magnificent range of mountains, some capped with snow and others with clouds. It was a little after five o’clock when we entered the picturesque little village of Marcas with its two dozen huts scattered about under the lee of the rocks or clustered near the road. We recognized it as just the sort of village where we would have been refused both food and shelter had we been alone. But as we were accompanied by an energetic sergeant who did not propose to allow any poor Indians to stand in the way of our progress, a hut nodirtier or more comfortless than the rest was soon put at our disposal, and the sergeant did his best to get us all a good supper out of our own provisions.
Our baggage animals had had a frightfully hard day of it and our soldiers assured us that if we intended to catch the weekly train out of Huancayo, it would be necessary to have at least one more beast of burden, for although our luggage could be conveniently carried by two mules going at a walk, if we expected to make forty miles a day, as we hoped to do, one animal must be rested every other day. Accordingly the Indian alcalde of Marcas was instructed to get us a mule. “But there are no mules here” he replied. A horse then. “Very well, there is one old one which I will have ready for you in the morning.” Soon after breakfast an old white horse appeared, accompanied by a weeping Indian woman who had no desire to take our money and who was thoroughly convinced that she would never see her horse again. It was finally agreed that the horse should go only to the next town where we could get another beast and send this one back by one of the Indian alcaldes that now accompanied us from village to village, returning as their task of acting as guides was taken up by the alcaldes of the next place.
With the aid of the fresh horse, we made good time and skirted the slopes of a high range of hills leaving the trim little town of Acobamba far off on our left. It lies in the valley of the Lircay which is quite densely populated and seemed to be very fertile. In the middle of the afternoon we reachedUrumyosi where there are curious great rocks shaped like sugar loaves. They are of soft sandstone which is easily worked, and a number of caves have been made by poor people at the base of the rocks. After a long cold ride and ten hours in the saddle, we came in sight of a mud-colored town called Paucara which has long had a very evil reputation. Whether this is deserved or not we did not endeavor to discover. The sergeant persuaded the owner of a rude little hut, half a mile from the town and on the direct road, to let us spend the night there. One of our neighbors brought freshly cut barley-straw for the mules, another brought a dozen eggs, and with the aid of our own supplies and cooking utensils, we fared splendidly.
The night was excessively damp and as bitterly cold as it can be only in a genuinely tropical country when the temperature drops forty degrees after the sun goes down and an icy wind penetrates your very bones, even though you have hurriedly put on two or three sweaters and a couple of ponchos as it grew dark. There is no cold like the cold of the tropics. Furthermore the carcass of a recently killed sheep hung dripping in the hut. The floor was wet and muddy, there were no windows and only a small door. We wished we had a tent.
There being no incentive to linger at this charming country-house, our Indians were actually up and away before six o’clock. We had saved four eggs the evening before to be cooked for our breakfast, and after loading our pack animals and seeing them safely off with all our supplies, we handed our
Image unavailable: URUMYOSIURUMYOSI
Image unavailable: THE HUT NEAR PAUCARATHE HUT NEAR PAUCARA
eggs and some tea to the housewife and asked her to prepare us a frugal meal. Alas! it was quite impossible. The cooking activities of the evening before had used up every stick of firewood within a radius of a mile, and there was no way in which water could be boiled. The only provisions for our breakfast were the raw eggs. We had before us a ride of forty miles over an exceedingly rough country, part of which lay at an elevation of fourteen thousand feet above the sea, so we hastily swallowed our eggs as best as we could and started off with the prospect of twelve hours in the saddle.
At first the road wound slowly up the valley of Lircay, until finally it climbed over the edge of the hills to a great bleak plateau where hundreds of llamas were feeding. When you come to a llama range you may be fairly certain that the altitude is not far from that of the top of Pike’s Peak. Add to this a blinding snow-storm that keeps you from seeing more than six feet ahead of you, a wearied mule, a very hungry rider, and the uncertainty as to whether you are on the right road or not, and you will have a picture of our predicament during part of that never-to-be-forgotten day. At length, to our great delight, the trail began slowly to descend from cheerlessparamosand little mountain lakes into a great valley where, thousands of feet below, we could see huts and cultivated fields.
Skirting the hills half-way up the valley and avoiding the attractive little trails that led down to Indian villages, we kept turning more and more to the westward until we rounded a spur and came on amagnificent view of the great river Mantaro that on its way to join the Apurimac has cut a wonderfully deep cañon through this part of Peru. A tortuous descent of two thousand feet brought us to the new toll-bridge of Tablachaca and onto an excellent road. Of course, this does not mean that it could be used for wheeled vehicles, for of carts there are none in this part of the world. It simply means that a trail four or five feet wide and reasonably free from rocks and holes allowed the mules to jog along at a gait of nearly five miles an hour. So slow had been our progress over theparamothat it was considerably after dark before we reached the picturesque old stone bridge of Yscuchaca, re-crossed the Mantaro, and clattered over the cobble-tones of this well-built little town.
We had rather flattered ourselves that no one here knew we were coming and so we had avoided an official reception and all possible attacks on our digestive faculties. But we had to pay for it by finding that it took nearly two hours longer than usual before we were able to secure any accommodations whatsoever for the night. The Gobernador of Yscuchaca lived a mile or more out of town on his country estate, and learning finally that there were two “distinguished foreigners” in town, sent his head servant to welcome us, gave us the use of a room in his town house, provided our mules with pasturage, and the next morning charged us three times the regular tariff. I regret to say that we took advantage of the absence of the Gobernador to pay his major-domo what our sergeant told us was the