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Full text of "Travels in South America from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean;"

M. MARCO Y'S 



TRAVELS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS, 



Fnm the TIMKS. 
" M. Marcoy has a full share of the spirit, vivacity, and 
garrulity which make a French traveller the most charming of 
companions in his own book. With sufficient science to write 
with inteUigence and exactness of the flora and fauna of the 
countries he visits, of the ethnological and idiomatic distinctions 
which characterize their tribes of Indians, his strongest point and 
the chief attraction of his work is his great skill as a draughtsman. 
He sketches nearly everything' which he describes, and gives us 
hundreds of pictures of the life, mannera, and scenery which come 
under his eye. Such a book is a treat which the English reader 
does not often get. . . . M. Marcoy's pages are a shifting 
panorama of South American scenery. As we look through them 
we may light upon a party of sombrero and poncho clad travellers 
galloping over the dead level of the Pampas towards the rising 
sun, their long shadows and the dust streaming behind them, 
their way marked by the skeletons of mules and horses which have 
perished in the waste, and on whose white bones perch troops of 
heavy vultures, scanning the riders with their cruel, withered 
eyes. On the next page we may reach a roadside cabaret and the 
Indians who haunt it ; on the next a village of the Sierra, then a 
town and various illustrations of its holyday and work-a-day 
aspect, its people, manners, ' and buildings. Another chapter 
surrounds us with the dreary solitudes of the Andes ; snowy peaks 
and high table-lands, with cold lakes lying in their hollows, stretch 
from liorizon to horizon, and we are glad enough to turn over the 
leaf and to descend to the villages of Cabana and C'abanilla. 
deserted by their Indians, who are away searching the rivers and 
brooks of the neighbourhood for gold dust or fragments of silver 
ore. ... If, which we hope will not prove to be the case, 
the British public will not believe that there is more sound 
instruction in such a work as this than in a geographic manual, 
and more amusement than in a novel, we can only say, let him 
alone." 

From the TIMES (Second Notice). 

" M. Marcoy's graphic and gossipping pages carry us from 
mission to mission of the far Amazonian interior ; he takes note 
of everything he sees and hears, and his garrulous pen runs on in 
a Pepysian sort of diary of his travels, making capital pictures as 
it goes. His pages are full of valuable as well as curious informa- 
tion ; the quaint dulness of mission life and the simple and harm- 
less savagery of Indian existence being adinirably sketched. The 
excellent artist who strews the book so thickly with wood engrav- 
ings doubles the vividness of the text." 

From tlie DAILY TELEGRAPH. 
** M. Marcoy's narrative of his observation and adventure — 
ranging from the soberest and most, philosophic dealing with 
scientific phenomena to the most grotesque and Bohemian phases 
of social life in the emphatically ' free ' cities of Western South 
America — is too well known alrea^ly in the world of science to 
need fresh celebration here." 



From the STANDARD. 

"The engravings, their variety, their excellence, their int«Te»t 
have never been surpassed in a book of the kind. They illustmte 
manners and customs, natural scenery, accidents of adventure, 
popular superstitions, methods of sepulture, and we have no riKim 
to say wliat beside. But the interest of the work does not depend 
on its engravings, profuse and excellent as they are. Tlie narra- 
tive is enthralling. Never has there been given to tlie world 
such a picture of South America, in its grandeur and its dejiravity. 
. Facts, traditions, superstitions, geology, geography, and 
anthropology, history, botany, and architecture, shoulder each 
other through the entrancing pages of this book, for which Euro- 
pean science owes a deep debt of gratitude to M. Marcoy." 

Fiom tlie STANDARD (Second Notice). 

"Never were printed engravings calculated to convey to the 
untravelled reader such just conceptions of the luxuriance of 
vegetable and animal life in the American tropics. M. Kiou, 
the artist of the expedition, has done his work at least as well as 
M. Marcoy has completed his, and to very many the engravings 
— among the finest specimens of wood-cutting ever seen in Eng- 
land — will be a perfect treasure-house of interest and of admira- 
tion. The more we see of this work the more must we hope that 
the enterprise of the publishers will not go unrewarded by the 
public." 

From the DAILY NEWS. 

" More is to be learne<l about South A merica from a perusal of 
these pages and a study of these illustrations than from an 
examination of the library richest in books of travel. M. Paul 
Marcoy is a good artist, a good narrator, and a good traveller ; 
he did full justice to his subject. English readers have now an 
opportunity of doing full justice to him by displaying, in a prac- 
tical way, their hearty appreciation of his performances." 

From the DAILY NEWS (Second Notice). 

"In the book before us the sketches have evidently passed 
through the hands of an artist who has made a series of pictures, 
many of which are perfect landscapes, exquisite to look upon, and 
probably much nearer the truth, as brilliant representations 
of some of the most glowing and gorgeous lands in the world, than 
the dull and shabby work to which we are accustomed. The 
splendour of the tropical vegetation, the affluence of tropical 
light, the glitter of leaves, the dimness of the forest depths, the 
shine of waters, the soft withdrawal of vapoury distances, the 
fathomless intensity of dark blue skies — all are represented in 
these magnificent engravings in the happiest and most charming 
manner. The portraits of Indian savages and Spanish Americans 
are also very curious and interesting, and indeed the illustrations, 
taken generally, introduce us to a singular country and people 
with a felicity which cannot be mistaken." 



F)-om the EX A MIXER. 

"The engravinga that adorn iJmoat every page have evidentlj- 
been a labour of love to M. Eioii, who is as effective in the 
smaller vignettes as in the larger pictures. This is not, however, 
a mere drawing room book to be taken up for the pictures alone. 
M. Marcoy's text is worth more than the iUustrations, splendid as 
they are. He is a shrewd, observant traveller, abounding in wit 
and humour, and p<wsessing a versatility of genius which it is 
impossible to overrate. He does not confine himself to a descrip- 
tion of the manners and customs of the present inhabitants of the 
countries through which he wanders, but restores for us the ruined 
palaces and temples of the Incas of Peru, interprets the ' storied ' 
monuments of that historic country, and does not forget to 
describe, as an enthusiastic naturalist, its magnificent flora and 
fauna. . . ." 

From LAND AXD WATER. 

" We get remarks and illustrations which throw no small light 
on the ancient history of the Incas, valuable ethnological notes, 
and drawings relative to the various types of humanity met with. 
That he was a naturalist we have already said ; while the prin- 
cipal merit of the whole book lies in the illustration, of which his 
pencil furnislied the original sketches. In the talent of observa- 
tion, the most essential a traveller can possess, he is very happy, 
and many are the amusing and comic touches which light up the 
pages. Tlie translator's share, always a rather thankless task, has 
l)een carefully and satisfactorily done." 

From tU GRAPUIC. 

"A journey of infinite variety, amid scenes at times of dreariest 
desolation, at times of surpassing beauty, as when Arequipa 
bursts upon the view at the foot of its volcanic peak, or the pano- 
rama of the Andes unfolds itself by the upper lake of Titicaca. 
A keen observer and accomplished draughtsman, M. Marcoy 
portrays to admiration, with pen and pencil, the different types of 
the Peruvian population, from the aboriginal Indian, whose sole 
luxury is his daily supply of chicha, to the half Spanish aristocracy 
of the towns, and the mad orgies of carnival and feast-days of 
Arequipa and Cuzco, reduced though the former city be by earth- 
quakes and revolutions. Nor is he less successful in depicting 
the monolithic temples and Cyclopean architecture of the period 
of the Incas, the more perfect in their art as their origin recedes 
into remoter antiquity." 

From the MANCHESTER GUARDIAN. 

" . . . Everywhere M. Marcoy sees correctly, and we are 
never in doubt as to the truthfulness of what he says. All along 
he impresses us with the conviction that he is a genuine student, 
a traveller seeking knowledge and courting adventure ; what he 
affirms we believe, and what he portrays we feel confident is like 
nature. The weird character of mucli of the scenery described, 
and the paucity of materials presented even by nature itself, are 
honestly reflected in the.se pages. And yet how rich they are in 
fact, research, and suggestion ! " 



From the MANCHESTER EXAMINER AND TIMES. 

"His vivid style has been so faithfully reflected by his translator 
that the most prejudiced hater of stories of travel, who will once 
give ear and eye, must succumb to its charm, and admit that M. 
Marcoy is a writer who can Ije copious in detail without being 
either garrulous or diffuse, and who can relate his personal adven- 
tures without being either dull or egotistical. He knows precisely 
what the general public wish for when they listen to the adven- 
tures of a traveller, but he is even more mindful of the require- 
ments of those who are anxious to study while they read. He 
brings us face to face with the tracesof a dead civilization, compared 
with wliich the already venerable Spanish manners and customs 
of Chili and Peru are things of yesterday. In the cities he intro- 
duces us to many strange and curious phases of life, including not 
a few stories of pathos and tenderness. His sense of humour 
is also very frequently gratified, and he never hesitates about 
narrating an episode in which the laugh is raised against himself. 
He is an ardent lover of nature, and his descriptions of the 
magnificent scenery of the Cordilleras, the Pampas, and the 
Sierra Nevada, are no less interesting than the account of his 
experiences in the cities." 

From the LIVERPOOL MERCURY 

"Seldom indeed has any one journeyed with so agreeaiJe 
a travelling companion as M. Marcoy. His thorough good sense, 
his unfailing cheerfulness, and the vein of genuine humour — 
untinctured with flippancy — that runs through his narrative 
attract the sympathies of the reader, and afford him a continual 
source of amusement. He does not, like some travellers, complain 
of the hardship he has to suffer, or abuse everything that is not 
altogether to his taste, but philosophically takes things as they 
come, and makes the best of them. If he does lose his temper for 
a moment, it is only a mere superficial ebullition, at which he is 
himself ready to laugh the next moment, and to admit the reader 
to the same privilege. The bizarre and semi- barbaric manners 
and customs of the Spanish-Americans, the easy and elastic code 
of morality that prevails among them — not by any means exclud- 
ing their monks and nuns and clfergy in general— the ridiculous 
tomfooleries of their religious ceremonies, their saints in breeches 
and their virgins in hooped petticoats, are all treated in a strain 
of delicate raillery or cutting irony, which the good people them- 
selves would probably 1« the last to see through." 

From the SCOTSMAN. 

" M. Marcoy has been a close observer and an accurate 
portrayer. He has a keen sense of the ridiculous and a good 
deal of the pathetic ; and the result is that he gives us at once 
word pictures of the people and engravings of the interior of 
i^outh America which, from an ethnological, an historical, a geo- 
graphical, and a moral and scientific point of view, are of the 
highest value. The text of the book will amply repay reading. 
It is smartly and well written. M. Marcoy, in fact, has made it 
almost of the character of romance, and it reads with far more 
vigour and interest than most of the romances now current." 



LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.G.; 

GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH. 



TEAYELS 



IN 



SOUTH AMERICA. 



^^=' :-J*:.-.' ■^— ^^' 




^^.. ^."^'^^^^^H^f'^f;;*!^' 







PAUL MARCOY. 



I •-'II' 



iN/\^z,nt 



TRAVELS 



IN 



SOUTH AMEEICA 



FROM THE PACIFIC OCEAN TO THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. 



BY 



PAUL MAECOY. 



ILLUSTRATED BY FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD, 

DRAWN BY E. RIOU, 
AND TEN MAPS FROM DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR 



VOLUME I. 

ILAY— AEEQUIPA-LAMPA— ACOPIA— CUZCO— ECHAEATI- CHULITUQUI- 
TUNKINI— PARUITCHA. 





LONDON: 

BLACKIE & SON, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, KG.; 

GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH. 

1875. 



GLASGOW : 
W. G. BLACKTE AND CO., PRINTERS, 
VILLAPIELD. 



TEANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



The journey of M. Paul Marcoy across South America, from the Pacific Ocean to 
the Atlantic, is one of the most remarkable of modern times; not so much for any 
serious peril the author encountered, as for the curious information he gathered among 
the mixed races and the savage tribes through whose territories he passed. To turn all 
the opportunities to account presented by such a journey it needed that the traveller 
should be as ready with his pencil as with his pen, and that he should possess some- 
thing more than a general acquaintance with ethnology and several branches of natural 
history. In all these respects M. Paul Marcoy is, as his compatriot M. Emile Darier 
has observed, "a type of the model traveller," wanting no quality or talent which 
would enable him to use to the best advantage the succession of objects and of 
picturesque scenes that opened to his gaze. " A naturalist, he describes with a master 
hand the fauna and flora of these countries; an archseologist, he restores from the 
ruins they have left the temples and palaces, shattered monuments of the power of 
the Incas; an ethnologist, he carefully distinguishes each of the Indian tribes through 
whose territory he passes; a linguist, he gives a specimen of their idioms, showing 
the difiPerences and analogies between them; a musician, he notes down their death- 
songs, their laments, their dance tunes; a draughtsman, lastly, his album has furnished 
the originals of the many engravings with which M. Eiou has enriched the published 
account of his journey." Further, I may be allowed to observe as his translator, that 
M. Marcoy has told the story of his wanderings in an excellent literary style, associating 
with exactness in detail a freedom of hand and breadth of colouring which every lover 
of nature must appreciate ; and combining with a good humour which is proof against 
every mishap, and is often heightened by a grotesque incident, a sympathy with the 
"harmless savagery" of Indian life and character which shows his true manliness. How 
far I have succeeded in reproducing these characteristics of the original narrative in 
English is for the reader to judge, but I may at least claim to have performed a some- 
what arduous task conscientiously. 

M. Marcoy's narrative differs essentially from the important works of Mr. A. R 
Wallace^ and Mr. H. W. Bates,^ whose object in visiting the valley of the Amazons was 
to make a collection of objects which might assist in solving the problem of the origin 
of species, and whose researches have added many thousands of new species to the 
classified lists of science. Unlike those distinguished naturalists, M. Paul Marcoy is, au 

* Traveh on the Amazon and Rio Negro, 1853. ^ y^g Naturalist on the River Amazons, 1863. 



„• TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

fond, and always, the artist, in search of materials for his pencil; and the student of 
humanity, observant of all that is new and piquant in social life and character. His 
science was suflBcient for the purposes indicated above, but it was after all accessory to 
his main object— that of setting clearly before the reader what he had to describe as a 
traveller who courted adventure, but who was as ready to sketch a typical portrait or a 
gorgeous tropical landscape, as to gossip with the indigenes in their own habitations, or 
to compare notes with the priests in the mission establishments over a glass of the 

native rum. 

In his character of geographer M. Marcoy has distinguished himself by giving exact 
details, accompanied with carefully drawn maps, of the water system of the Amazons, 
correcting numerous and important errors in more than one received authority. Much 
valuable data, therefore, will be found in this work, bearing on the question of the 
navigability of the great river and its tributaries. 

Another point of great interest on which authentic data will be found in the record 
of M. Marcoy's wanderings, is that of the geographical positions of the tribes which 
formed the empire of the Incas, and their ethnological relations to each other. Students 
of ethnology and geography are recommended to compare with the statements of the 
author the paper read on the same subject by C. R Markham, Esq., the secretary of the 
Eoyal Geographical Society, on the 10th of July, 1871, and subsequently published in 
the Society's Transactions} The appendix on the name Aymara, and the classification 
of tribes at the end of that paper, also furnish valuable data in direct relation to 
M. Marcoy's elucidations. I will only further observe here, that M. Marcoy's conclusions 
are opposed to the idea that no connection is to be found between the civilization of 
North and South America;^ while, on the other hand, they are consistent with the 
remark of Lesley,^ that "the most nobly organized races are the most migratory, 
because they have the faculties of self-protection in the highest state of efficiency. 
They also agree in general with the authorities quoted by Mr. C. Staniland Wake, 
tending to establish the Polynesian or the Asiatic affinity of certain of the South 
American tribes.^ 

The well-informed reader will scarcely be surprised to find that the account given by 
. M. Marcoy of the manners and morals of the natives is not veiy dissimilar from the 
reports of the same people given by travellei-s and residents in the country a hundred 
years ago. From the earliest period of their history the inhabitants of the Iberian 
Peninsula regarded commerce as a painful and servile calling; and this prejudice 
survived for a long while the foundation of the South American colonies,^ if it does not 

' Vol. xii. p. 281, sqq. 

* An American savant, Mr. D. G. Brinton, says : " No connection wliatever has been shown between the civilization of 
North and South America;" and again, "The most that can be said with cei'taiiity, is that the general course of migrations 
in both Americas was from the high latitudes toward the tropics, and from the great western chain of mountains toward 
the east" {Myths of the New World, pp. 31, 34). 

' Man's Origin and Destiny, sketched from the Platform of the Sciences, p. 115. ■• Chapters on Man, pp. 200-229. 

' Strictly speaking the Spanish American possessions were considered in law, from the time of the conquest, as integral 
parts of the monarchy, not as colonies of the mother country ; they were held in fief by the crown in virtue of a grant 
from the pope, and their affairs were supposed to be regulated, not by the government of Spain, but by the king, assisted 
by a special board, called the Council of the Indies. A separate code of laws also was established expressly for them, called 
the Laws of the Indies. 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. vii 

still exist. Their proud dislike of trade was in keeping with the natural indolence of 
their character; and both were unhappily encouraged by the discovery of gold in the 
New World, and the ease with which Peru and Mexico were conquered. The slothful 
Avaste of their great opportunities, and of the material resources which were thus 
placed within their reach, added to their religious bigotry and the tyranny of their 
rule, could not fail to react on the native character. That civilization which ought to 
have aroused in these children of nature the progressive instincts which are common 
to all mankind, excepting perhaps the aborigines of Australia, presented herself in 
two aspects equally forbidding. In the one hand she held a sceptre of gold for the 
conquering race; in the other a rod of iron for the indigenous population. On the 
one hand her favourites were demoralized by self-indulgence and superstition; on the 
other, her victims were brutalized and sunk to the lowest depths of despair by the 
hardness of their lot. A miracle must have been wrought, if in the course of a few 
generations the results of the mixture of the two races, or of the perpetual subjection 
of the one by the other, had been different from what they are. 

ELIHU EICH, F.R. HIST. s. 

London, October 6th, 1874. 



PKEFATORT NOTE BY THE PUBLISHERS. 

The first edition of this Work, printed on large paper, was produced with a beauty and finish 
seldom attempted in this country with works of travel, and met with great acceptance and very general 
and highly flattering commendation. The book is now issued in a less luxurious but still handsome 
and attractive form, and at a price that will put it within the reach of a much larger number of 
purchasers than heretofore. Some of the engravings in the former edition are omitted in this, and some 
portions of the test slightly abridged, but the abridgments are confined to passages of minor importance. 
The Publishers confidently anticipate that the attractive illustrations and interesting narrative of 
M. Marcoy will secure for his "Work in its new form a welcome into many homes, and that it will 
continue to be prized as of great and enduring interest. 



CONTENTS. 

VOL. I. 

FIRST STAGE. 
ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 

Hay aud its 8h<,res.-The Vicar oj Bray.-A bachelor's breakfast.-/ pede fausto.-\Yh{\6 the muleteers 
drink, the author gossips.~The Pampas and their bones.— A tampu or h6tel bill in the desert.— 
Bird's-eye view of the valley of Arequipa. -Halting-places and peeps (,f scenery.-A pleasant little pro- 
spect from a bridge. -Arequipa and its etymology.-Earthquakes.-Au eloquent plea In favour of the 
volcanic cone Misti -Churches and convents of Arequipa.-Soniething about religious j.eople in general, 
and religious ladies in particular.- The streets, the houses, aud the inhabitants of the city.-The fair 
sex of Arequipa.-Matrimonial traps.-Modes aud fashions—Indian carpot-bearers.-Impartial coup- 
Wcdl from a fountain.-Pen-and-pencil sketches.-Joys of the carnival.-A capital of 800,000 francs 
represented by egg-shells. -Pleasantries of Shrove Tuesday.-J/e.i««to, homo, quia pulois e..-The author 
remembers that he has a luug jouruey to go iu a short time, 



SECOND STAGE. 
AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 

The Pampilla and its charcoal-burners.-Station of Apo.-What the traveller finds, and what he 
experiences on arriving there.-T'Ae *orocA«.-Occa8ional gossips en ro»<e.-Disappointment at Huallata. 
-A storm 15,000 feet above the sea—Hospitality in a sepulchre. -Retrospective coup.d'<ea of the 
Aymara natiou— The Lake of Gold and Lake of Silver.-Elegy on a roostei-— A night at Compuerta. 
-The landscape and other things worth observing -Cabana aud Cabanilla.-A priest, according to the 
gospel. -About a giant humming-bird and yellow Ranunculi.-Aspect of Lampa at nightfall—An 
importer of printed cottons {rouenneries).~Mxmner of honouring the 8aiuts.-Effect produced on the 
organs of vision by the sharp application of a bit of foie de volaiUe.-The strawberry of Chili, and its 
use as a stimulant.-The day after a revel.-The author resumes his journey, reflecting on 'the past 
history and the present state of the province of Lampa, 



THIRD STAGE. 
LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 

The plain of Llalli.— How to soften the heart of the Indians and procure a dinner. -Affecting history 
of a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law.— J/amftwi date lilia plenis.—A. royal courier.— If day 
succeeds day in Peru with little in which they resemble each other, village succeeds village with little 
iu which they differ from each oih&T.—Apackecta, a monument crowned with flowers.— Pucara, its 
etymology and its fair.— A sick man and a doctor.— A new balsamic preparation recommended to 
any good wife who has a bully for a husband.— Lithyrambic essay on the subject of streams— Drunken 
farewells.— The cure Miranda.— A pastoral with a curious accomi>animent of stone-throwiu"— 

VOL. I. ° 

c 



1-67 



59-100 



yr CONTENTS 

PAGIi 

Sauta Rt'SM.— A f6te in the midst of tlie snows.— The postmaster of Aguas-Calientes.— Something 
that distiinlly resembles the marriage of Gamache le Riclie.— The author discloses in a familiar epistle 
the blackness and perfidy of his soul.— The tem[)le of Huiraooclm.— Two miraculous crucifixes.— 
Useful notes on the beer of Combapata, and the manner in wliich it is brewed.— Kemarks upon 
the past history of the Canas and Caiichis Indians. — The question arises whether Caesar shall ]ja.ss the 
Rubicon. — At Ai.o[)ia, . 101-136 



FOUETH STAGE. 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 

Dissertation on the province of Quispicanchi, which the reader may pass by. — Acopia, its pretended 
ruins and its tarts. — Compromising hospitality. — The widows Bibiana and Maria Salom6. — A demon- 
stration that if all men are equal in the sight of death, they are not so in the sight of fleas. — 
A dream of happiness. — The Quebrada of Cuzco. — Andajes and its pistachio-puddings. — The Chingana 
(or cave) of Qquerohuasi. — A quarry worked in the time of the empress Mania OcUo Huaco. — 
A botanical discourse which all the world may comprehend. — The traveller laments his spent 
youth and lost illusions, — A muleteer may be at once a herbalist and a logician. — Quiquijana 
and the great stones of its little river. — Something about Urcos, the chief village in the ])rovince 
of Quispicanchi. — The Mohina lake and its lost chain of gold. — Zoology and arboriculture. — Huaro, its 
steeple, its weather-cock, and its famous organ. — Valleys and villages characterized, en passant, by 
a word— The village of Oropesa. — Why called Oropesa the Heroic. — The traveller has another 
squabble with his guide. — Sketch of San Jerouimo. — San Sebastian, and its noble familie.s. — The 
tree of adieux. — The convent of La Eecoleta, its prior and its monks. — The Corridor-du-Ciel and 
the Devil's Pulpit. — A monolithic chamber. — By what road we arrived among the descendants of the 
Sun. — Silhouette of a capital. — Last words of counsel from the lips of Wisdom in the person of a muleteer. 
— The author packs his trunks with one hand, while writing lii.s memoirs with the other. — Cuzco, ancient 
and modern, 137-28i2 



FIFTH STAGE 
CUZCO TO ECHARATI. 

A few words about the road which leads from Cuzco to the Pampas of Anta. — Proof that a confidential 
servant may be at the same time a rogue, a gourmand, and an imjjostor. — The clouds of heaven. — Day- 
dreams of the traveller on arriving at Mara. — Intervention of Ahriman and Orniuzd apropos of a cake 
of chocolate. — The duty of forgiving and forgetting offences. —The goddess of Pintobaiuba. — Souvenira 
and silhouettes. — The ravine of Occobamba. — Here lies a noble heart. — Bird's-eye view of the ruins of 
OUantay-Tampu. — The traveller who had counted on dessert with his dinner gets nothing but dry bread. — 
Pass (port or natural road) of the Cordilleni of Occobamba. -Poetic monologue interrupted by a thunder- 
clap. — Philosophic reveries in a shady path.— Arrival at Occobamba. — The traveller invokes the aid of 
Justice, represented by an alcalde. — Judgment and execution done on Jose Benito. — To what lengths 
will go a mother's love.— Description of a fountain. — A slionlder of mutton.- The author is compelled to 
make his own soup. — The alcalde and his two better halves.- Essay upon local topography. — A dinner 
at Mayoc. — The bill to pay.— What it costs to talk about marriage with widows of a certain age. — Idyl 
in imitiitiou of Theocritus. — M6tarie and chickens at Uuupampa. — Hacienda de los Camotes, or Farm of 
Sweet Potatoes. — Etymology not always common sense. — Something that recals Baucis and Philemon of 
classical memory.— ,S'<a, t;i«<or.'— Hospitality of a storekeeper.- Portrait in pastel of a grand lady.— 
The hacienda of Tian-Tian and its major-duomo. — Dissertation upon the Theobroma Cacao. — Ornitho- 
logy-— Varied aspects of the landscape.— Exploring the centie of a flower, the author's nose is seized 
by a pair of pincers.— The hacienda of La Chouette.— The Hibiscus mutabUis.—Couversntion through 
tile laths of a venetian-blind.— The forsaken one. — A flower, white in the morning, red at noon, and 
purple in the evening. — Sor Maria de los Angeles. — How a man may be compelled to keep a secret. — 
Biography and physiology of four young girls.— The traveller sups with the governor of Chaco.— 
AtEcharati 283-354 



CONTENTS. xi 



SIXTH STAGE. 
ECHAKATI TO CHULITUQUI. 

The hacienda of Bellavista. — An old acquaintance. — Rehabilitation of a uianagm- who had become a sot. 
— Father Bobo and Father Astuto. — All the truth and nothing but the truth. — Visit to the njission 
of Cocabambillas. — The glass of lemonade anil the silver spoon : apologue. — Proof that a Fianciscan 
monk la the superior in diplomacy of a travelling artist. — Details and portraits. — The author accom- 
plishes a pious pilgrimage across tlie hacienda of Bellavista. — A familiar epistle. — The secretary of 
"a most serene highness." — Nee pluribus impar. — One of the lights of science. — " Vanity of vanities, 
all is vanity."- — Thanks to some glasses of orange-wine, the author learns a good deal of which he 
was before ignorant. — Meddle not with edge-tools nor with a man's amour-propre. — Departure for the 
banks of the Chahuaris. — The Autis Indians. — How the author tried to discover if the race of mute 
dogs is extinct, as some of the learned believe. — While out botanizing, he finds not only flowera but 
cartouche-boxes. — The mass at departure. — Exchange of farewells between those who go and those 
who remain. — Buen viage! — First rapids and first salutes of the waves. — Mancureali. — An enormous 
capital represented by twelve iron hatchets of Biscayan manufacture. — Illapani. — Bivouac at Chuli- 
tuqiii. — A confidence which the author, and cousjipiently the reader, were far from expecting, . . 356-396 



SEVENTH STAGE. 

CHULITUQUI TO TUNKINL 

Hymn to Aurora. — Disastrous effects of a night passed in the open air. — The shore at Mapitunuhuari. — 
In chase of a raft. — The situation is aggi-avated and becomes more complicated than ever. — We are 
reminded, after an interval of three thousand years, of the wrath of Achilles and the pride of Aga- 
memnon. — A raw ham regarded as poison. — Monograph on the cock-of-the-rock.^Copy of an atithentic 
deed. — An oath taken on a breviary in the absence of the Gospel. — Farewell fur ever on the shores of 
Coribeni. — A bad night passed at Sirialo. — The site of Pololiuatiui. — Evidence that the theories of 
M. Proudhon are more widely dift'used than people generally imagine. — The Antis of Sangobatea. — Blue 
and purple dogs. — Anthropological studies. — -Simuco the bowman, and how he bought his second wife. 
— A geographic:d lesson on the shore at Quitini. — A baptism. — A captain g.idfather, and a lieutenant 
godmother. — A musical phrase of Horokl confided to the echoes of Biricanani. — The calm waters of 
Canari. — A ready-made picture of yenre. — The ajou])a.s of INlaiiugali. — How the Franco- Peruvian 
expedition, following the example of Nausicaa, the daughter of Alcinous, hung its wet lineu to dry on 
the shore. — The disaster of Pachiii. — The impossibility of devoting oneself to a study in botany. 
— The rapids of Yaviro. — The orator of Saniriato. — The rapid of Siutuliui. — Death of Father Bobo. 
— How a captain of a frigate and his lieutenaut lost their shirts while ])re.■^erving their presence 
of mind. — Date obo'.um Belisario. — Story of a double night-cap. — Divine justice and vengeance follow 
crime. —From Charybdis to Scy^la. — A chief of a scientific expedition suspended by the armpits.— The 
rapid of Tunkini. — Description of a gorge or canon. — Sudden passage from darkness to light. — The 
American plains, 397-454 



EIGHTH STAGE (first sectiok). 
TUNKINI TO PARUITCHA. 

A disappointed hope. — A wonderful tree. — The Antis fashion of bidding farewell to their friends and 
acquaintances. — The author avoids an imaginary danger only to fall into a real one. — Arrival at 
Antihuaris. — Iturirniniqui-Santiago. — A sultan and his odalisques. — Geology, botany, and hydrography 
combined. — A menagerie on a raft. — About the antipathy of apes for music. — Fall of forest trees. — 
With what pleasure geographer will learn that the rivers of Paucartampu, Ma])acho, and Camisia, 
which they have believed to be distinct, are one and the same river, under three different names. — 



xii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Arrival at Bitiricaya. — First interview with the Chontaqniroa Indians, — Jeronimo the tattooed 
Christian. — The question of the preponderance of the Chontaquiros over the Antis is for the first time 
discussed. — Liimentable history of the missionary Bruno, treacherously killed by a bell-ringer. — 
Dissertation on the past and present history of the Antis Indiana. — It is proved by the formula 
of a + ft that the Chontjiquiros Indians are at once excellent rowers and queer fellows to deal with. — 
Compulsory approximation of the chiefs of the united commissions. — How the Count de la Blanche- 
Epine finds to his cost that there are haricots and haricots, as there are eggs and eggs. — A house 
at Sipa. — Picture of the interior, with effects of light and shadow. — Collision with the trunk of a 
Sipkonia elastica. — -The author and his ape have a scuffle on the river. — Hospitality in a canoe. — 
Memorable combat between an Ateles niger and an Ateles rufus. — The shores of the Apurimac. — A 
box of preserved sardines. — A coup d'ceil, en passant, of the river Tampu-Apurimac. — The mission 
of Santa Rosa and its converts. — False Christians and genuine rogues. — Something about the Apu- 
Paro and the mixed population of its shores. — Man regarded as an animated accessory of the land- 
scape. — The three dwellings at Consaya. — How the chief of the French commission, when trying to 
ride a winged chimera, receives a kick from a fantastic animal. — Arrival at Paruitcha. — Dissertation 
on the past history and present state of the Chontaquiros Indians, 455-524 



DIRECTION TO THE BINDER. 

Place the Portrait of Paul Marcoy to face the Title-jjage, and the Sketch Map of South America 
and the Itinerary Maps Nos. I. to III. at the end of the Volume. 



N9I. 




J .dar4iOliim«KEdiit' 



BLACJCO; iSOU, LOHDOH.OLASOOW&EDINBnRGH. 



iV"/. 




J. B >rtholomiwtgam'" 



BLACKU: & SO'K.LU:iDUIJ,U-lji.:;GU'-v X, SDiNB"ORGH. 



ITINERAKY MAP - MARCOY 



V"//, 




J.Earfliolanio'r.Eiiii'' 



BLACZIE & SOU, LONDON, GLASGOW & EDINBURGH 



ITINERARY MAP - iUHCOY. 



N9ni. 




BLAC2IE A- SOIT, LONnON, GLASGUW & EDmBTJRGH, 




PORT AND VILLAGE OF JhW. 



FIEST STAGE. 



ILAY TO AEEQUIPA. 



Ilay and its sliores. — Tlie Vicar of Bray. — A bachelor'a breakfast. — / pede fausin. — While the ninleteers think, the 
autlior gossips. — The Pampas and tlieir bones. — A tampu or hStel bill in the desert. — Bird's-eye view of the valley 
of Arequipa. — Halting-places and jieeps of scenery. — A pleasant little prospect from a bridge — Arequipa and its 
etymology. — Earthquakes. — An eloquent plea in favour of the volcanic cone Misti. — Churches and convents of Arequipa. 
— Something about religious people in general, and religions ladies in particular. — The streets, the houses, and the 
inhabitants of the city. — The fair sex of Arequipa. — Matrimonial traps. — Modes and fashions. — Indian carpet-bearers. — 
Iinpai-tial coup-dmil from a fountain.— Pen-and-peiicil sketches. — Joys of the carnival. — A capital of 800,000 francs 
represented by egg-shells. — Pleasantries of Shrove Tuesday. — Memento, homo, quia jiulvis es. — The siutlioi- i-enienibei-s 
that he has a long journey to go in a short time. 



Ilay, situated on the coast of Peru, in latitude 17 1' south, and longitude 72^ 10' west, 
i.s the commercial port and headquarters of the customs of the department and town of 
Arequipa. Its bay, of an irregular outline, may have a circuit of about three miles, and 
is bounded by a double range of lomas or low hills, of a yellowish tint and dull aspect, 
disposed in the form of an amphitheatre, and presenting to a third part of their height 



2 PERU 

a wall of trachytic rocks, forming a natural rampart Avhich prevents the slipping down 
of the sands and marine deposits. The continued action of the waves, driven 
furiously against the coast by the south wind, has polished the surface of these 
rocks, cut perpendicularly in many places like a cliff; and at their base masses of 
porphyry, amygdalite, and syenite, half submerged, lift here and there their black 
backs above the water. At the bottom of the bay a great rock, like a ruined 
tower, is connected with the shore by a complicated arrangement of beams, and 
planks, and rope-ladders. This rock or artificial construction, call it Avhat you will, 
serves to the sea-faring population as a wharf or quay, and to the custom-house 
officers as an observatory. The custom-house itself, represented by a mere shed built 
of planks, occupies one side of the scaffolding, beyond which a foot-path winding up 
a steep ascent conducts us in about ten minutes to the village of Hay, built upon the 
shoulder of a hill at an elevation of some GOO feet above the level of the Pacific 
Ocean. 

It Avould be difficult to conceive anything more desolate than the scene which 
lies at the traveller's feet, when, having reached the summit of this hill, he casts 
his eye over the surrounding country. From north to south nothing is visible but 
sand-dunes and craggy cliffs, shores strewed with drift-wood, long stretches of salt- 
petre and sea-salt, heaps of calcareous deposits, stony islets covered with guano,^ 
and rocks of all forms and colours. The purity of the air, the intensity of the 
light, the unalterable blue of sea and sky, bring out in sharp relief all tlie details of 
the weird scenery and, leaving none of its features in shadow, impress the beholder 
with a sense of blinding immensity, of melancholy splendour, and implacable repose. 

The Bay of Hay when viewed from the offing is seen to be of a crescent 
shape, the points sharp and bent back. Viewed from Cape Cavallo on the north, 
or from the rocks of Ilo to the south, it suggests the idea of an immense half- submerged 
fish. Myriads of sea-birds, from the bloated pelican to the slender sea-swallow, which 
all day long hover and wheel, rise on the wing and suddenly redescend in the dazzlir.g 
sunlight, complete the illusion. One might believe he was gazing on the carcass 
of some stranded whale, on which these voracious birds had gathered together to 
feast. ^ 

Every year some forty vessels, bound from Europe or North America to Valparaiso 
and the intermediate ports, coast along the shore, and stay at Hay a short time to 
receive the products of the country, which are there collected. On these occasions, 
for a few days a sort of galvanized life is imparted to the port and its melancholy 
village; the echoes, accustomed to repeat only the wailings of the Avind, the murmur 
of the waves, and the bellowing of the seals, are awakened by drunken songs and a 
babble of strange tongues. Soon, however, the ship weighs anchor, and the accus- 
tomed dulness resumes its empire. 

 Correctly, huano. There is no letter g in the Qniclina idiom. 

' Immense shoals of sardines are every year stranded on the.se coasts between the 14th and 22d degrees of latitude, 
and they sometimes draw in their wake an unfortunate whale, which is left dry on the sand, a victim to its voracity. 
The author himself observed this fact twice in five years. 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 3 

One fine morning in the month of July — the season of winter in these latitudes — 
I found myself on board the Vicar of Bray, an honest three-master hailing from 
Liverpool, in company with the captain of the ship, the English consul at Hay, 
and a few of the notables of Arequipa. The motive of our gathering was an invitation 
to lunch with the captain, which was already of fifteen days' standing. It was 
nearly eleven o'clock, and the breakfast or lunch, which had been announced for ten 
sharp, was still delayed, the cook, in all probability, being hindered, like Vatel, by 
some small detail in his arrangements. The faces and the teeth of the invited 




POINT OR SPIT OP ILAT, FROM THE SEA, LOOKING EAST-NORTH-EAST; DISTANCE FOUR MILES. 

guests grew longer as time sped, nevertheless each tried to look as if he were 
delighted with the prospect, and cheat his stomach into believing that all was as 
it .should be. While my companions conversed together, and their spirits rose from 
grave to gay, or fell again from lively to severe, I leaned against the netting, and 
gazed on the hills of Hay, thinking how the wintry fogs (known in the country 
as gamas^) would by-and-by clear away and bring to light, for a month or two, grass 
and flowers, streams of water, birds, insects, and a thousand natural delights, which 
are there as unknown during two-thirds or more of the year as the melon in the 
steppes of Siberia. 

At last our general anxiety was ended. One of those long drawn sighs which 
relieve collectively the bosom of the public when, at a theatre, the curtain is lifted 
after a long entr'acte, -was breathed by our little company, when, at the sound of 
the bell, the steward was seen to leave the galley and traverse the deck, carefully 
carrying with both hands a dish, softly reclining in which, on a bed of vegetables, 



' The garuas resemble the drizzly vapour commonly ciilled a Scotch mist. They prevail on the coast of Peru from 
May to November, and are followed by an abundant vegetation in the region of lomas or hillocks — the coast country — 
during the months of July, August, and September. 



4 PERU. 

appeared a boiled leg of mutton of a most respectable size. With hurried steps we 
followed this welcome apparition towards the cabin. In a few minutes it would 
have been difficult to distinguish any other sound than the familiar onomatopoeia 
of the dinner-table broken by the furious click-click of the knives and forks, 
each hungry guest being resolutely bent on making up for lost time. Apart from 
the leg of mutton, which belongs to all countries and epochs, the repast was thoroughly 
English in its character, consisting of beef and smoked fish, followed by various kinds 
of puddings, rhubarb-tarts, and other strange preparations. For seasoning we had 
cayenne-pepper, West Indian cacazouezo, Peruvian orocoto, Indian curry, and 
Harvey's sauce. These fiery dishes were washed down with sherry and port, beer of 
two kinds, and a very fair or unfair proportion of gin and brandj^ Coffee that 
would have made all the goats of Yemen dance with pleasure was afterwards served 
to us in little bowls instead of cups. At length, when the sweet fumes of digestion 
began to mount from the epigastrium to the brain of the revellers, and their richly 
purpled visages expressed that beatitude peculiar to people when the craving of 
their stomachs has been satisfied, and cares sit lightly on them, the captain rose 
to speak: — 

" Senores y amigos"^ he said, in a rude but intelligible Castilian, "the repast 
at which you have honoured me with your company is probably the last that we 
shall enjoy together. To-morrow, at eleven, I weigh anchor and sail for Santa- 
Maria de Belem do Para, where my marriage with the daughter of one of my consignees 
is almost decided upon. Once mai'ried, I mean to sell my ship, join my father-in-law, 
and become a shipowner like him. So much for the future. But these events 
are yet distant, and in the meantime, as the moment has arrived when we must 
part, you will not wonder if I refer to the wager we have before talked over, in Avhich 
my conceit alone as a sailor would make me feel interested. Our friend Don Pabloy 
Marcoy, who while I am speaking is amusing himself, and at the same time wasting 
a good bit of bread, by modelling a caricature of my ship, has taken it into his head, 
as you know, to start for the same destination as myself, and has laid a wager that 
by crossing the continent from south-west to north-east, while I sail round by Cape 
Horn, he will arrive at the mouth of the Amazon before me. I have accepted the 
wager, but its amount is not yet determined. What sum shall Ave say then, 
senores y amigosV 

" A hundred ounces of gold," said a citizen of Arequipa who had lost his fortune 
by gambling, and reckoned upon a political revolution to recoup himself 

"Done for a hundred ounces!" said the captain looking at me. 

"One moment," said I; "when I offered to make the bet, it was with the idea 
that the sum would not be inconsistent with my resources, but now that it is fixed 
at a hundred ounces of gold, a sum equal to about 8640 francs, I must withdraw 
my proposal, I can't shovel up gold like our Avorthy host." 

"What sum then do you propose?" 

" I will bet five francs." 

• Gentlemen and friends. 



I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 5 

"Five francs! what a melancholy jest!" exclaimed my companions. 

" Gentlemen," I replied, with grave affectation, " there is nothing either melancholy 
or pleasant in what I propose; if the sum I oflPer to bet appears to you and to our 
worthy friend somewhat small, I will add to the amount a box of cigars." 

" Do not add anything, my dear friend," said the captain, and thereupon broke 
down in the endeavour to hide a grimace. " Keep your five francs, smoke your 
cigars, and let vis give up all idea of profiting by the wager, contenting ourselves 
with the honour. You say then you mean to start immediately?" 

" I say nothing, captain, but I think that in the circumstances a challenge would be 
better than a wager. In the first place, the arrangement would be more satisfactory 
to you, sir, whose family has once given a queen to England, and Avho in re- 
membrance of that illustrious past can take but little pleasure in vile lucre. In 
the next place, it would suit me very much better, who am but a poor devil of a 
naturalist, deeply interested in that same lucre, but in a position which does not allow 
me to risk a sum every farthing of which will be needed for the expenses of my 
journey. Well then, let there be no longer any question of money between us, 
and as you have well said, let us be satisfied with the honour, pure and simple." 

" May Men, very well, very good, SeTior French" said the English consul, " let us 
say no more about it, and as you do not mean to bet, I propose that we drink." 

The captain made a sign, and the steward removed the empty bowls and substituted 
for them full bottles. The company then sat in for hard drinking; I should not like to 
say how much they drank, the thing would appear incredible ; but when the sitting came 
to an end, and the clear light of day had succeeded to the dim illumination of the 
binnacle lamp, the cabin of the Vicar of Bray presented the appearance of a field of 
battle after an action. Not one of my jovial companions remained erect. The captain 
had slipped under the table; the consul had fallen upon him; the notables of Arequij^a 
lay here and there sleeping in various postures; the glasses and the bottles had 
been broken in the engagement, and their fragments, like so many mirrors, multiplied 
the miniature scene of desolation. At my request the steward, aided by the cook, 
interred each corpse in one of the berths to await the hour of his resurrection. 
That done, I went ashore, and returned to my lodging in the house of a seal-fisher. 
There I felt it necessary to change my linen, which was as thoroughly soaked as 
if I had been in a bath with my clothes on. The brandy and gin Avliich my 
companions had pressed me to drink had been j^oured down the sleeve of my 
coat instead of my throat, a trick which I had learned of a Limanian doctor, who 
not being able to take a drop of liquor without feeling its effects, had invented, 
he said, this mode of imbibition, which had enabled him to defy, glass in hand, 
the strongest drinkers of the two Americas. 

On the next day I again went on board the vessel, to ascertain how it had 
fared with my companions. I found them all afoot, active and merry, and having 
only a confused remembrance of their lethargy of the previous evening. Tea was 
served upon the poop, while the sailors prepared to Aveigh anchor. A last toast 
was proposed by the captain to the success of our jovirney, which the comijany 



Q PERU. 

drank with every demonstration of good fellowship. Then followed the usual exchange 
of hand-shakings and hearty farewells, and the captain having given me the address 
at Para of his future father-in-law, the ship's boat conveyed me and my friends to the 
landing-place, from which we watched the last preparations for departure. A quarter 
of an hour later the Vicar of Brap, leaning to starboard, and her sails filled with a 
rattling breeze, once more ploughed the waves of the Pacific. 

Retracing the steep ascent which leads to the village of Hay, we accompanied 




"V^^ 



SEAL FISHEKM.VN WITH HIS BALSEEO: TYPE OP THE PACIEIC COAST. 



the English consul to his house. His wife and daughters, disquieted by his long 
absence, expressed, in guttixral monosyllables, their joy at his return. After this 
effusion of tenderness, the ladies graciously invited us to pass the day under their 
roof and partake of their family dinner. Anxious to continue my journey, I declined 
the kind offer, and my companions, who would doubtless have accepted it, to judge 
by the looks of disappointment they exchanged, followed my example. Then the 
ladies, shocked at the idea of seeing us leave without partaking of refreshment, 
instantly set themselves to prepare a dish of sandwiches, Avhich a servant offered 
to us all round. We washed down these edibles with a glass of Devonshire cider, 
and having thus concluded lunch, the consul's eldest daughter, a charming girl with 
golden hair, who answered to the sweet name of Stella, seated herself at the piano 
and gratified the national amour propre of her father's guests by playing the cantata 



i 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 7 

of Manco-Capac. My friends, the notables of Arcquipa, applauded in a transport 
of delight. One of them, after having the air encored, began to sing the words, 
and the others were not slow to join the chorus. This patriotic hymn, little known 
in Europe, but familiar in Peru, is composed of eighteen strophes, of fourteen verses 
each, and tenr syllables in each line, the rhymes being assonant. The words and 
music are attributed to an ecclesiastic of the Sagrario of Ayacucho. The air in the 
minor key, essentially plaintive and melancholy, is in harmony with the poem, in which 
the author laments, like another Jeremiah, not over the hardness of heart of Jeru- 
salem, but over the extinct glories of the Children of the Sun. The execution of this 
national air lasted an hour and a quarter, yet we did not find it tedious: it must be 
confessed, however, that after every strophe the singers refreshed themselves by 
drinking a bumper, under the pretext of doing honour to the memory of him who 
had redeemed Peru from barbarism. As the wine had excited their enthusiasm, and 
I feared that these children of nature — who never know where to stop when once set 
going — might take it into their heads to dance a quadrille when the song was finished, 
I took advantage of the momentary silence which followed the conclusion of the last 
strophe to rise and bid farewell to the consul and his family. My fellow-travellers 
had no choice but to yield. Taking up their hats they saluted our host with an 
awkward air and followed me out, evidently discontented because they could not 
finish, in their own way, a day which promised to abound in pleasures of every 
kind. Our mules had been kept ready saddled near at hand. Each selected his 
own beast and hastened to mount. The muleteers and guides took their places at 
the head of the party, and we left the consul's hospitable abode, saluted as far as 
we could be seen by the voices and the waving handkerchiefs of the whole family. 
It was now about mid-day. A blazing sun inundated the sands with its intense 
light; every bit of mica, like the mirror of Archimedes, threw a burning ray into 
our faces. The three rows of wooden houses, roofed with thatch or reeds, which 
compose the two parallel streets of Hay, were soon left behind us. Reaching the 
summit of the height we had on our right the village church, a mere shed closed 
during three-fourths of the year and serving as an asylum for bats. On our left 
were several inclosures formed by rough stones surmounted by crosses of wood, 
which at a distance suggested the idea of burial places, but which in fact were 
nothing but mule-pens. Having passed these points we descended the eastern side 
of the lomas and entered upon a route equally dreaded by men and beasts. This 
rough track, which may be correctly described as a wheel-rut cut by some gigantic 
vehicle, was covered to the depth of a foot with trachytic ashes swarming with 
fleas. It is known as the Quebrada of Hay. A quebrada be it! but as the gloomy 
heights which flank it on either side completely intercept the breeze, the tem- 
perature is like that of an oven, and it is only the literal truth to say that it was 
with difficulty we could breathe at all. As we plodded on our monotonous way 
we absolutely panted for fresh air. 

For two hours we traversed the quebrada, marcliing in Indian file, and keeping a 
melancholy silence, in strict harmony with the desolate aspect of the place, and imposed 



8 



PERU. 



upon us by the dread we felt of swallowing the dust raised by the beasts we were 
riding. In the midst of the general lethargy the guides alone exhibited an occasional 
sign of life by abusing the tardy mules. Their cries, mingled with abusive epithets and 
blows of the stick, played staccato to the bass of the locusts concealed in the brush- 
wood which occasionally bordered the road. 

Happy were we to recognize some signs at last that our troubles approached 
their end — the hills which bordered the horizon northward and southward began to 
diminish in height, and open out Avider and wider expanses, until in fine they sunk 
to hillocks. Soon we felt the sea breeze on our faces; the rising lands and the 
road presented a succession of steep ascents, which put us under the necessity almost 
of climbing. According to the muleteers we were now approaching a place called 
the Olivar, the natural frontier which separates tlie quebrada from the pampas, the 

valley from the plain, the belt of ashes from the 
region of sands. The local Flora, represented by 
the vanilla-scented heliotrope {Heliotropium aphyl- 
lum), with here and there a stunted and twisted olive 
and a few grasses, looked as if she meant to smile 
upon us under the mask of dust which hid her vis- 
age; but the smile had something so mournful in 
it, that instead of responding we pretended to look 
elsewhere as we passed along, and the poor goddess 
of flowers was snubbed for her advances. 

The road continued to rise, and after passing 
some difficult zigzags, it led us to a little plateau 
of an irregular form which commanded a view of 
the surrounding country. An ajoujm, formed of a 
ragged mat supported by stakes, occupied the centre 
of the space. Under this tent, so to call it, Avere 
some women in rags, and children in the only 
clothing furnished them by nature, squatting in the midst of their pots and pans. 
A low table or stall furnished with broiled fish, ground pimento, and a kind of sea- 
weed called by the Indians cocha-yuyu (sweetness of the lake), indicated one of 
those open-air restaurants so common in Peru. These provisions, nicely sprinkled 
with volcanic ashes, looked far from inviting; bv;t muleteers are not, as a rule, dainty 
folk, and do not trouble themselves about such details. In the roughest manner they 
demanded of the hostess a double ration of these dusty viands, which they washed 
down with a jug of chicha. As customary before commencing the journey across 
the pampas, we stayed a few moments in this place to rest the mules, for which pur- 
pose we dismounted. While our attendants devoted themselves to their repast, my 
companions lighted their cigarettes. Leaving them to have their smoke, I went to 
the edge of the plateau, which, at an elevation of some 6000 or 6000 feet, enabled me 
to look vipon the scenes through which we had passed, and which I was now leaving 
never more to return. 




Vanilla-scented HELioTROPr: of the Lomas in the 
Ashy Kegiou of the Quebradiu 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 



9 



Far as the eye could see, from the foot of the plateau ou which we stood to the 
ocean, was one uniform gray, traversed by irregular veins of a brownish colour ; the 
numerous hills which embossed its surface, resembling at this height and distance those 
phlyctcence or blisterings of the soil which so frequently occur in the neighbourhood of 
volcanoes. From the north to the south extended the line of saline hillocks {lomas) 
which bound the shore between the tenth and the twenty-third degrees of latitude. 




RESTAURANT OF THE QUEBKADA OF ILAY. 



Their summits and flanks presented in places a yellowish tint, which would be 
changed to bright green by the first fogs of winter — those fertilizing vapours which 
are formed during the night, and vanish again before the next day's noon. The 
purity of the atmosphere enabled rae to distinguish at an immense distance all the 
features of that vast landscape. In the south I was able to make out, as a black line 
traced on the horizon between the double azure of sea and sky, the point of Cola 
and the rocks of the valley of Tambo, whose river, dry during the summer, rolls in its 
wintry torrent, and under its muddy waves, enormous masses of rock detached from the 
mountains. A little in front appeared the coasts of Mejillones and of Cocotea, with 
their terrace of shelly banks, their beds of guano, and their hill-sides pierced 
with sepulchres {lmac/t)i), in Avhich, sleeping their last sleep, are thousands of mummies. 
Every point upon which my eye fell recalled a halt, an episode, a discovery. 



10 



PERU. 



Here I had lived for weeks in the company of the LHpis Indians of the great desert 
of Acatama, upon nothing but sea-weed, water-melons, and shell-fish, the only food to 
be obtained in these regions; there I had witnessed from the height of the dunes, 
and without the power of aiding but by useless shouts, the shipwreck of the Amer- 
ican hermaphrodite-brig Susquehannah. Farther off, in midst of the shifting sands, 
like a conical islet, the hill of Aymaras was discernible, with its ossuary older than 
the Spanish conquest, where I had collected so many fine phrenological specimens. 




AYMAKA OSSUARY, A FEW MILES SOUTH-SOUTH-EAST OF ILAT. 

Still farther, in the south-east were the desolate lands of the Arenal, with their deposits 
of guano composed of fish,^ unknown till then, and to which I had made it my business 
to call the attention of the learned. Around these spots — landmarks which enabled 
me to appreciate the duration and the occupations of past years — extended craters 
strewn with the cinders, scoriae, and pumice of the ancient volcanoes which dominated 
this shore at unknown epochs, and near which Captain Frezier in his survey of the 
coast in 1713, Alexander Humboldt and Bonpland in 1804, and Monsieur A. d'Orbigny 
in 1836, passed without discovering that they existed. 

Looking towards the east the picture varies a little in its aspect. A region of 
dreary sands, diversified with centos or low rounded hills steeply inclined towards 
the west, succeeds to the volcanic ashes, and closes the horizon like a barrier. 



* The stranding of fish, observed in the reign of the first Incas, still occurs every year at fixed periods. The 
inhabitants of the coasts of Atica, ninety miles north of Hay, and those of Mala and Chiica, under the fourteenth 
degree of latitude, in former times fertilized their lands with these fish, not possessing, like the people of Hay, a 
resource in the guano of birds. At present, all make use of the latter compost, even in the Sierra. The thousands of fish 
stranded on the shores, not being utilized by the inhabitants, infect the air until they are dried by the sun. This 
ichthyologic detritus has formed deposits a mile and half in extent, and from three to four feet deep. The sand, the 
shells, the shingle, and the veins of sea-salt with which it is mixed, indicate that the sea must have covered these 
lands before the formation of the existing shores. 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA. H 

These stony heai^s, formed of blocks of a quartzose or silicious grit, and of the 
ddbris of volcanic rocks and sediment, rolled, heaped up, and agglomerated by the 
mighty waters in their retreat from east to west to regain their bed, had often 
furnished me with curious specimens of the metamorphosis of rocks. Each of these 
detritic masses is distinguished by some fantastic name, as the "razor," the "dove," 
the "two friends," &c., which I had not yet had time to forget. At their base, on the 
edge of some trench or furrow, might be seen perhaps a few ricketty cotton-trees, olives, 
or figs, of a grayish tint rather than green, and scarcely distinguishable from the rocks 
themselves but for the shadows which they cast. 

An overwhelming sadness possessed me as I gazed on a scene barren even to 
nakedness, dried up even to calcination, and which recalled, both by the character of 
its soil and the form of its mountains, the struggle of the two elements which had 
successively desolated it. The old and etei^nal conflict between the Dragon and the 
Hydra, between fire and water, was inscribed in every possible character upon its melan- 
choly surface, grotesquely striped with brown, gray, or dingy buff", and everywhere of 
a cold, forbidding dulness in spite of the torrents of light which the sun, now in its 
meridian, poured down upon it. In contrast with these dull and dusty hues, which no 
doubt a geologist would have admix-ed, but from which an artist would have turned 
his eyes in despair, two smiling, luminous colours — the pure blue of the atmosphere and 
the blue of the sea — could not fail to arrest the eye. At the moment when I turned 
towards the latter to look a last adieu, two specks might be discerned, though scarcely 
visible, in its vast extent. The one was a ship running almost due south — it was pro- 
bably that of our friend the captain — the sails of Avhich at this distance looked like a 
l)it of white down carried away by the wind ; the other was a steam-ship, which, with 
her prow turned northward, left behind her an almost imperceptible trail of smoke. 

The muleteers having finished their collation, clubbed together to pay the expense, 
an operation which took up some little time, owing to the slowness with which each 
reluctantly paid his part. We then remounted our beasts, and turning our backs 
upon the group of hostesses, directed our steps towards the Pampas of Hay, a sea of 
sand some 60 miles across and 180 in length, whose waves, so immovable yet so 
mobile, resembled to the eye those of the ocean which once covered the plain. 
With the view of crossing the plain in a diagonal direction we had set our faces 
to the north-east, and given the rein to our steeds in order that they might choose 
their own pace, it being important above all things to economize their strength. 
The intelligent creatures profited by the circumstance to break their ranks and re-form 
in column, a strategic disposition which mules prefer, I know not why, to the square 
of Ecnomus, the pig's head of Alexander, and even the famous wedge of Gustavus 
Adolphus. This movement having been effected with remarkable precision, each 
animal sniffed the air strongly, bent down his ears, stretched out his neck, and fell into 
step behind his companion, the muleteers simply muttering their discontent. 

A journey across this desert is not without its dangers. The wind of the ocean 
ploughs its surface, and continually changes its aspect. From morning to evening, 
from hour to hour, there is no more rest for these sands than for the waves themselves. 



12 PERU. 

Cavities open, hillocks are heaped up, ridges form, only to close, to fall in again, to be 
dispersed, and succeeded by others like them. In order to steer their course over this 
uncertain sea, the pilots of the pampas observe the position of the sun by day, and of 
the stars by night. These are sure guides which never fail them, but their path is also 
marked out by the bones of animals that have perished in the endeavour to cross the 
plain. These sad landmarks indicate by their position to the right or to the left, their 
proximity or their greater distance, that the traveller is more or less in the right track. 
For this reason they are always descried with satisfaction, notwithstanding the mingled 
disgust and pity which the sight of them provokes. I am speaking now of disinterested 
and intelligent travellers. As for the mercenary and hard-hearted muleteers, these 
bones, recalling so much lost capital, rather provoke their ill-humour than any show 
of tenderness. 

We had already continued our march a considerable time, often sounding the 
depths of the pampas with a searching glance without discovering anything that 
resembled a carcass, when a cry which parodied that of the antique sybil, " The bones, 
see the bones!" was uttered by a veteran arriero at the head of the column. All 
turned their eyes towards the point indicated, and southward, at the visual extremity of 
the plain, it was possible to discern a whitish belt which resembled those veins of salt- 
petre or of sea-salt so frequently to be found in these latitudes. Acting upon the advice 
of our leader, who asserted that we ought to pass to windward of these forsaken car- 
casses, we belt our course to the right, and went to reconnoitre them. 

Groiiped in little heaps, and disposed in a single line which lost itself in the 
horizon, these bones were more or less blanched, more or less polished, according to 
the lapse of time since the death of the poor animal who had owned them. In a 
certain symmetry which marked their arrangement I could not fail to recognize the 
hand of man, although our attendants, when I made the observation, seriously assured 
me that it was all the work of the wind. When, however, I showed them that some of 
the heads of the horses and mules were adorned with thigh-bones stuck in the cavities 
of the eyes or ears, and that there were other grotesque arrangements of the same 
character, our facetious friends burst into a laugh, from which I concluded that these 
mournful attentions which they had set down to the account of the wind, werd* really 
the work of their own hands, or of comrades like them. 

The further we advanced the more evidence we saw of recent debris added to 
the old, which at length they entirely covered like an alluvial bed. Some of the 
bones were still clothed with blackened flesh and dried integuments; some entire 
skeletons, perfect models of the living form, recalled to my memory the horse ridden 
by Death in the Apocalypse. Other carcasses still retained their skin, and under the 
skin, which sounded like a drum, and was as tight as an umbrella, troops of vultures 
{Percnopterus urubii), the accustomed guardians of these solitudes, had taken up their 
abode. Following the example of the rat of La Fontaine, who made his nest in a 
Dutch cheese, these rapacious birds, having first eaten the flesh of the beast, make a 
house of his inside. At the noise caused by our approach they came out from their 
dens one by one, fixed upon us their cruel, withered eyes, and returned into their holes 



ILAY TO AREQUiPA 



13 



wlien we had passed. The more curious or the more starved among them would perch 
himself upon a rib or thigh-bone, as upon a branch, and with oblique looks seem to 
watch the pace of our mules, as if speculating on the chance of one being left on the 
road. If so, their expectations were disappointed; our poor beasts, although they 
carried their tails between their legs and their ears bent, were able to continue their 
joiu-ney without accident, to the no small satisfaction of their owners. 




LANDMARKS OF THE ROUTE ACROSS THE PAMPAS TO AREQUIPA. 



No incident occurred during our further progress. The sun, after it had almost 
grilled our heads and necks, at last went down behind us, and had almost disappeared 
when a gentle breeze from the Cordilleras began to blow across the plain. At 
first our lungs inspired it with delight, but at the end of an hour the light wind 
became a sharp cutting blast, and we were glad to wrap ourselves in a woollen cloak 
in addition to the poncho of white cotton which we had worn during the day. 
We marched thus till ten o'clock, through a deepening obscurity which the " clearness 
that falls from the stars" changed into twilight. Just then a black mass loomed 
before us a little in advance, and we recognized the tamjm or caravansary of the 
pampas. Our mules recognized it also, and lengthening their steps soon pulled 
up at the threshold of that desert hostelry, where it was customary for travellers 
to halt for the sake of re.sting their beasts rather than themselves. 



14 PERU. 

The tampu, which the Quichua Indians now improperly call a tambo,^ is a long 
low wooden house, divided into several compartments and covered with a roof of 
boards. The micaceous sand of the plain serves for a flooring, and as that sand 
is the residence of myriads of microscopic but voracious fleas, the traveller, instead 
of repose, should he attempt to rest, finds himself on a bed of torture, if we may 
judge from his cries of rage and his angry movements. Setting this inconvenience 
aside, the tampu has the merit of forming a central station in the desert which 
separates the village of Hay from the city of Arequipa, and of standing 3917 feet 
above the level of the Pacific Ocean. 

The point we had reached gave us the exact measure of the distance we had 
travelled. From noon till ten o'clock we had got over about thirty -three miles, or half 
the length of the entire distance. This journey, short as it may seem, had nevertheless 
pretty well used us up. The heat, the saltness of the atmosphere, the intense 
reflection of the sands had produced on our persons the most dej^lorable effects. 
We had red noses, cracked lips, and a pulse as furious as if we were suffering from 
an attack of fever. An hour longer in that burning sun and we must have been 
roasted to a nicety. The idea of a halt for only a few minutes gave us an infinite 
sense of relief Leaving to the guides the care of unsaddling our mules we entered 
the inn, and found a profound silence reigning there. An opening in the wall of 
the building, without a door, led into an apartment in which it was impossible to see 
anything for the darkness. By beating a tatoo upon the walls "we endeavoured to arouse 
any one who might be sleeping in the place ; and in fact, awakened by the noise, the 
master of the hostelry was not slow to call out. To his questions we replied in 
two words, "Fire! water!" A moment afterwards the man appeared carrying in 
one hand a bottle with a lighted candle stuck in it, and in the other a pail of water 
and a goblet, for the possession of which we almost struggled with one another. 
Having quenched our thirst, we inquired if the place contained any victuals which 
would prevent us from dying of starvation. It seemed long now since we had tasted 
of the consul's sandwiches. Our host replied that his available provisions consisted 
simply of six chickens, alive indeed, but ready to be sacrificed at a sign from us. 
We, however, not trusting to his interpretation of any sign we could make, roared 
our acquiescence in an unmistakable manner. Our host bowed, demanded an hour's 
respite to awake his wife, light the fire, and kill, pluck, prepare, and serve the 
chickens with an accompaniment of rice and pimento. We granted his request; and 
by way of passing the time some of our company thought they could not do better 
than cut with a knife upon the wooden walls of the tampu, their names, and the 
date of their visit; while others cooled their faces with fresh water, and, in the 
absence of cold-cream, anointed them with tallow. 

At the expiration of the appointed time our host reappeared, bearing an earthen 
dish in which, in the midst of a plentiful supply of clear liquid, floated small morsels 
of the devoted poultry. A wooden spoon was then given to each of us, and seated 

• The Quichua idiom, altering by degrees through its contact with the Spanish language, has changed its terminations 
cu, hua, pa, pi, pu, &c., into go, gua, ba, hi, bo, &c. &c. 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 



16 



in a circle round the smoking viands^ we scrimmaged our best. Our host, discreetly 
withdrawing into a shady corner, watched the repast, and no doubt felt his self-love 
as a culinary artist immensely flattered by the ardour with which we wielded our 
spoons. When the dish Avas thoroughly cleaned out we threw down our spoons 
and asked for the bill. Our host had written it out in chalk upon a jiiece of wood 




TAJIPU, OR HOSTELRY OF THE PAMPAS. 



while we were eating, and he now presented it with an obsequious air. It ran as 
follows: — Vel-aga, 416 — Ckup-suma, 60-80. Interpreted thus: — 

Vela (caudle), 4 reals. 
Agua (water), 16 reals. 
Chupe (soup), 60 reals. 

Suma (total), 80 reals. 

As we had not comprehended this little bill in its abbreviated form, we began 
laughing, but when our host proceeded to explain the thing we laughed no longer. 
The tallow candle in the bottle was charged four reals,^ the pail of water two piastres,^ 
the chicken-broth represented seven piastres and a half; in a word, the cost of this 
sumptuous repast amounted to some two pounds sterling. A European unaccustomed 
to the country would certainly have abused the landlord and made a great noise about 
the matter; but my companions, born in the country, and myself, resident there for 
many years, judged the matter differently, and paid without a word, but also without 
giving the least pourboire. Our host appeared by no means hurt by the voluntary 
omission, but pocketed the sum and went out, improvidently leaving his dish behind 
him, which we carefully buried in the sand. 

While this was passing in the interior of the tampu, our attendants, remaining 



' The value of a real is about 6^(1. 



^ The value of a piastre is about 4s. 2d. or 4s. 3d. 



16 PERU. 

outside, had managed to take a comfortable nap winked at by the stars, leaving the 
mules which they had unsaddled to roll on the ground with their feet in the air, 
and make up by such gambols for the fodder and water they wanted. We woke 
the fellows up and made them saddle the beasts, a march through the pampas by 
night being prefei'able to one by day, as it enabled them to bear an amount of 
hunger, thirst, and fatigue which would have been insufferable in the heat of the 
sun. Our Palforio, who had not yet discovered the loss of his dish, assisted the 
muleteers in their preparation for departure, and did not return into the house until 
he had seen us in the saddle. 

On leaving the tampu we headed for the east. The wind no longer blew from 
the Cordilleras, but the air was fresh and bracing. Our mules, quite restored by 
their short repose, were in capital spirits, taking advantage of which we made them 
go at a fair pace. About five o'clock a clear whiteness appeared in the sky, the 
stars paled their lustre, the day began to break. Soon a ruddy orange tint spread 
over the soil of the pampas, now become firm and compact. In a few minutes 
the disc of the sun appeared above the horizon, and as we marched full in the front 
of the god of day, Ave found ourselves in the midst of a luminous torrent, which 
so dazzled and incommoded us that to escape from this new torture we doubled 
ourselves up like hedgehogs. This anomalous and inconvenient posture rendered 
us unjust to the claims of the rising sun. Instead of welcoming his appearance with 
transport, we were inclined to curse him; and in the meantime, notwithstanding 
my own feeling about the matter, I could not help laughing at my Peruvian attendants, 
who in so many words sent to the devil the god they worshipped. It was not till 
eight o'clock that the star of day, now high above the horizon, permitted us to raise 
our heads. The chain of the snowy Andes rose grandly before us, cut by a zone 
of cerros, which bounded the pampas eastward. We now pursued, in Indian file, 
the narrow, sinuous, and difficult path which wound at the base of these singular 
formations. This barren region presented nothing living to view but tufts of cactus 
(Cereiis and Ojmntia) shrivelled and cracked by the drought, with a few gray lizards 
and a great number of turtle-doves. Of the latter we counted three or four varieties. 
The turtle, like rats, lice, and fleas, must be reckoned among the plagues of the 
country. It not only devastates the fields of maize and wheat, but fills the air with 
its continual lamentations. This melancholy bird lodges and bewails itself indifferently 
in any corner. One finds it in the midst of the volcanic cinders of the sea-coast, 
in the quartzose sands inland, among the rocks of the Sierra, beneath the trees of 
the sultry valleys, and even in the poetry of the Quichua rhapsodists, who, not contented 
with calling the silly bird urpilla-ckay (darling turtle), compare it to the Avomen 
of their nation, a figure of speech, by the way, of which I do not recognize the 
propriety. 

The singular region which we were now traversing, and Avhich stretches from seven 
to eight degrees in length by three miles in breadth at most (if one could fly across 
it as the turtles do!), cost us the loss of two weary hours, to say nothing of the 
heat and dust which we had to endure. But we were well repaid for these troubles 



I 



I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 



17 



by the scene which hiy before lis when, having ronndcd the last cerro, we found our- 
selves uiDon the esplanade which serves as the floor, if I may so speak, of these 
mineral formations. At our feet lay the valley of Arequipa, a profound ravine, some 
500 feet deep, about six miles in breadth, and forty-five miles long in the direction seen 
from this point. Carpeted with green of various shades, it was dotted at every vantage- 
point with villages, farms, and country-houses, while through its connningled light and 
shade meandered two rivers which en- 
tered the plain from opposite points, ap- 
proached each other, lovingly wound their 
way side by side for a certain distance, 
and at length merged their waters in one 
full stream. The whole eastern side of 
the valley was bounded by the first pla- 
teau of the Western Andes, that vast pile 
of snowy heights whose higher pathways 
seemed to scale the heavens. Two sierras, 
connected with the principal chain of 
mountains, to which they served as but- 
tresses, loomed up in front. That on the 
right named FicJiU'piclm, was serrated 
like a saw, the other on the left, called 
Chachani, rose perpendicular as a wall. 
A space of about sixty miles in circuit 
separated the two masses, and from the 
centre of that area, sloping from east to 
west, sprang in all its native majesty and 
its unrivalled configuration the cone of 
Misti,' one of the finest volcanoes which 
crown the Andes at various points from 
Tierra del Fuego to the equator. 

The valley of Arequipa was discov- 
ered in the commencement of the thir- 
teenth century by the fourth Inca, Mayta- 

Capac, who, following the example of his predecessors, left his capital Cuzco Avith a 
view of extending the bounds of the empire, and of rallying to the worship of the sun 
the unsubdued tribes who peopled the littoral, and the snowy sierra. After subju- 
gating the Aymaras of tlie plateau of Tiahuanacu in higher Peru, he had traversed 







CEREUS CANDELARia AND OPUNTIA. 



' Modem geographers have mistakenly substituted for the Misti, which rises above the valley and city of Arequipa, 
the Ihiaytia-Putina, which they call Ouaga-Putina, and place on a branch of the Western Andes; while, in fact, this 
volcano is situated on the main chain, in the valley of Moqiieluia, above the village of Ornate — that is to say, about 
ninety miles south-east of Arequipa. Having i)ointerl out this threefold error, I will only add that the Misti, which some 
travellers have tried to ascend, is forty miles in circumference at its base. Its heiglit above the sea is 15,223 feet; above 
the Tampu and Pampa of Hay it measures 11,306 feet; and above the central Place of Arequipa, 8545 feet. 

VOL. I. 3 



18 



PERU. 



tlie double chain of the Andes above the sources of the Apurimac to reduce to servi- 
tude those of the Aymara nation who Uved in the environs of Pari Huanacocha 
(Fhinun<,^o Lake), under the hfteeuth degree. These two expeditions having been 
completed, the Inca was traversing the foot of the Western Cordilleras when he came 
by chance where the Sierra of Velilla opened to this valley of Arequipa, then unin- 
habited and called Coripuna (the plain of gold), from the name of a volcano, now 





REGION or OEBROS OB RUGGED HILLS NEAR ABEQUIP^V. 



extinct and covered with suoav, M'hich rises on the borders of the provinces of 
Cailloma and Arequipa.' 

We are ignorant, and the Spanish chroniclers were as ignorant as ourselves — for 
they say nothing about it, and are not the people to keep a secret — what aspect that 
valley presented, deprived of inhabitants and denuded of culture, at the epoch Avhen 
Mayta-Capac took possession of it in the name of the Sun, his divine ancestor. But 
the continual rising of its level during the period of volcanic activity of the Huayna- 
Putina — which, as explained on a previous page, nmst not be confounded with the Misti 



' By the side of this volcano, the cone of whicii is jierfectly regular, rises another named tlie Padre Eterno, now 
extinct like the Coi-ipuna, and like it covered with snow from the summit to the base during the whole year. They are 
both situated in the same parallel as the volcano {Misti) of Arequipa ni the foot of the chain of the Westeru Andes. They 
are distinctly visible from the descent of the Kecoleta, near the bridge of Arequipa. 



J LAY TO AREQUIPA 



lU 



—a period which comprises the eruptions of 1582, IGOO, 1G04, 1G09, 1G87, 1725, 1732, 
and 1738, allows us to suppose that in the thirteenth century the depth of its bed must 
have been double what it now is, its slope from south to north very slight, its 
temperature more elevated and more equal; while as to its flora and fauna, they were 
the same, with the exception of a few species, as they are at the present day.' 

The actual physiognomy of the valley is characterized by an inclination of 7113 feet, 
reckoning from the Sierra de Characato, where it begins, to the vale of Quellca fronting 
the ocean, where it terminates after a course of ninety-six miles. Its vegetation in 
a temperature wliicli varies from 39° to 90' Fahrenheit, presents successively barley, rye, 
and the quinoa {Clienopodiwn Quinoa) of cold countries, wheat and maize, the fig and 






PKONS OF THK VAM.KT OF AREQT'IPA. 



the raisin, the olive and the pomegranate of southern Europe, and the sugar-cane and 
banana of the tropics. To the traveller who arrives panting and covered with du.st on 
the threshold of that region of cerros, this long strij:) of verdure, sweetly softened by 
the distance and varying its aspect each league, is like a land of promise, a peep of that 
fertile Canaan which at length terminates the desert. It rejoices his soul, renews his 
strength, and has the effect on his sight, scorched by the hot reflection of the sands, of 
an extended shade of green taffeta. 

This fertile valley, so remarkable on many grounds, so picturesque in its entire 
aspect and details, has nothing, or next to nothing, to offer to the naturalist. Its 
flora and its fauna, together with those of the environs of Arequipa, are meagre in 
the extreme, and the catalogue of plants and animals which they comprise would not 
take long to draw up. 

A narrow path, forming a steep descent, led down into the valley on the left 
bank of the Tampu, one of the two streams by which it is watered. We crossed 
by a ford opposite Ocongate, a group of cottages shaded by a species of sallow, pointed 



' The Ardca alba, or white heron, and the I'hcenicopterus, or flamingo, observed in the time of the first Incaa, have 
long since disappeared from these countries. 



20 



PERU. 



in form, and so closely set as to hide with a verdant curtain the base of tlie hill on the 
summit of Avhich stand the church and houses of Tiabaya, a small town once renowned 
for its drinking and dancing festivities. Till now the difficulties of the ground 
had compelled us to march in column; but on turning a hill we found it possible 
to deploy into line upon a fine and perfectly level road, bordered by cultivated fields, 
and the ranchos of the Indians. Henceforth we had to fear neither hunger nor thirst, 
neither sunstrokes nor shifting sands, and the sense of this relief gave to the con- 
versation of our friends a turn which became more and more sportive. The muleteers, 
gratified at having brought their cattle in safety through the difficulties of the 





Farmer (Chacarero) of the Valley 
of Areqiiipa. 



A Farmer's Wife (Chacarera) of the 
Valley of Arequiija 



way, bawled their delight in ear-splitting shouts and melodies. One sang a ballad 
the subject of which was the delight of revisiting one's family and friends after a long 
absence, and at each return of the refrain — for this ode to native-land had a refrain — 
the very mules neighed and threw vip their heels, as if they too had a domestic hearth 
and a family circle awaiting them. In this joyous mood we arrived at the hamlet 
of Sachaca, composed of less than a score of poor huts built in the sheltered 
crannies of a trachytic rock which bars the road. It is at Sachaca, so say the 
legends, that the sorcerers, the goblins, and elves of the environs are wont to 
assemble on moonlight nights. Unfortunates wearing cravat-wise the rope with 
which they had been hanged; others who had been flayed alive, dragging their 
bloody skins after them  and the decapitated carrying their heads under their arms, 
figure in these reunioiis. All that is grotesque and revolting in the world of im- 
agination throng the paths, eat, drink, and dance, play with the bones of the dead 
upon the gaping coffins, and vanish into thin air at cock-crow. In vain the inhabitants 
of Sachaca have had recourse to the exorcists of the country to disperse these nocturnal 
phantoms; in vain they have placed crosses and sacred bushes over their doors. The 
sorcerers have burned the crosses to cook their broth, transformed the bushes into 
brooms, and notwithstanding all the enchantments of their rivals in art, have remained 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 



21 



masters of the place. To this day Sachaca is an accursed spot, at the sight of which 
the good women sign themselves with the cross under pretence of kissing their thumb, 
and which no man would dare to pass at midnight unless he had drank enough to 
forget his usual prudence. 

As it was now eleven o'clock in the morning, and sorcerers and owls do not 
show themselves by daylight, our muleteers halted at Sachaca to drink a jug of the 
native beer {cliicha), which they say is excellent. Our friends, curious to verify the fact, 
caused some glasses to be served; but notwithstanding their pressing entreaties, I 
refused to drink, not from any repugnance to that particular beverage, which I prefer 
to stagnant water, but because I feared— and the reputation of Sachaca sufficiently 




VILLAGES OP OCONGATK, TIABAVA, AND ClIARO. 



justifies the fear — that its beer, brewed under a malign influence, might act upon my 
reason like the juice of the lotus, or the moly of Homer, and detain me for ever in a 
country which I had arranged to quit on the morrow about this very hour. 

Fi'om Sachaca to Yanahuara, three miles distant, the road is admirable, and the 
country cultivated with great care. Fields of maize, clover, and potatoes, squares of 
golden grain, streams bordered with well -grown willows, mud-built houses coloured white, 
blue, or pink, combined to form a landscape upon which the eye rested with pleasure. 
Here and there, in arbours formed of trailing gourds loaded with their pale yellow 
fruit, and surmounted with a pennon of the Peruvian colours, the sign of a rural 
cabaret — town cabarets have only a wisp of straw for their emblem — men and women 
in many-coloured garments, with complexions like sepia, and hair flowing down 
upon their shoulders, swallowed their favourite drink, strummed their three-stringed 
guitar, tootled a cracked pipe, and frisked merrily about, now embracing, now gourman- 
dizing, now dancing again to the accompaniment of shouts and bursts of laughter, 
mingled with oaths, and ending in their dropping off to sleep with their heads under the 
shade of the arbour, and their feet in the sun, in such attitudes as would have sent a 
painter of genre into ecstasies. These exhibitions of local manners, to which my com- 
panions paid scarcely the least attention, familiar as they were with them from child- 



•>•>. 



PERU. 



hood, gave me, I must confess, the greatest pleasure. My curiosity and my philosophy 
were alike gratified. Pictures so artistically composed, so rich in colour, so alive with 
movement, charmed my eyes at the same time that they supplied me with serious 
subjects for reflection. I found myself surprised into silent disquisitions upon the 
nature of man in general, and in particular upon that of these indigenes, happy under 
the shadow of a gourd whicli served them at once for house, tent, and sunshade. 
"Happy people!" I said to myself, as I jerked the bridle of my mule, "whose appetite 




HAMLET OF .SACHACA. 



of hunger is satisfied with a pumpkin; a people worthy of the age of gold, content 
to dine on a potato roasted in the ashes, to sup on a raw onion, to forget the very 
necessity of eating, provided they get something to drink, and pass through life to the 
sweet sounds of the fliite and guitar, Avithout disquieting themselves about a battered 
hat, or a ragged pair of breeches; who regret nothing, and are ambitious of nothing, 
not even of a new shirt, though it may be the first of January, and the one that has 
been worn for a year may be dropping off their backs; Avhose only fault — a very 
innocent one — ^is to organize an emeute once a month, and set up a ncAv president of the 
republic. Alas!" I concluded with a sigh, "to what Nova Zembla, or what Papua, 
innocent of civilization, would it be necessary to direct one's steps to find a worthy 
parallel to such a people!" 

Beyond Yanahuara, a little village remarkable for nothing but its name (black 
breeches) and its springs of sparkling water riinning in granite channels, the houses are 
closer together, and border both sides of the road. Drinking places now become 



1LA.Y TO AREQUIPA. 



23 



more frequent, their white and red streamers waving in the air like the wings of 
ilamingoes. Troops of Ihimas laden with dried tigs, pimento, charcoal, or rock-salt, 
mingle in busy contact with convoys of asses and mules. Indians of both sexes pass to 
and fro chattering with emulous loquacity. As we advance, the crowd and the noise 
augment; songs, too, are heard in the distance, which, mingling with this tumult, 
impart to it a joyous and holiday-making aspect. These people throng the approaches 
of a great city. Suddenly, on turning from the Recoleta — an advanced post of squalid 
and blackened houses, where the chicha brewers smoke night and day like chimneys — 
a rapiil fall of the ground brings to view, in a perspective of dazzling light and 
pure azure, the city of Arequipa, lying at the foot of the great volcano Misti, and 
crowned as with a diadem by the snows of the Sierra. 
The coup d'oeil is magical. Nothing more beautiful was ever 
seen at an opera. Mexico in its plain, Santiago du Chili, 
backed by the Cordillera de Mendoza, could alone for splen- 
dour of prospect furnish a parallel to it. 

From the Recoleta we descended towards a bridge of 
six arches by which it communicates with the city. This 
bridge, which has somewhat the look of a Roman aqueduct, 
crosses at the height of more than a hundred feet the bed of 
the river Chile, the sister stream of the Tampu, which flows 
by Ocongate. A furious torrent when swelled by the melting 
of the snows, the Chile during the rest of the year is nothing 
but a common brook haunted by carp and crayfish, where the 
washerwomen of the city come to beat their linen, to a noisy 

accompaniment of shouting and singing. As these admired "cholas" wear short 
petticoats and chemises very loose about their necks, numbers of loungers {aficionados) 
come every day between the hours of three and six, under pretext of a promenade, 
to loll upon the parapet of the bridge and watch the women in the river. For three 
mortal hours these genteel loiterers lean on the parapet ogling the women, and deliver- 
ing themselves of observations more or less piquant, all the time spitting in the Avater 
to make rings. There were none of these gentlemen on the bridge, however, when 
we passed, nor did a single short-petticoated chola exhibit herself on the banks of the 
river. This, however, surprised us little: just then all the clocks of the city were 
sounding the mid-day hour, at Avhicli time, when the sun is beginnhig to glare too 
fiercely, the citizens take a siesta in their houses, and the washerwomen, leaving their 
linen and their soap to the care of Providence, go to enjoy a jug of beer under the 
shade of the cabaret. 

The first street into which we enter after leaving the bridge is the Calle del Puente, 
a long narrow avenue of stone buildings, the trade of which chiefly consists in 
provisions and drink. Every house in the street is a shop where black olives, unctuous 
cheese, butter put up in bladders, dried fish, fag-ends of salt pork prepared in fat, 
salads chopped small like minced meat, and fritters soaked in treacle, are exposed 
to the admiring gaze of the passengers in a state of mingled disorder, which is nothing 




Chola Wahhebwoman. 



24 PERU. 

less than the effect of art. Leathern bottles of wine and tafia (a kind of rum) here and 
there showed their rounded forms. The odour which exhales from these dens of 
indigestion would make a European sick; but the native sniffs it with delight, gifted 
as he is by nature with a voracious appetite, and a stomach strong enough to digest 
glass-bottles. 

From the Calls del Puente we hastened with our mules at full gallop to the great 
square {Plaza Mayor) of Arequipa. Several streets radiate like the spokes of a Avheel 
from this place as a centre. Having to proceed in opposite directions to regain our 
respective dwellings, we halted at this spot as with common consent, conscious 
that the hour of separation had at last arrived. The dinner on board the Vkar 
of Bray rendered quite superfluous a farewell festivity, which, according to the custom 
of the country, my friends had not been slow to offer me. Under the circumstances 
they contented themselves with clasping me in their arms, while their eyes were more 
or less filled with tears according to the degree of affection which existed between 
us. "Write to us" — "Write to me" — "Yes, I will write"— were the last words Avhich 
we exchanged. A quarter of an hour after this affecting scene the door of my house, 
situated in the Eue de Huanamara, closed upon me. 

Here I find myself obliged to open a parenthesis to beg the reader's pardon if I do 
not invite him into my parlour, for I wish it to be understood that I really enjoyed 
that luxury. It was a vaulted apartment with two holes in the roof for the admission 
of air and light; the walls, of granite, were three feet thick and were painted yellow. 
The floor was paved in a geometrical pattern with black and blue and white stones. But 
my parlour, otherwise not unworthy of notice, is at the moment of which I write turned 
inside out, as the saying is. The furniture is concealed under packages; the floor is 
encumbered with baskets and boxes, a fine layer of dust covers everything, and the 
spider, taking advantage of my long absence, has stretched his web from angle to 
angle of the walls. It being impossible, under these circumstances, to find so much 
as a chair to offer my reader; and being unwilling to leave him standing in the street 
tdl the hour of my departure, I beg permission to escort him through the city, and 
substituting action for description, give him certain details about Arequipa which he 
would seek in vain in geographies, itineraries, and guide-books. 

Two Spanish chroniclers of the seventeenth century, Garcilaso de la Vega, and the 
reverend father Bias Valera, explain the etymology of Arequipa in the following 
fashion. When the Inca Mayta Capac, says Garcilaso, had discovered the valley of 
Coripuna, some of the Indians who accompanied him, charmed by the beauty of the 
sight and the agreeable temperature, expressed their desire to establish themselves here. 
"Since the place pleases you," said the Inca, " ariqqu^pay"^ that is, "by all means 
remain here." 

Three thousand men, it is said, remained. 

'Those who are inclined to put faith in this etymology will at least permit me to observe that the word ari-qquipay, 
by corrnption arequipa, formed from the affirmative particle ari, and from qqu^pay, the imperative of the verb, may be 
understood in two distinct senses: the verba qqueparini (to remain behind), and qquepacani (to contain within certain 
bounds, \niderstoo(l of capacity or extent), both make qquepaij in the imperative. 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 



27 



Valera simply observes that the word Arequipa signifies "sonorous or loud- 
sounding trumpet." In the idiom of the children of the Sun qu6pa does, in fact, mean a 
trumpet, but the affirmative particle ari does not express any idea of sonorousness. 
We believe in this etymological guess the least. 

During two centuries, Arequipa, a simple Indian village, like its neighbours 
Sucahuaya and Paucarpata, which date from the same epoch, was governed by curacas 
or caciques nominated by the reigning Inca. In 1536, on the 5th of July, Pedro 




THE AUTHOR 8 HOUSE AT AREQUIPA. 



Anzurez de Campo Redondo, one of the adventurers who followed Pizarro into 
America, destroyed the village, and built a city in its place. Since that period, 
Arequipa, eight times partially destroyed, and thrice overthrown from its very founda- 
tions by earthquakes, has twice changed its site. Let me, however, hasten to say, for 
the honour of the Misti at whose foot the city is built, that this volcano is by no means 
responsible for the calamities which have befallen the city. The author of all its evils is 
the Huayna-Putina of the valley of Moquehua, a fire -belching mountain which 
geographers of robust faith have transported into the valley of Coripuna. 

The most violent eruption of Huayna-Putina took place in 1609. The first signs 
of the volcanic tempest were hollow rumblings beneath the earth's crust. These 
subterranean disturbances, accompanied by ear-splitting claps of thunder, were followed 
by torrents of rain, which continued to fall for fourteen days. Then the volcano began 
to eject cinders, stones, and sand in such masses, and to such an extent, that the 
light of the sun was obscured. This frightful tempest continued for forty-five days. 
The city of Arequipa was completely destroyed, and, as well as its valley, was covered 



26 PERU. 

with a thick bed of ashes. The neighbouring rivers, obstructed by sand and stones, 
changed their course, leaving upon their shores thousands of dead fish, the corruption 
of which occasioned a pestilence in the country. Beyond Quellca, at the mouth of the 
valley, the waters of the sea, to a distance of ten miles, were turned to a grayish 
colour; and Lima, the royal capital, at a distance of more than 600 miles, could count, 
by the reports which from minute to minute shook the ground, every throe of the 
agony suffered by Arequipa. 

The present city, occupying an area of about 26,000 square yards, is far from 
beino- symmetrically laid out. It is divided into five quarters, which are subdivided 
into eighty-five blocks {ties or cuadras), giving a total of 2064 houses for a popula- 
tion of about 17,000 souls. The number of cabarets is 928, a figure which at first 
may seem very high, but will not be thought extraordinary if we bear in mind the 
burning thirst of a people who live and multiply over a volcano. The quarters of the 
city, respectively named Santo Domingo, San Francisco, San Mercedo, San Agustin, 
and Miraflores, have each a church and a convent for men; besides which, there are 
three convents for Avomen, a B^guinage under the protection of St. Francis, and a 
house of spiritual exercise, where, during the "holy week," the fair sex of Arequipa 
come to flagellate themselves in remembrance of the passion of our Lord. The idlers 
of the city, aware of this circumstance, are accustomed at night to station themselves 
under the windows of this pious abode, to listen to the blows of the whip which the 
women apply to one another in the darkness, accompanying the operation with sharp 
cries. 

The churches and convents, constructed for security against earthquakes, present 
little that is remarkable in architecture. The walls are built of stones to half their 
height only; all the rest is woodwork, plaster, or loam. The interior arrangement 
of the convents is always in the form of a square more or less perfect, with a quadri- 
lateral cloister, from which open the cells. The plan of the churches is that of a 
capital T, the ancient Tau, or a Latin cross. For the most part they have only a nave 
without side-aisles. Their vaulted roofs, which rise from forty to fifty feet above the 
ground, are sometimes strengthened by double arches, and supported by walls, generally 
smooth, from seven to eight feet thick. In an architectural point of view, the interior 
of these churches is no doubt a little naked, but that nakedness is more than redeemed 
by the ornamentation of their fagades, where the architect, no longer fearing to 
compromise the safety of his work, has combined, according to whatever rule he 
finds most convenient, egg-and tongue mouldings, volutes, cauliflowers and chiccory, 
fire-pots and balustrades, urns and columns, acroteria and terminals, such as charac- 
terized the Hispano-Lusitanian taste of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. All 
these toys, which at a distance one would think were turned rather than sculptured, are 
whitened with lime-wash, and being placed on the salient points of the straight lines 
as upon shelves, have the look of those ivory chessmen which are carved by the Chinese 
and the people of Dieppe. 

If art and taste are at fault in these monuments, they are supplemented by a 
grand display of wealth. Gold and silver, precious stones and rich draperies, are 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 



29 



lavished with prodigality upon the altars and vestments of the images. The Christs — 
there are many in the Peruvian calendar, such as the Christ of Earthquakes, of 
Remedies, of the Faithful, Dead, &c. — are dressed in skirts of point-lace from England, 
and have crowns of the Acacia tfiacatithus, each thorn in which is composed of an 
emerald five inches long; the nails which fasten the image to the cross have diamond 
heads, and furrows formed of rubies imitate the blood of the wounds. The blessed 
Virgins, still more numerous, are dressed in farthingales or hooped petticoats, with 
court mantles of velvet, brocade, or embroidered satin; head-dresses adorned with 
streamers; turbans surmounted with feathers, collars of pearls, ear-rings of brilliants, 
jewelled rings on every finger, watches Avith chain and charms, 
brooches and scent- boxes, pocket-handkerchiefs of lace, and 
fans covered with spangles. 

Seeing such magnificence complacently exposed to the 
public eye, a stranger who visits the country to seek his for- 
tune is astonished that the petty thieves of Ai-equipa — who 
are as numerous, by the way, as the shop-keepers and coster- 
mongers themselves — have never yet thought of working this 
rich mine. One cannot help asking. What scruple or what 
motive can keep these chevaliers d'industrie with their hands 
idly tucked in their pockets? It is simply their wholesome 
terror of committing any outrage upon Holy Church. As for 
the huaso, the cholo, or any other ordinary specimen of man- 
kind, very little would be thought of strangling him, or 
cutting his throat for the sake of emptying his pockets; but 

to steal a wax candle from a church is what these conscientious vagabonds would 
never dare to do, for fear of hell and eternal fire. Such an article of faith, let us 
admit, is most admirable! Unhappily, sooner or later it is sure to be undermined. 
The day will come, if it has not already arrived, when these sons of the soil, civilized 
by contact with packet-boats, steamboats, and transatlantic cables, will seek to rival 
the pickpockets of Europe, and depend upon it, their first essay will be a master- 
stroke. 

The churches of Arequipa, often destroyed and rebuilt, are for the most part from 
two to three centuries old. The cathedral alone, which occupies all one side of the Plaza 
Mayor, is of quite modern date, having been built to replace the old structure 
consumed by fire— the work of an incendiary — in 1849. This structure measures 
about two hundred feet square, and is crowned by two wooden towers with rather squat- 
looking pyramidal roofs. Eight massive columns of the Roman Ionic order, and many 
smaller engaged columns, decorate the fa§ade. The central entrance under this is 
surmounted by a pediment suitably ornamented with an acroterium and other archi- 
tectural devices. Two porticoes, decorated with numerous Corinthian columns, spring 
from either extremity of the edifice, which is pierced with numerous windows, and 
whose total height from the ground to the attic near the apex of the roof may be 
from forty to fifty feet. This massive structure, square at the base, square at the 




CHOLO or AREQUIPA. 



30 PERU. 

roof, virgin white with lime-wash, and glistening with cactus gum, stands out with 
singular boldness against the ultramarine blue of a sky almost ahvays unclouded. 

Notwithstanding the imposing appearance of the modern cathedral, it is im- 
possible not to regret the destruction of its predecessor, whose walls of mouse- 
coloured gray harmonize so well with a style of architectural adornment on which 
the architect had lavished all his resources of taste. There was no salient point 
of the old edifice, however slight, which did not support a vase or some other kind 
of finial. That erection, however, possessed a greater treasure than its wealth of 
architecture, or the splendours of its sacristy, in its gallery of portraits of bishops, 
which consisted of nineteen pictures magnificently framed, all destroyed by the 
fire of 1849. The portraits represented the whole, line of bishops who had suc- 
ceeded to the spiritual government of Arequipa from the year 1614, arranged in 
chronological order. The figures were of full-length size, painted by native artists, 
and remarkable for this peculiarity, that the first of the series having served in 
arrangement, design, and colour as a model for the painter of the second, the 
subsequent artists had also thought it their duty to follow suit, so that every 
picture during two centuries had been an exact copy of those which preceded it, 
and the portraits were so scrupulously alike, so perfectly identical, that one might 
have supposed only a single picture existed, which Avas multiplied nineteen times 
by means of mirrors. While we grieve over the loss of this precious collection of 
clerical Dromios seated on gilded thrones, all draped in the same fashion, placed in 
the same attitude, holding the same book, and looking at the same spot, we 
cannot but lament the indifierence of the Peruvian government in regard to dan- 
ger by fire. Such an institution as firemen are unknown in the great cities of this 
republic. 

After the churches come the convents, massive and commonplace buildings, which 
owe nothing to architectural art but the semicircular arches of their galleries. 
Without the stone cross over their gates, they might be easily mistaken for ordinary 
private dwellings, their exterior appearance is so poor, cold, and naked. Let me, 
however, hasten to say that this architectural poverty is not strictly symbolic; all 
the convents are rich, and they do not conceal the fact. Why should they attempt 
to do sol every one knows within a few reals the amount of their income, and 
what profit they derive, one year with another, from the haciendas which they 
possess in the valleys. 

Besides its wealth in property and hard cash, in the costly ornaments and 
jewels which adorn its chapels, every convent possesses in its archives and its 
library, composed of some hundreds of works, often of a rare and precious char- 
acter, a treasure of which the value is far from being appreciated. The monks, 
occupied with divers cares, have no time or inclination to bestow a thought on 
these dusty volumes. They are equally slow to offer any facility to others who 
would care for them, and it needs a powerful recommendation to be admitted 
with a view to literary research. By way of compensation, however, the convent 
cloister is open to all the world. From the hour of six in the morning to six in 



I 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 33 

the evening any one who pleases may walk up and down in the agreeable shade, 
and there read or smoke his cigar at pleasure. 

. From the containing vessel let us pass to the thing it contains, from the 
monastery to the monk. Though under the ban in Spain, he enjoys in Peru the 
highest possible consideration. As in the happiest days of his history, the monk is 
the adviser of men, the confidant of women, the friend of every house, the welcome 
guest at every feast. The sight of his frock, so far from inspiring sad and 
mournful ideas, is the immediate cause of mirth and gaiety. The amiable and 
tolerant religion of the monk is no hindrance to his enjoyment of the social board 
or the dance, or of whatever besides that serves to make life pleasant. Like a man 
of the world (from whom he differs only in costume), the monk comes and goes at 
pleasure, and in all respects enjoys an unlimited liberty of action. Like other 
people, he has his reception days and his circle of friends. In his cell, transformed 
into a drawing-room, chocolate, liqueurs, and cakes go the round, politics and 
music, religion and literature, take their turn; nor are the virtues of the fair sex 
excluded from the conversation, which is accompanied with a guitar and cigarettes. 
In a word, one enjoys in the monk's cell every lawful pleasure, though seasoned 
with I know not what grain of ecclesiastical scruple, which only augments its savour. 

The monastic rule, much more severe in the communities of women, does not 
permit them under any pretext to cross the threshold of the convent where they 
have pronounced their vows. Even for a doctor to visit them in case of illness 
needs a dispensation from the bishop. A gardener is the only male individual 
whose presence is tolerated in a convent, this happy exception to the general 
rule not being a man in the eyes of the religieuse. Thus secluded beneath the 
shadow of their lofty walls, these holy women, who one might suppose wearing 
out their lives in prayers, tears, and mortifying ceremonials, nevertheless pass a 
sufficiently agreeable time. Their little cell is a thoroughly comfortable apartment, 
where each nun enjoys as much luxury in drapery and furniture as the for- 
tune of her family (upon whom the cost of her installation exclusively falls) can 
afford. Each has her library, her pet birds, her guitar, her little garden of rare flowers, 
and even her bosom friend, or adopted sister, who shares in her secret ennuis, her 
pleasures, and her confidences. A friendship of this kind, born in the shade of the 
cloister, often becomes a passion. From nones to nones there goes on a constant 
exchange of tender missives, containing endless vows of undying friendship, bouquets 
of flowers and serenades, sometimes interrupted by a terrible explosion, the cause 
of which may be a smile, or a slight preference of some kind, shown to a rival. 
Unconsciously to themselves, these poor recluses play with the profane love which 
they fancy themselves to have renounced; and who would dream of imputing it to 
them as a crime? 

Although these devotees cannot leave the convent, they have the privilege of 
receiving, and even of inviting to lunch, their relations of both sexes, and even the 
friends of their relatives. The meal on these occasions is served in the parlour — 
a great vaulted apartment, divided into two by gratings, and the table is placed so 



34 PERU. 

near one of these gratings, that the nun seated at the other side can see and dis- 
course with her guests. The conversation habitually turns on the recent gossip of 
the city; every kind of small talk about love-makings, marriages, births and deaths, 
is mino-led with epigrammatic observations and bursts of laughter. When gentle- 
men are present they do not forget to season their pleasantries with a little of what 
I may call Attic salt. By merely shutting the eyes one may imagine himself in 
some ordinary drawing-room in the midst of an animated and fashionable company. 

Sometimes a stranger is invited by the family to one of these monastic but savoury 
breakfasts. After the ordinary compliments, the nun at once begins to inquire, with 
an amiable show of interest, as to the birthplace and parentage of her guest. She 
even questions him as to his orthodoxy and the state of his heart; as to the illusions 
which time has dispelled, and those which he still cherishes; as to the countries he has 
visited, and the adventures of which he has been the hero. If the stranger's answers 
are satisfactory, she makes him promise that when he next passes the convent he will 
call in to take a glass of sherbet, and exchange a friendly good-day with the desgraciada 
(unfortunate) who inhabits it: so she styles herself At the end of the repast, in the 
general bustle of parting, if the stranger has talked himself into her good graces, a 
beloved brother, or an influential uncle, undertakes to induce her to raise her vail, 
that the friend of the family, who has never yet seen her, may carry away her image 
engraved on his memory. After a little hesitation — for that action so simple is a 
mortal sin — she yields to their entreaties, not without first assuring herself, by a rapid 
glance round, that the mother and the sisters have their backs turned. Of course the 
only way in which a favour of this kind can be acknowledged is to express the most 
lively admiration, murmuring aside, but so as to be sure that the nun hears. Que faz 
encantadora ! (What a sweet face!) It may happen that the vestal is snub-nosed, has a 
jaundiced skin, and but five teeth in her head, but it is the intention she values; and 
the stranger gains by his harmless flattery the reputation of being a man of taste and 
a gentleman. 

In a country where pastry-cooks and confectioners have not yet penetrated, these 
communities of women monopolize the manufacture of sweets, cakes, and ornamental 
pastry. They supply to order the necessities of every ball, wedding, or other party, 
sparing no pains to satisfy the public and increase the number of their customers, 
and this not so much for the love of gain, as for the pleasure of outdoing some other 
community, because, say they, you may stone us to death for the indiscretion, yet it is 
undeniable that there exists between the various convents a bitter rivalry, the cause 
of which is as yet unknown to the physiologist, though the fact is daily attested by the 
petty annoyances which these religious ladies inflict on each other, and the abuse, 
nay, blows, which their servants resort to when they meet in the streets. 

Each community is noted for some speciality in cookery, which recommends it 
to the appreciation of the public. The convent of Ste. Rose has its mazomora au 
carmin, a preparation of the consistency of pap, and of a reddish colour; it is 
exposed at night on the convent roof, where the cold imparts some peculiar quality 
to it. The Ste. Catherine's sistei'hood excels in petits-fours (little patties), and in a con 



I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 



35 




'Kvt':^ 



• vv. 



fiture of chicken stewed in milk of almonds : this is the manjar bianco or blanc-mange 
of the country. In fine, the Carmelites are proud of their fritters of honey, sprinkled 
with powder of dried rose-leaves and spangles of gold; and of their imperiaux, or 
yolks of eggs beaten up with powdered sugar, and curdled by a process unknown 
to us. Let it be observed that it is not to the community that any particular order is 
addressed, but to one of the nuns, who, on sending home the cakes, takes care at 
the same time to send in her bill, as would be done by an ordinary pastry-cook. 

Some of the nuns whose friends cannot afford to assist them, make up a certain 
amount of income by the sale of their cakes; others, whose friends are wealthy, 
and who are above profiting in this way, content themselves 
with making and cooking these dainties from the pure love 
of the art, and the pleasure they give to their friends and 
acquaintances. The latter, whom we may call the finer porce- 
lain of the convent, receive from their friends every Monday 
enough provisions to last them a week, and which generally 
consist of a quarter of beef and a whole sheep, to say nothing 
of tender chickens, choice fish, seasonable game, eggs, fruits, 
and vegetables. After having selected from these viands the 
portion they prefer for their own particular cuisine — for our 
nuns have the privilege of using the j^oi f'" /^^ ii^ their cells 
whenever they do not wish to go into the refectory — they 
give the rest to the community, which by this means is enabled 
to keep its commissariat on a war-footing at small cost. 

Thanks to the troop of cholas, more or less active, more or less acute, that 
each nun entertains at her cost in the character of domestics, scullions, messengers, 
and the like, who are in and out of the convent from morning till evening, she 
knows better than the inhabitants themselves what is going on in the city and 
suburbs. If a stranger has put up at some tampu, if a citizen has loitered too long 
opposite some other window than his own, if two drunken seriores have fallen foul of 
each other in the streets instead of singing the office and the Ave Maria, the inhabi- 
tants of the convent are sure to be the first to hear of the fact. Though she has shut 
herself up in a tomb, the nun of Arequipa has cleverly kept its roof open to the world. 

Besides the saint day of their convent, which the nuns celebrate by mass with 
music, and a display of fireworks let off between eleven and twelve in the day 
according to the custom of the country, there are certain festivals of the church 
which are solemnized by masquerades, accompanied by songs and dances. Christmas- 
eve is one of these. Before the episode of the Nativity, theatrically represented 
by means of painted decorations and pasteboard dolls acting the various parts, 
the nuns divide themselves into two parties, the one of shepherds, the other of 
peasants, and carry on a dialogue to the sound of the guitar and accordion, while 
dancing quadrilles de cAr Constance} Eight days previously, such of the nuns as had 

'Quadrilles for the occasion, in which some appropriate action is introduced; known to some of our readers, perhaps, 
as "improved quadrilles." — Tr. 



Chola or Arequipa. 



36 



PERU. 



to play in the .character of shepherds had borrowed from their relations and friends 
of the male sex the handsomest articles of their attire, so that they might have 
time to alter them to their own height, and embellish them with tinsel, ribbons, and other 
trimmings in the correctest taste. We ourselves remember to have taken on one of 
these occasions a satin waistcoat, a frock-coat, and a pair of black pantaloons, which 
had certainly neither a very pastoral nor a very scriptural look, but which, nevertheless, 
were received with pleasure on account of their elegant French cut. Alas! after 
Christmas-day we received back our patched garments in a most deplorable condition. 




APPEARANCE OF THE HOUSE-TOPS OF ABEQUIPA. 



but as they had been worn by a holy sister, and sanctified by monastic quadrilles, 
in place of pitching them into the river, as an indifferent or irreligious person would 
have done, we have preserved them with great care under the name of relics. 

The conventual rule which interdicts the public from admittance into these com- 
munities of women, the reception-room or parlour excepted, is relaxed in a time of 
emeute or revolution. In such dreadful times the feminine aristocracy of the city 
find a welcome and sure asylum in these monasteries, the gates of which are thrown 
wide open for their reception. It is to them that every family flees for refuge, 
carrjring with them gold and jewels, plate, and whatever precious objects they possess, 
and leaving the house almost without furniture to the care of a father or a husband 
who barricades himself in with the customary precautions. After staying a month 
in a monastery under these circumstances, women have been known to refuse to 
return under the conjugal roof, captivated by the amiability of the nims, and the 
3weetnes.s of intercourse with them. 



I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 37 

After death, if the souls of these holy women are borne to heaven on angels' 
wings, their bodies, which for a long period it was customary to bury in the churches 
with those of the citizens, are now carried away by men into a vast cemetery, adorned 
with funereal monuments, at the distance of two leagues southward from Arequipa. 
Each religious community has in that asylum, which they call an apachecta (place 
of rest), a special vault. The aristocracy of the city make use of certain parts of the 
walls, six feet in thickness, pierced with three rows of cells. Each cell is occupied 
by a single body, the head of which is introduced first as into a sheath, and the 
entrance of this narrow sepulchre being finally closed with bricks and plaster. As 
for the Indians of Arequipa, men and women alike are thrown negligently into a 
great treuch, where all the rats of the country come to visit them. 

Now that we have done with the convents of men and women, let us take a 
stroll through the city hap-hazard, not in the expectation of discovering any remarkable 
monuments — Arequipa has nothing of the kind — but to get a notion of the arrange- 
ment of its streets and the aspect of its houses. In general, the streets are broad 
and well paved, laid out at right angles, with side-walks for foot-passengers, sep- 
arated from the road by gutters of granite {acequias), in which the torrents of 
water which pour down from the Cordilleras roll noisily along to the river. The 
houses resemble each other in all but a few details. They are all built of stone, some- 
times of gray trachyte, have vaulted roofs, and are pierced with large bay-windows, 
which are protected by bars of iron, and shutters inside covered with sheet-iron, 
as a precaution against burglars and the shots of emeutiers. The entrance -gate, 
generally arched, has two leaves formidably adorned with great S's of iron and heads 
of nails. Their width is sufficient for two carriages to pass without touching. These 
houses have only a ground -floor and sometimes one story above, which is nearly 
always uninhabited, and opens upon a balcony like a long and clumsy chest of carved 
wood, painted red, brown, or dark green, and capable of being opened or closed at 
will by means of movable panels. These balconies, in which the women do not 
appear except on special occasions, throw deep shadows over the fagades of the 
buildings. 

The interior of these dwellings is composed of two courts en suite, paved with 
pebbles, and bordered with broad foot-paths {teredas). The walls of the first court 
are white-washed, and sometimes ornamented with monochromes in a primitive style, 
and of a design more primitive still; representing naval combats, impossible situations, 
and stations of the cross. The reception-rooms and bedrooms of the family are arranged, 
in most houses, upon the two lateral faces of this entrance-court, and the bed is 
placed under the arch of an arcade, which is not less than from four to six feet thick. 
This peculiar arrangement is a measure of precaution on account of earthquakes. 
These apartments have no windows, but massive folding-doors, pierced with a Judas 
or a small wicket, which serves to give air and light. Beyond the courts there is 
generally a garden, bounded by the semicircular arches of a large apartment paved 
with tiles or flag-stones, which serves as a dining-room. 

It cannot be said that the houses of Arequipa are luxurious abodes. With the 



38 



PERU. 



exception of those belonging to foreign merchants and distinguished citizens, where 
paper-hangings are used in the principal rooms, they all have white-washed walls, 
ornamented with Greek borders, love-knots, and caligraphic flourishes in red ochre 
or indigo blue. The Uttle furniture they contain is of two kinds: it is either in the 
Spanish taste, cut out of the solid wood as with a hatchet, coloured white or 
sky-blue, besprent with roses and china-asters, and relieved by gilded lines; or in 



-i :;^^a^ .■5S^i^S^^:^^.; >^;tfSS^X^•^ >^^x-,\ ?>-^x\v; 



s;^^ 



IHHHIII'V'' 




A BED-ROOM AT ARECJUIPA IN THE OLD STYLE. 



the Greek-imperial style, such as Jacob Desmalters was celebrated for manufocturinc 
in 1804; sofas of mahogany (the Indian acajou) with sphinx heads and griflins' feet; 
chairs with their backs pierced in imitation of a lyre, surmounted with a helmet or 
a trophy of arms; and all covered with dove-coloured kerseymere, or with silver-gray 
kerseymere printed a rose pattern. While inspecting these doubtful splendours, the 
eye discovers here and there, lost in the shade, or dismissed into some obscure 
corner, a beautifully carved chest, a credence-table of black oak sculptured like lace, 
an abbatial chair covered with cordovan, of which the floral decorations in cinnabar 
and gold are nearly obliterated. These articles, which date from the Spanish conquest, 
seem to protest against the miserable taste of the furniture with which they are found 
in company. 

A few Parisian lithographs in mahogany frames complete the decorations of the 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 39 

modern drawing-room in Arequipa. Chief among these works of art shine the Souvenirs 
and Regrets of Dubufte; the Poetic Alphabet of Gr^vedon — ideal representations of 
Amanda, Bianca, Cecilia, Delia, and so on; the Four Quarters of the World, and the 
Four Seasons, by the anonymous geniuses of the Rue St. Jacques. In other houses, 
where civilization has not yet extended its enlightening rays, the walls are embellished 
with smoke-dried pictures, representing the beheadings, crucifixions and burnings of 
martyrs. These works of art, painted some half century ago by certain artists of Quito 
and Cuzco named Tio Nolasco, Bruno Farfan, and Nor Egidio, are in general 
wretched daubs. Good paintings of the Spanish school, once so common in the 
country, have now become extremely rare, in consequence of the avidity with which 
they have been hunted up by connoisseurs and speculators of all nations. At the 
present time, were one to rummage all the churches and convents of Arequipa, it is 
very doubtful if ten passable canvases could be found. 

The private life of the Arequipanians is restricted, in the case of women, to gossip 
on the politics of the day, or the small-talk of the city, conveyed by cholas, chinas, 
negresses and chamber-maids, who constitute the always numerous domestic household. 
Some ladies embroider, prepare sherbet, or play the guitar, but the greater number 
pass away the week longing for Sunday: first, on account of mass, which is always 
a pleasant change for these women, afterwards to enjoy the privilege conceded by 
etiquette of opening on that day the parlour-windows, and of passing the afternoon 
squatted upon carpets, and making remarks, more or less charitable, upon persons 
in the street. In general, the women of Arequipa make few visits, but content 
themselves with keeping up a verbal communication by means of their chamber- 
women, and of perpetually exchanging flowers, fruits, and sweets, accompanied by 
compliments sweeter still. Nothing less than a musical festival, a Palm Sunday, a 
carnival, or a marriage would be needed to bring together a dozen of the fair sex 
under one roof in this city. 

The women of Arequipa, whose personal portraiture has been rather neglected 
by travellers, are for the most part distinguished by that happy roundness of form 
so favourable to beauty. In this respect they preserve a just medium between the 
ampler majesty of the Chilians and the impassioned grace of the women of Lima. 
Though but of middling stature, they carry themselves well, their shoulders are finely 
formed, their feet small, their movements distinguished by that rhythmic balancing of 
the hips which the Spaniards call meneo, from the verb menear, and which the French 
remuer translates with sufficient point. If to these charms we add that of their 
intelligent and lively looks, features delicate but irregular, black eyes whoso glances 
are like winged arrows, their vermilion lips, from which repartees and sparkling 
conceits, seasoned with a touch of Andalusian salt, are poured out like apples and 
raisins from the horn of plenty, the reader may form some idea, perhaps, of these 
charming creatures who are allied to Spain by their ancestors and to Peru by their 
ancestresses. 

To a taste for perfumes and flowers they unite an equal penchant for music, 
the song, and the dance. Dainty and disinclined to exertion, they are nevertheless 



40 PERU. 

characterized by a singular restlessness of spirit, and pass at once from the warmest 
enthusiasm to the most complete indifference. Their religion is neither highly spiritual 
nor austere; they are devout rather than pious, always ready to prefer pleasure to 
devotion, in the persuasion that a signing of the cross and a Fadre nuestro will 
compensate for any faults they commit. For these charming women love is not a 
passion, but an agreeable pastime, a pretext for romancing, a mere something for a 
change. They have studied it deeply and know all its resources, they take it up and 
lay it down at pleasure, they invite it or repel it as caprice dictates, and display 
in all these different manoeuvres the coolness and ability of an old band-master 
conducting a symphony. 

These love-sports, in which the fair sex of Arequipa show themselves first-rate 
adepts even by the side of the Limanians, are indulged in by married women only, 
who, as one does or does not know, enjoy in this country, as in France, absolute 
liberty. Love is for them the daily game of whist or boston, which diverts their 
thoughts from the bondage of wedded life. The maidens of the country, confined to 
their barred chambers, and under the immediate surveillance of their family, never 
cease, poor turtle-doves, to groan and sigh for a union by which alone they can 
expect emancipation, and be permitted, in their turn, to taste of the forbidden fruit. 
This natural desire, transmitted from Eve to all her offspring, and sharpened by 
the precocious maturity of the girls of Arequipa, causes them to cherish at a very 
tender age the most vehement matrimonial aspirations. In a cosmopolitan spirit, 
very flattering to the self-love of Europeans, they prefer foreigners to their own 
countrymen, with whatever eminent qualities the latter may be gifted. A foreigner, 
though he may have neither youth nor beauty in his favour, and nothing whatever 
may be known of his antecedents, instantly throws into a flutter the whole crowd of 
mammas and marriageable daughters. They dispute possession of him one with 
another, they snatch at him as at a morsel of the true cross, bouquets and recados 
(presents) of all kinds, from the toilet-soap of Piver to the silk handkerchiefs of 
Lyons — such are the tokens of friendship pecuhar to these countries — pursue him 
even to his private apartments. Flasks of eau-de-Cologne, little attentions, flatteries, 
everything is done to catch in the net of marriage this fine bird from distant Europe, 
whom innocently cruel hands would pluck alive perhaps soon afterwards. The houses 
at which he calls are for ever beating to arms, the furniture is relieved of its covers, 
jewels are taken out of their boxes, the family plate is displayed upon the sideboards 
and tables, the servants, properly trained, have orders to make themselves agreeable 
to their future master, the cats are commanded to purr and the dogs to wag their 
tails when he approaches. From the venerable grandmother to the youngest child 
in the family, the only question is, who shall show the highest appreciation of the 
stranger's merits, who shall flatter him the most with sweet words. The claws are 
hidden in the velvet paw, the lips distil choice honey, the tenderest rose colour and 
the bluest azure is spread over all, guitars tuned to the hymeneal pitch twang- 
incessantly the happiness of two devoted hearts. Everything, in fine, even to the 
air impregnated with the perfume of burning pastiles, conspires to charm the soul 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 41 

and the senses of the stranger. In the midst of this mise en scdne, of which our 
poor prose can hardly convey an idea, the goddess of the fete, the virgin of the hearth, 
is prepared like a shrine. Seated upon a sofa, her arms supine, her hands modestly 
crossed, her eyes apparently fixed upon a flower of the Atuncolla carpet, she is in 
reality devoutly attentive to the eftect produced upon the visitor by the marriage- 
making programme. Some Europeans, whose hearts are cuirassed in that ces triplex 
of which Horace speaks, come out victorious from these trials ; but the greater number 
succumb, and meekly bowing their shoulders to the conjugal yoke become established 
in the country, where they presently lose not only their illusions, but their hair and 
their teeth. 

An account of the manners and customs of the fair sex of Arequipa would be 
incomplete if we did not relate in what fashion the women dressed their hair and 
shaped their garments, and of what materials they make choice. We know well 
enough details of this kind will arouse the anger of classic spirits, and will cause 
grave men to raise their shoulders with a shrug of disdain; but then their wives and 
their daughters will be interested, and that is sufficient for me. A French woman, 
above all a Parisian, is always glad to learn whether a woman abroad surpasses her 
in beauty or grace, in dress or intelligence, and is equally ready to commiserate or 
revile her according to circumstances. 

Dressmakers, modistes, and hair-dressers being as yet unknown in Arequipa, 
it is the ladies themselves who cut out, sew, and trim their garments and fripperies; 
who disentangle, arrange, and curl their hair. To say that these arratigements are 
made in exquisite taste, and copied from the engravings of the latest fashion, would 
be to gloss the severe truth. To speak frankly, there is generally in the cut of the 
corsage and the sleeve, in the shortness and scantiness of the skirt, that mysterious 
something which characterized the fashions of the Restoration, and gave to the women 
of that epoch a certain resemblance to birds of the order of waders. Some fashionable 
ladies of Arequipa wear, along with the high tortoise-shell comb of the Andalusians, 
bunches of borrowed ringlets imported from England under the name of anglaises, 
the shade of which is not always exactly the same as that of their own hair. These 
lionesses also generally adorn their heads with a bird of paradise, one of those aigrettes 
of glass-thread made in Germany, or toy butterflies mounted upon a spiral wire, 
which they name temhleques, and Avhich vibrate at every movement. The climate of 
the country renders the fan almost useless; instead of it the ladies have a silk or 
velvet bag with steel mountings or chains. This they carry in their hands and balance 
coquettishly when they make their visits. Some of our matrons whose memories 
reach back to the fashionable whimsies of the period from 1815 to 1820, will smile at 
these souvenirs of bygone times. 

The materials most affected in the city and province of Arequipa are plain or 
figured silks in lively tints, prints with large spots or sprawling flowers, and muslins 
with broad stripes or flowers of many colours. I ought to add that the prints 
and the muslins in which the shopkeepers' and farmers' little daughters disport them- 
selves are only worn at home in nigligS by the women of the aristocracy. On great 
VOL. I.  e 



42 



PERU. 



occasions and gala -days the latter abandon the rebos or mantle of Castilian wool 
which they carry about with them during the whole year, to display themselves in 
cuerpo, that is to say, decollete as for a ball, and with bare arms. Those of the women 
whose delicacy would suffer from cold or pleurisy after an exhibition of this kind, 
or those whose shoulder -bones are a little too obtrusive, cover themselves with a 
light scarf, or a China crape shawl of some striking colour. Their feet, very small 
and prettily shaped, are always covered with silk stockings and white satin shoes, an 




LADY OF AREQUIPA IN FULL DRESS. 



elegant little detail of dress which gives to their carriage I know not what grace, 
lightness, or poetry of motion by which the eye and the imagination are equally 
charmed. 

The presence and the carriage of Peruvian women, that garbo and that meneo which 
they derive through their fathers from the Spaniards, are but ill-suited to tight stays 
with steel busks, with hoops and wires, which make the glory and triumph of the 
women of Paris. The generality of these charming women also — one's hand trembles 
to write the profane accusation — wear our French fashions very awkwardly ; and now 
that this fatal adverb has escaped us we will even brave the wrath and indignation 
of the lovable creatures whose monograph we have attempted to write, by avowing 
that the woman of Arequipa, traversing the street en grande toilette, reticule in hand, 
and butterflies or crystal feathers fluttering on her head, is by far less charming in our 
eyes than the same woman en deshabille, with her large comb, her orange or flame coloured 



ILAY TO AREQUiPA. 



48 



shawl, w oiii carelessly like a veil, a rose in her hair, and reclining negligently upon a sofa 
or squatted on a carpet, and puffing the smoke of a cigar heavenwards. Besides their 
out-door toilets, their neglige costume at home, and their riding-habits — for most of 
these ladies are good equestrians — they have a church -going costume, invariably 
black, composed of a jupe of silk and a mantilla of the same stuff trimmed with 
velvet and lace, which they fold back from their foreheads. This article of apparel, 
of Spanish origin, suits them to admiration, a fact which they themselves do not 




LADY OF AREQUIPA IN RIDING COSTUME. 



'V" "^-^ 



seem to suspect, if we may judge from the haste they are in to throw it off when 
they return from church. The use of hassocks or prie-dieus being unknown in the 
churches of Peru, the women are followed at a distance by a young servant carrying 
a carpet upon which they kneel. For a fashionable woman of Arequipa the very 
height of bon ton is to have for her carpet -bearer a little Indian from the Sierra 
Nevada; whether a boy or a girl is of no consequence, but the little dwaif should be 
as round as a tub, and clothed in the traditional costume, which is designedly 
exaggerated to render it grotesque. To be followed by a couple of these marmots 
is the very tiptop of fashion. The gift of a young Indian of from four to five years 
old is such a present from a man to a woman as shows the very best taste. The 
sweetest of wheedlings, the most express commands, are brought to bear upon the 
traveller who leaves home for the Sierra. Vida mia, no se olvide U. Mandarme un 
Indiecito! (My life, do not forget to bring me a little Indian!) Such is sure to be 



44 



PERU. 



the parting phrase, and if the traveller has no reason to decline compliance, he 
selects from some family of the Indians one or two children of the required age, 
whom he purchases from the father for a few piastres and a supply of cocoa and 
brandy. The mother, who has received nothing, of course raises a great outcry at 






I ^ 


IIjIBf -' 


4^ - 


yi|^^X-v--<^ 


^■HE^~ ^ 




'S^-'- ■-^^*^>' 


•^-- ' ^ - 


^ >' 



LADY OF AREQUIPA DRESSED FOR CHURCH, ACCOMPANIED BT HER CARPET -BEARER. 



the idea of parting with the Benjamin of her family, but the traveller consoles her 
with a new petticoat, and for a little I'um even obtains her consent. Possessed of the 
prize, he profits by the departure of the first caravan to pack him off like luggage 
to the lady of his heart. The arrival of the young autochthone exites no end of 
transports; they lift him down from the mule upon which he is perched, they admire 
him, and laugh over him till they cry. Then he has to be undressed, soaped all 
over and his skin scraped, nay, almost stripped off; lastly, he is clothed in a costume 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 



46 



with which he is delighted and proud. After a certain amount of indigestion, for 
the child cannot be expected to change with impunity the poor living of his home 
for the cakes and other luxuries which he gets among his new friends, his stomach 
acquires the necessary dilatation, and the little actor plays, to the general satisfaction, 
his double part of page and lap-dog. 

Unhappily, nothing is stable here below. Our little Indian finds this to his cost 
when he reaches his twelfth year, and his owners finding that his legs have grown 
too long for the office of carpet-bearer, banish him from the parlour and deprive 







TYPES OF THE VALLEY OP AR EQUIP A— CARPET-BEAHEBS OUT OF OFFICE. 



him of his livery. He is then passed on to the kitchen, where the domestics, of 
whose little secrets he had so long been the tale-bearer, make him pay by many a 
twitch of the nose for his past indiscretions and prosperity. 

Although these Indians are sold away, or given up by their good parents, and 
are in some degree brutalized, they are not slaves, for on arriving at age they dispose 
of themselves as they please, and no one has any claim upon them. Sometimes the 
young man will remain in the character of domestic in the house where he had 
grown up, sometimes he quits it and oifers his services elsewhere. Women stay 
voluntarily. In course of time they contract out-door relations of a too temporary 
character, and the offspring which results, as used to be the case with the negro girls 
among the planters of the Antilles, increases by so much the number of domestics 
attached to the house. These children of love, once parted from their mothers, 
are trained by their mistresses to become carpet-bearers, but they have never the same 
attraction in their eyes as the little Indian of pure blood from the Sierra Nevada. 

At Arequipa, as in all great cities, the men are more occupied out of doors than 



46 



PERU. 



at home; a man is always called away by some business or other. These Arequipanians 
pass much of their time in going from house to house with political objects in view, 
in smoking an indefinite number of cigarettes, mingled with games of monte or dice, 
in taking a siesta, in riding on horseback, in love-making, and in dreaming of the 
glorious future of the republic. But if, from this manner of passing their time, the 
reader should infer the want of intelligence or instruction among the natives, he 
would greatly deceive himself; they have all learned much if they have not retained 
much, and run through successively the vast fields of theology, jurisprudence, canon 




TYPES OF AHEQUIPA — INDIAN OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 



and civil law, and medicine and surgery, these sciences being held in honour at 
Arequipa and preferred to all others. These men, apparently occupied with trifles, 
have nevertheless publicly sustained the theses necessary to acquire the diploma 
of Bachelor of Arts. They have, besides, a great faculty for versification, and are 
clever in gallant and elegant turns of bouts-rimes, in which they are exercised in- 
cessantly by their fair friends. If they show themselves indifferent to intellectual 
pursuits it is not then through ignorance, but the effect of philosophy, of instinct, and 
from that never-enough-to-be-admired laziness which they have inherited from their 
fathers, and which they cherish as a sacred fire. Every idea of innovation or of pro- 
gress which would disturb the quietude which they so much enjoy is antipathetic to 
them. The moral and physical activity of the European is a phenomenon at which 
they can only marvel like savages gaping to hear the ticking of a watch, the cause 
of which they cannot explain. It is necessary to add, that they do not even try — 
Para que sirve eso? (Of what good is it?) is the unfailing question with which they 
meet everything that they either disdain or fail to comprehend. 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 



47 



Scientific establishments, colleges, and schools are numerous in Arequipa. Its 
faculty of medicine, whose sheet-anchor is bleeding, rivals that of Chuquisaca in Upper 
Peru. The university of St. Augustin, the two academies, and the college of In- 
dependence, founded by the great Marshal Gutierez de la Fuente, enjoys an undisputed 




CHUBCH OF SAN FRANCISCO AT ABEQUIPA. 



celebrity. The public library, which dates from 1821, owes its existence to the zeal 
of a friend of learning named Sieur Evaristo Gomez Sanchez. It possesses some 2000 
volumes of theology and jurisprudence, the map of Peru prepared by order of the 
liberator Simon Bolivar, the atlas of M. Vaugondy, hydrographer to Louis XV., a 
volume of caricatures by "Gavarni," two theodolites and an armillary sphere, not to 
forget a librarian and a porter. Let us add to these divers establishments two printing- 
offices, each publishing a small journal which records the acts of the government. 



48 



PERU. 



Let us mention also the philanthropic institutions of the city, the hospital of San Juan 
de Dios, a foundling hospital, a charitable institution, and an office of vaccination; and 
we shall have completed the list of the charitable, scientific, and Uterary institutions of 
the city. 

Aristocracy and commerce, which in America have always lived on the best terms, 
occupy in Arequipa the seven or eight streets which radiate from its great square 




SAN FRANCISCO STREET IN AREQUIPA. 



{Plaza Mayor) as a centre. This place, of which the cathedral occupies all the north 
side, is bounded on the other sides by the commercial buildings, galleries or corridors con- 
structed of stone with vaulted arcades, where calicoes, printed cottons, woollen stuffs, 
and ribbons are exposed in the open air in festoons and fillets of various colours. In 
the middle of the square is a bronze fountain with three basins, supported by moulded 
balustrades. This hydraulic monument, which very much resembles a reel, is crowned 
with a figure of Glory or Fame — for one cannot decide in a matter so doubtful — the 
pose, and, above all, the emaciated look of which recalls the classic work of Houdon.^ 
This allegorical beauty is blowing a trumpet, and looking very stubbornly in the 
direction of the Calle de San Francisco. It has been shrewdly suggested that the 

^ One of this sculptor's most celebrated studies is a figure represented without its skin (the icorcM), which images 
with wonderful fidelity to nature the muscular structure of the human body. — Tr. 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 



49 



sculptor, by leaving nothing but skin and bones to this figure, and putting a trumpet 
to its lips, meant to teach his contemporaries and future ages that glory or fame is 
nothing but an empty phantom, an intangible breath. 

It is in this square, the accustomed scene of public rejoicings, of revolutionary 
proclamations, and of criminal executions, that for five hours in the middle of every day 
a market for vegetables is held. The indigenous population which flock thither from 
all parts of the city and country, offers to the observer but two distinct types, 
that of the Indian of the Pacific coast, with a round countenance, flattened nose, 
blubber lips, narrow eyes of a yellow sclerotic hue, oblique and contracted at the 




TYPICAL PORTRAITS OF THE POPULATION OF AREQUIPA — QUICHHA INDIANS. 



corners like those of the Chinese and the Mongol races/ and the Quichua type, with an 
oval face, high cheek-bones, a nose like an eagle's beak, oblique but well-shaped eyes, 
abundant and soft black hair, seeming to connect them with the great Indian family 
of the eastern Aryans. From the mixture of these two races of the coast and of the 
Sierra there has resiilted, in course of time, a goodly number of hybrids, whose 
distinctive trait is that of stupidity and ugliness combined. 

The costume of these indigenes, always of striking colours, recalls at once the 
Spanish modes of the seventeenth century and the primitive taste of the Incas. With 
the once fashionable coat with three square skirts, the long -flapped waistcoat, and 
breeches ornamented at the knees {culottes d canons), the Indians wear their hair in two 
falling plaits or tresses in the ancient Egyptian manner, and complete their toilet with 
a loose cloak (llacolla) and sandals of undressed leather. The women add to the 
tucked petticoat and the round or triangular Spanish hat, the lliclla, a piece of woollen 
stuff" two feet square, which they wear on their heads like the pschent of the Sphinx, 

' The Indian of the Pacific coast descends from the Llipis, Changos, Moquehuas, Quillcas, &c., tribes of one and the 
same race, who once peopled the littoral between the sixteenth and twenty-fifth degree of latitude. 

VOL. I. J 



50 



PERU. 



or fasten over their shtnilders as a kerchief with a pin {tupii) shaped like a spoon, 
the use of which can be traced to the times of the first Incas. But let us leave a 
subject which can have no interest except for ethnographers or costumiers, to consider 
for a moment the strange effect produced, when seen from a distance and from any 
elevated point, by the accidental mingling of striking colours perpetually in motion. 
An adept in comparisons and figures of speech, were he by chance to look out from 
some loophole of the cathedral spire, might without exaggeration compare the great 




"'"tiuja^ 



TYPES OF THE POPULATION OF AREQUIPA— WOMEN OF THE QUICHUA INDIANS. 



square of Arequipa at market time to a prairie studded with gay but common flowers. 
The cabbages, lettuces, and other kitchen vegetables spread on the ground may be taken 
for the carpet of grass, upon which the garments of the men and women with their 
predominant blue, scarlet, and yellow, stand out like corn-flowers, poppies, and dande- 
lions fluttering in the wind. 

Beyond the great square and the arterial streets branching from it, commence 
the suburbs and their unpaved alleys, where dwell the metis or mixed caste, and the 
small shopkeepers, impertinently called people of no account {gens de demi-poil). 
There flourishes the whole world of small commerce, represented by sellers of groceries 
and liquors {pulperos), dealers in fried fish, and keepers of cabarets. In Peru the 
cabarets where chicha is sold are always kept by two or three women, relations 
or friends. 

We have already described the rustic cabarets; it remains to speak of those in 
the city of Arequipa. These establishments, frequented only by the Indians and the 
cholos of both sexes, are dismal and smoky dens, with no opening for air or light but 
the door, encumbered with jars and pots of various forms, strewn with broken straw. 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA- 



61 



the debris of vegetables, bones, and leavings of animals, Avhich cover the floor with 
a thick litter. Fowls, chickens, and guinea-pigs cluck, squall, grunt, and have 
unlimited scratching right in these diggings. Like the country cabarets these poor 
abodes possess neither chairs, benches, nor stools, so that their customers sit on the 
ground, holding in one hand the dish of ground pimento which serves as an incentive 
to drink, and in the other the jug of chicha, that concoction of maize imported into 
Peru in 1043 by the empress Mama Ocllo Huacco {brooding mother), the sister and 
wife of the first Inca Manco-Capac. While the coni2)iiny gossip and laugh, or eat 




^^^^^^ 



TTPK8 OF ABEQUIPA — A OHIOHA BREWER. 



and drink to their content, fresh chicha is being brewed under their eyes in a corner of 
the cabaret by a process very simple and inexpensive. Into a hole six feet square 
and a foot deep a certain quantity of maize has been shaken from the stalks, and 
being slightly damped is covered with boards loaded with heavy stones. At the end 
of eight days the heat and moisture combined have determined the germination of 
the grain, which then takes the name of gunapo. This gunapo is taken from the hole 
and dried in the sun, and then sent to the mill, where it is crushed small by great 
stones without being ground. From the mill it comes back to the brewery, where the 
women throw it into great jars full of water and make it boil for an entire day. In the 
evening they strain the thick liquid through a cloth, which they wring by holding the 
two ends; they then leave it to cool until the next day, when it is ready for use. 
The dregs remaining in the cloth, called afrecho, serve to feed the pigs and poultry. 
As for the liquor itself I know not what to say, but its colour is like the water of the 
Seine after a thaw or a fortnight's rain. 

This local brew is not drunk by the common people alone; the aristocracy of the 
country, while ostensibly repudiating it as a vile beverage, enjoy it secretly. So our 



52 PERU. 

white Creoles of the West Indies speak disdaini'ully of fried cod and pumpkins {calalou 
de gombauds) and Angola pease as negroes' victuals, yet all the same enjoy them in 
private. The Peruvian bourgeoisie, more candid than the aristocracy, proclaim openly 
their decided taste for chicha, which they designate by the elegant diminutive chichita. 
To hear them talk, life's sweetest and best employed hours are those which are passed 
under the shadow of the gourds in a rural cabaret between a fritter of turkeys dressed 
with allspice and an amphora of chicha brewed the day before. 

Arequipa, which modern travellers copy one another in depicting as a flourishing 
city, enlivened by commerce and industry, by pleasures of all kinds, and by the spirit 
and gaiety of its inhabitants, is in all these respects only the shadow of its former self. 
Political revolutions and commercial bankruptcies have reduced the city almost to 
poverty, and singularly cooled that verve and gaiety with which it is so often credited. 
The town, which long rivalled Lima the king of cities in pomp and brilliancy, is at 
the present time no more than a chrysalis inclosed in its humble cocoon awaiting the 
transformation which the future is to bring about. Its balls, its routs, its much-vaunted 
cavalcades, its mad orgies at the val des Poiriers exist only as a tradition. Formerly, 
any trifle was made a pretext for a lavish expenditure and indulgence in 2:)leasure. 
Now, an event of the first importance or a great solemnity is needed to unloose the 
purse-strings of the inhabitants. Hand in hand with poverty has come economy. It 
would be easy to prove by figures what we now assert, but to do so would be to 
encroach on the rights of the statistician. Let us therefore corrfine ourselves to the 
mere statement of the decaying condition of Arequipa, a setting star which optinrist 
travellers, or those barely acquainted with the facts, have taken for a star in its zenith. 

Further, in order to efface the melancholy impression with which our revelatiorrs in 
respect to the commercial, industrial, and finarrcial position of this town are calculated 
to impress the minds of our readers, we will describe one of the annual festivities, 
when Arequipa, forgetting for a while its habits of calculatiorr and ecoiromy, borrows 
for a few hours its ancient mask of folly, and, as in the days of its splendour, scatters 
gold by the handful, certain to regret it on the morrow. 

This solemnity is that of Shrove-Tuesday, in which hens' eggs play so great a part 
that we feel corrstrained to devote a parenthesis to the fact. The mathematicians of 
the country who pass their time in counting the A's, B's and C's repeated in the Old 
and New Testaments, have calculated that on Shrove-Tuesday 800,000 francs are sperrt 
in' Arequipa on eggs, an amount the more extravagant considering that the edible por- 
tion of the eggs has long since disappeared, the shells only remaining. It is of these 
shells that the religious communities and the greater number of housewives rrrake so 
good a thing. To do this, they are careful during the whole year to break the eggs, of 
which the consumption is enormous in Spanish Americarr kitchens, at one end only, 
and being thus emptied, the shells are carefully preserved in a heap. The week which 
precedes Carnestolendas is occupied in preparirrg them. Three women urrite irr this 
employment: one of them dilutes in a tubful of water some gamboge, indigo, or 
carmine, the second fills the egg-shells with this tincture, whilst the third closes the 
opening by means of little squares of cloth fastened with a liquefied wax which con 






ilfii'J fc'V 



mil':'' 
lllllll ii"^' 



iilil 




ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 55 

geals immediately. Tims prepared, these shells are offered for sale at the price of one 
cuartillo, and even half a real each. Basketfuls of them are exposed at the comers 
of every street, so that those who engage in the sport can provide themselves with 
ammunition without difficulty. 

Hardly have the gates of heaven been opened on the morning of Shrove-Tuesday, 
when the two sexes clothe themselves in white from head to foot. Those who are first 
up hasten to the bedside of those still asleep to give them the matutinal accolade, which 
consists, on that day, in the application of three or four eggs of various colours broken 
on the face of the sleeper, who is immediately sprinkled with flour. The unlucky 
victim removes his pasty mask as he can, clothes himself in his turn with the white 
armour of the combat, and supplied with eggs and flour revenges on all around 
him the affront he has received. The morning is employed in these skirmishes; all 
alike, the masters in the parlour, the servants in the kitchen, are engaged in bombarding 
and flouring each other, to the best of their ability. Neither old age nor infancy are 
excepted from these saturnalias. The egg of Shrove-Tuesday, like the satire of Jean 
Kacine, knows neither sex nor age. His illustrious highness the bishop himself, 
the autocrat of Spanish towns, is rolled in flour from morn to eve of Carnesto- 
lendas. 

This memorable day is almost the only one of the year on which the balconies of 
the houses are opened. After mid-day a battery of syringes is established in each, 
and the inmates mutually flood each other with water, to the music of the flying eggs 
and the papers of starch-powder which describe white trajectories in the air. The 
excitement increases with every succeeding hour. Whilst the aristocracy continue the 
combat from their housetops and balconies, the bourgeoisie, too much cooped up in their 
homes, rush about outside like a torrent breaking through its banks. Men and women 
going in couples and furnished with umbrellas to protect them against the showers from 
the balconies, traverse the town to the music of guitars, and, over-excited by copious 
libations, accompany their cries and refrains with the most extravagant grimaces and 
contortions. This crowd, which one might suppose to be struck with epilepsy, yells 
and struggles as one man. About three in the afternoon, Arequipa is one immense 
mouth, from which escapes a continuous roar. 

At this moment troops of horses, decayed, one-eyed, foundered, dropsical, con- 
sumptive, are brought from the Pampilla, a desert situated to the north of the city, 
and offered for sale on the Plaza Mayor. There those who want them have them. 
The price of these Shrove-Tuesday coursers varies from five to twelve francs, according 
to their degree of vitality. In the twinkling of an eye detachments of cavalry are 
organized to besiege the enemy in the balconies Avhose liquid artillery has caused the 
greatest ravages amongst the crowd. Each cavalier having mounted his jade, takes on 
his arm a basketful of eggs, which active boys are commissioned to fill again when they 
are emptied. Then the detachment posts itself before the balcony specified, which is 
habitually defended by persons of the gentler sex. These armed with pumps and 
syringes, boldly sustain the assault; to the eggs of the enemy they oppose torrents of 
water more or less limpid. The combat often lasts more than an hour without victory 



66 



PERU. 



declaring for either of the combatants. The men drenched like Tritons, the women 
dishevelled like Bacchantes, rival each other in the hardihood and fury with which thej- 
hurl defiant epithets one against another, in the true Homeric style. In the heat of the 
engagement a piercing shriek, issuing from the besieged balcony, rings like the note of a 
fife in a charivari. This cry, received by the men with a general roar of laughter, 
comes from some Marfisa, who has been struck in the eye, or otherwise hurt by a pink 
or blue egg thrown by a vigoroiis hand, and who falls temporarily into the arms of her 
companions. This victim of Shrove-Tuesday is conveyed to a safe distance from the 




ENVIRONS OP AREQUIPA— CHOLO OP TINOO. 



ENVIRONS OF ABEQCIPA — CHOLA OP TIABATA. 



field of battle, and the action, suspended for a moment, is recommenced. But as our 
Amazons have now to deplore the defeat of a sister and to avenge her hurt, it is not 
with a gentle shower that they reply to the enemy, but with flower-pots and broken 
fragments of plates, indeed anything that comes to hand. Under this shower of 
hardware, which wounds all it touches, and of one-eyed horses makes so many blind 
ones, the dismayed warriors disband themselves and go to besiege another balcony. 

In the villages near Arequipa the carnival is carried on in a different manner. 
At Paucarpata, at Tingo, at Sabandia, bands of men and women, whose drunken- 
ness amounts almost to fury, traverse the country dishevelled and foaming, yelling 
Carnato in the manner of Evoh^, and driving before them the leanest ass they can 
procure ; any individual they may meet, of whatever age or sex, is taken possession of 
bodily, despoiled of his clothes, perched on the angular back-bone of this Al-borak, and 
driven across the country for an hour. A pot of water occasionally emptied on the 
shoulders of the victim, combine for him the luxuries of the bath with the pleasures 
of the promenade. 

Tlie natives of Sachaca and of Tiabaya celebrate Shrove-Tuesday perhaps in a less 



ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 67 

ridiculous, though, on the other hand, in a more warlike manner. After having 
despoiled the apples and wild fig-trees of their green fruit, they fill baskets with them, 
which they carry on their arms, and scatter themselves along the pathways in quest of 
adventures. The first face they see serves as a target at which to aim their projectiles. 
At these times timid people who are terrified at the idea of a wound remain shut up in 
their dwellings. Those whose curiosity leads them to cross their threshold to see what 
is going on out of doors, receive in their eye, and at the moment they least expect it, 
some green fruit the size of a fist. The next day the greater part of the inhabitants of 
these localities are enveloped about the head with bandages. When they are ques- 
tioned on the subject, they answer that, while perhaps getting a little mauled, they have 
so amused themselves that the pain they feel is nothing compared to their enjoyment 
of the sport. 

In town and village the first stroke of the bell of the evening angelus brings these 
street orgies to an end. The Shrove-Tuesday revellers all take refuge in their houses, 
where, with hair disordered and clothes soiled, they continue to drink, to yell, and to 
fight until daybreak of Ash-Wednesday. At that hour each one hastily doffs his absurd 
disguise, washes his face and hands, combs his hair a little, and runs to kneel at the 
feet of a monk, his partner of the evening before, who, after having marked him on the 
forehead with a gray cross, recalling to him the fact that he is but dust, sends him 
about his business duly absolved of his folly. 

A chapter on the Mysteries of Arequipa, if we consented to write it, would offer 
details as piquant and as full of interest even as the Mysteries of Paris and of London. 
But for one fraction of the European public who might thank us for raising the veil 
which hides the sores and turpitudes of a society on which weigh heavily the example 
of past corruption, the population of both sexes of Arequipa would rise en masse to 
throw the stone at their accuser. We will therefore limit ourselves to this ethno- 
graphical notice, which completes the good or evil information furnished up to this day 
by geographers, travellers, and tourists, respecting the city of Pedro Anzurez de Campo 
Redondo. Further, as our baggage, already made up, has been placed on the backs of 
the baggage mules, and our arriero is impatient to start, we will close the door of our 
lodging, return the key to our hostess, mount our animals, and following the cordilleras 
we will continue our journey across the American continent. 




GENERAL VIEW OP THE PAMPILLA. 



SECOND STAGE. 



AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 



The Pampilla and its charcoal-burners. — Station of Apo. — What the traveller finds, and what he experiences on 
arriving there. — The soroche. — Occasional gossips en route. — Disappointment at Huallata. — A storm 15,000 feet above 
the sea. — Hospitality in a sepulchre. — Retrospective coup-d'oeil of the Aymara nation. — The Lake of Gold and Lake 
of Silver. — Elegy on a rooster. — A night at Compuerta. — The landscape and other things worth observing. — 
Cabana and Cabanilla. — A priest, according to the gospel. — About a giant humming-bird and yellow Ranunculi. — 
Aspect of Lampa at nightfall.- — An importer of printed cottons (rouenneries). — Manner of honouring the saints. — 
Effect produced on the organs of vision by the sharp application of a bit of foie de volaille.— The strawberry of Chili, 
and its use as a stimulant. — The day after a revel. — The author resumes his journey, reflecting on the past history 
and the present state of the province of Lampa. 

Northward of the city of Arequipa, at the extremity of its suburb of San Isidro, 
renowned for its drinking -places, extends a desert of sand called the Pampilla. 
The Indian charcoal-burners, who pass to and fro between the mountain and the 
valley, have made this place their camping -ground and erected their huts on it. 
One might take them for a band of gipsies encamped at the gates of the city, and 
the more so, because in respect to their idiom,^ their clothing, and their hair, like 



' They speak only Quicliua, but they understand Spanish. The first of these idioms, which M. Huot, who con- 
tinued the Annalei of Malte-Brun, informs us was the idiom of gallantry and good society at Lima, is not only 
unused, but is depreciated and turned into ridicule, like aU else that relates to the manners and customs of the 
Sierra. It would not be possible to find five persons either at Lima, Arequipa, or any other city of the coast, 
moving in good society, able to understand, much less to speak, Quichua, unless they were originally from the 
Sierra, which they would not care to avow after some years' residence on the coast, but which one discovers without 
difficulty from their guttural accent and their bad pronunciation of the Spanish. 



60 PERU. 

horse-tails, which gives them a wild aspect, these Indians differ entirely from the 
mixed caste of Arequipa, with which they always hold some transient relation of a 
business character. 

A half hour's march at the ordinary pace of a mule sufficed to traverse this 
desert, at the end of which commenced a zig-zag road leading to the heights. 
After a slow and troublesome ascent, which afforded time to study the configuration 
of the volcano (Misti) and the aerial perspective of the villages and cultivated grounds 
of the valley of Arequipa, we reached the tampu of Cangallo, 10,654 feet above the 
sea; higher still, 3046 feet, we came to a heap of bones of horses and mules, known 
in the country by the name of El Alto de los Huesos, and at length arrived, bent 
with fatigue, with our faces blue from the effects of the air and cold, at the station 
of Apo, the first halting-place of the Sierra Nevada. 

Here the traveller who stops to pass the night and rest his beasts may admire 
at leisure the beauties of a hyperborean landscape. Looking northward, the ground 
is concealed by hard snow, the silent streams sleep under the ice, the waterfalls are 
only a confused mass of stalactites, the crystals of which taper off at their lower end. 
From the north-east to the north-west the snowy peaks of the Andes hover round 
the horizon like white phantoms. The thermometer marked from twenty-one to twenty- 
five degrees below the freezing-point (Fah). 

This station of Apo, at which I arrived about nightfall, resembles all establish- 
ments of the kind in Peru, which are nothing but huts, of greater or less size, 
divided into two or three apartments, and more or less dilapidated according to 
their remoteness from civilized places. A square space, sub Jove crudo, inclosed by 
stones piled on one another, serves as stabling for the horses and mules. As for the 
travellers themselves, they have to manage as well as they can in one of the com- 
partments of the hut, sleeping on the bare gi"ound if they have neglected to provide 
themselves with a mattress or a sheep-skin, shivering with cold all the night, and 
rising as early as possible to fly to the fresh torture which awaits them at the suc- 
ceeding post. 

On awaking in the morning after having fulfilled the conditions of this pro- 
gramme, I entreated the arriero, who had accompanied me, and who had been my 
chamber comrade, to saddle our beasts without delay. While he obeyed my orders 
with the nonchalant activity of his profession, 1 went into the kitchen of the estab- 
lishment, Avhere a little fire of llama's dung (takia) was burning, to prepare for 
myself the cup of chocolate which invariably composes the breakfast of the traveller 
who crosses the Andes. Nor Medina, my muleteer, finished his task as I swallowed 
the last mouthful of my beverage. We had only to settle our accounts with the 
postillions, and to get into the saddle. The sun had risen in a serene sky; the day 
promised to be a magnificent one. We urged on our mules, and soon left the post 
of Apo far behind us. 

At the end of an hour's march, during which we had ascended some hundreds 
of yards, I began to feel a general uneasiness, which I attributed to the insufficiency 
of the atmo.spheric pressure. This phenomenon, which the Quichuas of the moun- 



1 



AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 



Gl 



tain heights call the soroche, and from which they do not themselves suffer — having 
lungs one-third larger than those of the European — is attributed by them to some 
mephytic gas produced by antimony — in Quichua soroche — even in places where that 
metal does not exist. A contraction of the diaphragm, a dull pain in the dorsal 
region, shootings in the head, nausea and giddiness, sometimes followed by faint- 
ing, are the symptoms of this singular malady. I, however, did not suffer to that 




PART OF THK PAMPILLA OR SANDY DEaERT NEAR AREQUIPA. 



degree. Nor Medina, to avert what my livid countenance and my efforts to keep 
in the saddle betrayed I was suffering, gave me a clove of garlic, and advised 
me to chew it as I would a sugar-plum. I obeyed, but not without grinding 
my teeth. This antidote, which my Esculapius pretended to be a specific against 
the soroche, not having produced any effect, he advised me to make my nose bleed 
by striking it with my fist, which he said would give me instant relief. This 
I thought too heroic a remedy, and preferred to crunch another clove of garlic, 
notwithstanding the very slight fancy I had for the smell and taste of that species 
of the Liliacese. 

About twenty minutes elapsed, and whether it was that the remedy began to 
operate, or whether my lungs became accustomed by degrees to the rarified air. 



t}2 PERU. 

I began to feel better. Soon I was able to talk with my companion about the road 
he had taken to reach Cuzco, the route that I had marked out deviating from the 
direct line and from the stages which divided it so unequally. The man enumerated 
the various posts between Arequipa and Cuzco, calculated their respective distances, 
and concluded by assuring me that the Lampa road which I had chosen in preference 
to the common route, known in the country as the Carrera real de los Andes, 
possessed the disadvantage of seven fewer stations and eighty more miles of road, 
which meant, in other words, that after a hard day's work across a difficult country, 
the elevation of which varied from 10,000 to 18,000 feet, we should find no other 
shelter than a shepherd's miserable pasmna} where we should be compelled to sleep 
on the floor, with scarcely room enough to stretch our legs. He ended by asking 
why I chose to go so far about to obtain my end, when it would have been natural 
to prefer the straight line and the common road? I told him that as I was about 
to quit the country never to return, I did not mind lengthening my journey by 
a few leagues for the purpose of visiting a priest, whom I had heard had been 
very skilful in cross-breeding certain species of the Camelidte. The arriero looked at 
me with great astonished eyes. 

"Is it the cur^ Cabrera that monsieur means?" he asked. 

"Precisely," said I. "That worthy priest, formerly curate of Macusani in the 
province of Carabaya, and now domiciled at Cabana, in the province of Lampa." 

" And monsieur will go eighty miles to see an old man who, people say, is 
a little cracked!" 

" My good fellow," I replied to Nor Medina, " he of whom you speak so lightly 
is one of those men to whom, in my country, they would long since have erected 
a statue of bronze, as to a benefactor of the human race. I cannot therefore regret 
a journey of eighty miles to shake hands with him, especially as I shall easily 
recover the lost time by shortening my stay at Cuzco." 

" As monsieur pleases," said the muleteer. " A curious idea," he added in a 
lower tone, yet not so low that I did not hear the remark, though I thought it 
best to make no reply. 

We continued to push our way through the snows, my companion pinching his 
nose to warm it, and I breathing on my fingers to prevent them from being numbed. 
In vain the grandeur of the horizon, the sparkling blue of the heavens, and the 
sense of liberty which one respires with the air on mountain heights, gave to the 
landscape I know not what of greatness and sublimity, so calculated to elevate 
the soul and command enthusiasm. The coldness of the temperature rendered all 
such emotion impossible to me. To this grand book of earth and heaven opened 
before my eyes I would have preferred a close chamber and the warmth of a stove. 

The day passed without a single living thing having presented itself except some 
vultures hovering high in the air, or some vicugnas (a species of llama) on the 
mountain slopes. At five o'clock we discovered, hidden in the rocks, the station 
of Pachaca, where I proposed to pass the night. But it is above all when travelling 

* rrom the Quichua verb pascani, to feed or pasture. 



AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 



C3 



that " man proposes and God disposes ; " the station was shut and silent, and notwith- 
standing the outcry we made to announce our arrival no postillion in the national 
head-band appeared to receive us. We were thus compelled to make two stages, and 
pushing on to Huallata we arrived there at nine o'clock in the evening. 

Built upon a solitary mamelon surrounded with snows and precipices, besieged 
by every wind, battered by every tempest, often shrouded in frosty mists, this station 
of Huallata is one of the most fearful sites in the whole chain of the Andes, from 
the Tierra del Fuego to the equator. Five times the chances of my life had led 
me to this wild spot, and each time I regi-etted that I had not, like Joshua, the powei- 
to arrest the sun, in order to prolong the day, and to proceed further. 



I 




A POSTING STATIOK, OR TBAVELLEH'S HALTING-PL A OE, IN THE SIERRA NEVADA. 



The sensation that I now experienced was less disagreeable than formerly. Fatigue, 
hunger, and above all, the dread of passing the night under the stars, had disposed 
me to look at the bright side of things. The welcome. of the postillions completed the 
satisfaction with which I submitted to circumstances. When I had supped on my 
cup of chocolate and toasted bread I entered the apartment kept for travellers, 
and commenced my nightly toilet, whilst Nor Medina did his best to stop the holes 
and cracks in the walls. A fire of llama's dung was kindled in the centre of 
the apartment, and an Indian, for a small remuneration, undertook to watch it, 
while chattering to himself, during the night. Thanks to the vigilance of our vestal 
in drawers, we enjoyed a sufficiently pleasant temperature. On the morrow we 
quitted the station of Huallata suff'ering from one of those colds which circle the 
forehead with a band of iron and provoke an abundant secretion of the lachrymal 
glands; and leaving on our left the road to Cuzco, marched in the direction of the 
rising sun. After having descended a succession of rapid slopes we came to the 
great plain called the Fampa de los Confites (Sugar-plum Pampas), on account of 



(34 PERU. 

the ground being strewn with Uttle pebbles rounded by the action of the primitive 
waters. This plain, which we crossed in two hours, is bounded, from north-east 
to south-east, by an entanglement of trachytic peaks, rough, sharp, and disordered. 
Under the snow which partly covers them were discernible long bands of yellow, 
black, and red, which produced by contrast a singular effect. Had a painter trans- 
ferred such a scene to his canvas no doubt the critic would have laughed in his 
face in virtue of that axiom so euphonically formulated by Boileau: "Le vrai pent 
quelquefois n'^tre pas vraisemblable " — The truth may sometimes not be like truth. 

It is possible to cross the chain of the Andes in any season, since I have 
made the journey some thirty or forty times at various points, and at different 
periods of the year. Still the most favourable times are the months of April and 
September. In April the snow has not yet fallen, and only appears in the regions 
where it is eternal. In September the fallen snow, which from June to August covers 
the roads, is already melted, and having flooded the torrents and rivers, is bearing 
away its annual tribute to the two oceans. 

As it was now July, that is to say, the depth of winter, we were in danger of 
being surprised by one of those tempests which generally burst in the afternoon, unless 
the heavens — and this was little probable — should show themselves merciful, on our 
account, for a day or two. At this moment we were traversing a stony and jagged 
region where, had I relied on my own topographical knowledge, I should most 
certainly have lost my way; but Nor Medina was an experienced pilot, and the 
manner in which he manoeuvred to pass the ravines and quagmires banished all 
fear from my spirit. In narrow and perilous passages he went on before without 
speaking, and I, following him, imitated his silence. When the breadth of the 
way permitted us to keep side by side we charmed away the ennui of the journey 
by talking, not of love and war, like La M61e and the Count de Coconnas, but of 
the probability of finding at the end of the day an hospitable cabin and something 
to eat. 

Two hours had passed when some bulging white clouds of the kind which sailors 
call "cotton -balls," and the learned cirro-cumuli, appeared floating in the air like 
a flock of doves. In a few instants these clouds increased, closed up their ranks, 
and at last quite hid the face of the sun. A storm was brewing. We looked 
round for some kind of shelter, but all was desolation. Even the mountains presented 
no grotto or crevice in which we could take refuge. Then we hurried on our 
mules, scarcely knowing in what direction to continue our forced march, moved 
solely by that apprehension of danger, and the need of escaping from it, common 
to all living creatures. At the moment when our fast trot had increased to a gallop, 
the wind began to blow in sudden gusts, so that the clouds were heaped together 
like floating ice on the breaking up of a river, and grew dark in oiu" faces. Lightning 
and thunder immediately joining the melee warned us that the storm was near, 
and had the feet of our beasts been gifted with the swiftness of Achilles they would 
have tried in vain to outstrip it in speed. 

Nevertheless we continued to flee before the tempest, now and then raising our 



AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 



65 



heads to judge of the state of the atmosphere, but again burying them almost 
immediately in the immense wrapper called a tapacara, which everyone is obliged 
to wear in these latitudes. Meanwhile the distant rumblings of the thunder succeeded 
at more frequent intervals, the lightning traced lines of fire in the heavens, the 
clouds sinking by their own weight, approached rapidly towards the earth, and a livid 
light illuminated the landscape, which stood out in bold relief against the deep neutral 
tint of the horizon. 




A sudden thunder-clap filled us with fear and made our mules tremble upon 
their hocks. The clouds bulged like overfilled leathern bottles, and a shower of hail- 
stones beat upon our heads. To protect ourselves as much as possible we huddled up 
in our cloaks; our unhappy beasts, unable to follow our example, whined with the 
pain caused by the rough contact of the projectiles with their poor noses. We quite 
pitied their condition, and did all we could to excite them by voice, spur, and bridle. 
The hailstorm was succeeded by a fall of snow, such as one never witnesses but 
at this elevation. It fell so fast and thick that it was impossible to see ten steps 
in advance. In an instant the whole landscape was wrapped in one great winding- 
sheet; the mules profited by the stupefaction we felt to slacken their pace and 
proceed to their own liking. We had thus felt our way for a quarter of an hour, 
when a dark mass seemed to cross the moving curtain of snow. "God be praised!" 



66 TERU. 

exclaimed Nor Medina, drawing rein by the side of this construction, of which I 
could not yet divine the character. As I approached he cried out to me to dismount. 
I obeyed with the more promptitude seeing that the door of this lodge was wide 
open, only it was so low, that to enter 1 was obliged to go on my knees. In the 
meanwhile Nor Medina relieved the mules of their harness, which he covered with 
a waxed cloth (or oil-skin), and gliding through the cat's hole very soon rejoined 
me. The snow continued to fall like pressed wool. 

The shelter we had found so opportunely was an edifice formed of enormous 
blocks, and covered in with a single stone. A little window looking eastward, at about 
a man's height, scarcely lighted the interior. This sepulchre, for such it was, might 
measure ten feet on each side by eight feet in height. Its walls, sloped in the Egyptian 
manner, and of tremendous thickness, had probably seen many centuries and endured 
many tempests. I asked my guide what he thought of this sepulchre, and if any 
tradition attached to it. But the snow which had soaked through the man's clothes 
had dried up his habitual loquacity; he replied with a yawn, "It was the work of 
the heathen Aymaras." I ought to have been satisfied with this reply; but reflecting 
that it might happen to me, as to so many others, to tell a traveller's story to the 
public, and reflecting further that the public would not be satisfied with Nor Medina's 
laconic explanation, I used my flint and steel, lighted a bit of wax-candle, and 
wrote the following lines : — 

"When the Children of the Sun first appeared in Peru, the great Aymara nation 
possessed the country which extends from Lampa to the frontiers of Desaguadero, 
and comprises under the name of Collao the region of the Punas, or plateaux 
situated eastward of the chain of the Western Andes. In various parts of this country, 
which is some 270 miles in length and of an average breadth of 90 miles, were 
temples, palaces, and monuments of various kinds, some intact, some already in 
ruins, the architecture and statuary of which bore witness to an advanced state of 
civilization. The Aymaras, who ascribed to these constructions a very remote date, 
attributed them to the CoUahuas, whose descendents they boasted themselves to be. 
According to them, that nation had come from a far-distant country, situated to the 
north of Peru, and had occupied difierent places for a long period before advancing 
to the region of the Peruvian plateaux, which in memory of them had since borne 
the name of Collao. These ancestors of the Aymaras, so to speak of them, believed, 
according to hieroglyphic pictures, of which their chiefs alone possessed the secret, 
that previous to the sun which gave them light there had been four others which 
were successively extinguished by a flood, an earthquake, a general break up, and a 
great tempest which annihilated at the same time all created beings. After the 
disappearance of the fourth sun the world had been immersed in darkness for twenty- 
five years. In the midst of that profound night, and ten years before the appearance 
of a fifth sun, the human race was regenerated. The gi'eat Creator, when he formed 
anew a man and a woman, created also this fifth sun, which had lasted already a 
thousand years. This astrological fiction, which the Aymaras derived from the 
Collahuas and which has served as the basis of a particular system of cosmogony, 



I 




AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. G7 

was common to the whole group of peoples speaking the same language: the Toltecs, 
the Cicimecs, the Nahuatlaques, the Acolhues, the Tlascaltecs, the Aztecs, &c., who, 
about the beginning of our era, inhabited the country of Anahuac in New Spain. 
These peoples are said to have received their civilization, their architecture, their 
quipos,' and their hieroglyphics from the Olmecs and the Xicalanques, two powerful 
nations who preceded them, and who themselves boasted of their high antiquity. 

" To return to our Aymaras. The establishment of the Incas in Peru, as it caused 
a displacement of most of the Andean nations, so it dispossessed this people of 
the country which it had so long occupied. In the time of the second emperor, 
Sinchi-Roca, it had abandoned the Condesuyos^ of Cuzco, and had withdrawn more 
and more westward to escape from the domination of the Children of the Sun. 
The third Inca, Lloque-Yupanqui, carried his arms into that part of CoUao of which 
the Lake of Titicaca and its monuments are the historic centre. Occupied in sub- 
jugating the Aymaras established in the south, he left in peace such of them as lived 
to the west. Mayta-Capac, his successor, attacked them at two opposite points of 
their territory. Having subdued the Aymaras of Tiahuanacu in Upper Peru, he 
marched against those of Parihuanacocha (the Flamingo lake), situated almost under 
the fifteenth degree, and they also fell under subjection to him. 

" This circle of conquests, successively enlarged by each emperor, and touching at 
the several points indicated above, had pushed towards the coast of the Pacific 
the Aymaras who were still free. Some families of that nation were stopped from 
advancing beyond the entrance of the western valleys, where their relics are still 
found.-' Others were driven as far as the sea, where they mixed with the fish-eating 
tribes who at that epoch inhabited the shores of the ocean between the fourteenth and 
the twenty-fourth degrees of latitude.* In the fifteenth century, the conquests of the 
Inca Capac-Yupanqui extending even to Chili, and causing the almost total extinction 
of these peoples, the Aymaras disappeared with them from the littoral; only those 
individuals of that nation who had previously bent under the yoke of the Incas con- 
tinued to occupy in the Sierra a part of the ancient territory of their fathers. At 
present we count about 200,000 of these indigenes spread along the Bolivia-Peruvian 
frontier, and in the seven departments of Higher Peru. 

"Among the ancient customs of that nation, a custom, so singular that it may assist 
the ethnographer to recover the traces of its passage across the two continents, was 
that of deforming the skull at birth, giving it a conical form, by means of boards 
padded with cotton and compressed by ligatures. The skeletons of Aymaras, found 

1 Tlie guipos, or strands of coloured wool, which the Peruvians used to record their dates and traditions, was not 
invented by them, as so long supposed. It was used by the Canadians, and was known to the Chinese at a very remote 
period. It was also used by the nations of Mexico, referred to in the text, by whom it was called nepohiudtzitzin. 
(See Botturini.) 

2 From the Quichua cunti (west) and myu (direction): one of the four divisions of tlie empire established by 
Manco-Capac. 

^ The Aymara ossuary, the existence of which we are the iirst to make known, is situated at the distance of a few 
miles S.S.E. of Hay, in the midst of the zone of trachytio ashes, which extends from that port to the entrance of the 
valley of Tambo, called the Arenal. 

 The Quellcas (now QuUcas), the Moquehuas, the Llipu, and the Ckancus (now Changot). 



68 



PERU. 



in the neighbourhood of the coast between the sixteenth and eighteenth degrees, are 
perfectly recognizable by their oblong or egg-shaped heads. An egg, of which one end 
should form the face, would give an exact idea of their shape. 

"The mode of burial practised by these Indians, at the epoch of their splendour, 
was also very strange, and unlike anything found among the nations of South America. 




INTKRIOB OP AN AYMABA CHULPA. 



Their tombs, called chulpas, have the shape of a truncated pyramid of from twenty 
to thirty feet high. This pyramid, constructed of unbaked bricks {tapias), was formed 
in several retreating courses, recalling by its general configuration the Mexican 
teocallis, the first idea of which would seem to have been borrowed, from the temple 
of Bel. Sometimes the tombs of the Aymaras were simple monuments of Cyclopean 
structure covered with a single stone, and forming, in the interior, a square chamber — 
such as that wherein I write these lines — with a low entrance, and a little window 
looking to the rising sun. Sometimes, again, these tombs took the form of an obelisk, 
the elevation of which, from twenty-five to thirty feet, was twice the dimensions 
of their base. These Avere covered with an inclined roof, and built of mud. Each 
tomb of the kind was adapted for the reception of a dozen individuals, whose bodies, 
embalmed with the Chenopodium ambrosioides of the neighbouring valleys, and clothed in 
their own garments or wrapped in a sack woven with the leaves of the totora, and sloped 



AllEQUIPA TO LAMPA. 



69 



off" to let the face appear, were seated in a circle, their feet touching one another, 
resembling the felly of a wheel. Each of the dead had near him, under the pretence 
of provisions and household utensils, some spikes of maize, a jug of chicha, a bowl, 
and a spoon. If it was a man, they added to these objects a sling, a macana or club, 
hunting or fishing implements, and a weft of wool. If a woman, they placed near 
her a basket made of the stalks of jarava, some balls of llama's wool, and a few 
.shuttles and knitting-needles made of the long black thorns of the Cactus quisco} 
When once this tomb was in possession of the number of guests it was meant to 




AVMARA INDIAN MUMMY. 




contain it was closed up, the window alone being left open, probably with the idea 
that passers-by might look in and perhaps derive instruction and consolation from 

' In the hillocks of Cocotea, of Tambo, aud of Mejillones, in the neighbourhood of Iquique, in the Morro of Arica, 
and other places near the coast, are many huacas or burial-places of Change, Aymara, and Quichua Indians, dating from 
a period anterior to the Spanish conquest, in which we find objects of the same nature. The nationality of the 
mummies is apparent at first sight, both from the construction of the huacas in which they are found, and from the 
position of the bodies. Thus, the huacas of the Changes are as much as eight feet high inside, and the dead are laid 
upon their backs. Those of the Aymaras are circular cavities, at the bottom of which the corpse, wrapped in a woollen 
mantle, a mat, or a sack made of rushes, is simply seated. The huacas of the Quichiias, which are scarcely four feet 
high, are of an ellipsoidal figure, and lined in the interior with small flat stones. The corpse is placed like a child in 
its mother's womb; that is to say, squatting upon its heels, its knees laised to the level of the chin, its elbows resting upon 
the thighs, and ita fingers doubled up against the eyes. 

The garments and the woollen tissues which envelop these mummies, as well as the articles placed near them, are 
in all ca-ses very much alike, and are coarsely made. In most of the huacas we have found spikes of maize, and what 
was once chicha. The grain had become the colour of old mahogany, but it preserved its gloss. The little chicha that 
remained at the bottom of the cantaros, made of baked clay and hermetically sealed, had acquired the colour and con- 
sistency of treacle. 



70 PERU. 

the calm spectacle of the dead, seated side by side, and, so to speak, regarding each 
other with hollow eyes. Every morning the rising sun darted a golden ray into the 
interior of these sepulchres, and warmed for a moment, without reanimating, the 
yellow parchments which once were men. Some of these chulpas exist still, but 
empty and desecrated. French, English, Germans, have with one accord broken 
into these monuments, and the mummies which they inclose, disturbed from the 
rest of ages, have been transported into the museums of Europe, where they grin in 
some glazed show-case awaiting the day of i-esurrection " 

As I finished writing the last word. Nor Medina, who had kept his eye on the 
weather, told me the snow had ceased falling, and that it was necessary to resume our 
journey. It was four o'clock. We went to mount our beasts, whose manes, stiffened 
with frost, recall to mind the horses of Odin Hrimfaxi and Skinfaxi with frozen hair. 
The poor beasts had not moved from the spot where we left them. My guide patted 
their flanks to console them for the wretched quarter of an hour they had passed. 
Then, having saddled and bridled them, we were soon far from the Aymara sepulchre. 

After an hour's march I discovered on my right, hidden by the undulations of the 
ground, a pretty river winding its joyful way among the rocks Avhich it fringed with 
a border of foam. I pointed it out to Nor Medina, who told me it was the same 
thread of water that I had seen bubbling from the hollow of a rock near the station 
of Apo. A course of sixty miles in the midst of the snows of the Sierra had worked 
this prodigy. "So are born and so grow societies and empires," said I to my guide; 
who smiled his approbation. 

The road we were following presently wound along by the river, so that we kept 
close to its banks. In places destitute of stones, it spread its water deliciously over a 
bed of quartzose sand, so white, so fine, so pleasant to the eye, that for a moment I 
was tempted to dismount, to take off my shoes, and wade in it to the unknown gulf 
into which it flowed. The day however, which already drew near its end, prevented me 
from giving effect to this idea. I contented myself with dipping into it, by the aid of 
a bit of pack-thread, the tin pot which when travelling served me at once for a glass, a 
bowl, and a cup, and I drank some draughts of its limpid and icy water. 

As there was no station in the neighbourhood, nor even a shepherd's hut, where we 
could pass the night, and as the hamlet of Compuerta — the only inhabited place, as 
my guide said — was still some leagues distant, we urged our beasts to a lively pace. 
The storm of the afternoon had cleared off", and left no trace in the heavens. Nothing 
stained the immense vault of azure, save that the setting sun tinged it with an orange 
purple. Proceeding on our road we came to a lagune, something less than a mile in 
circumference, on the borders of which grew large-leaved totoras {Juncus peruvianus). 
That " drop of limpid water which glassed the heavens," as the poet says, served as the 
home of several kinds of aquatic birds, such as grebes, divers {Colymbidw), and teals, 
which sported and quacked at each other as they prepared for rest. A sluice at the 
outlet of this basin allowed its surplus water to flow into a ravine which communicated 
with the river. Two hundred paces from this lagime I discovered another exactly like 
it, but situated upon the right bank of the watercourse which we were following. Nor 



1 



AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 



71 



Medina was particular in explaining to me that beyond these two lagunes — the first of 
which was called the Lake of Gold {Coricocha), and the second the Lake of Silver 
{Colquecocha) — the river, which we had seen to take its rise at Apo, and which even 
then was called the Rio de Cuevilla, took the name of the liio de Compuerta. I noted 
the fact, and just as I questioned the man if the hamlet of Compuerta was yet far 
distant, he showed me, at some bow-shots from the second lagune, a group of iniined 





THE LAKE OF GOLD AND LAKE OP SILVER. 



houses backed by a hill. We crossed the river on a sand-bank, which seemed to be 
placed there expressly to facilitate the passage from one shore to the other, and 
directed our steps towards these houses, which, from their tumble-down appearance, 
one could not have supposed to be inhabited, if the thread of smoke which rose from 
the roof of one of them had not revealed the presence of man. 

At the noise made by our arrival the door of the smoking house opened, and the 
head of a woman appeared. She regarded us with a scared look, but apparently re- 
assured by our pacific exterior, asked my guide what good wind had blown him here ; 
as for me, I obtained no more notice than if I had been one of the bags carried by 
our mules. However, I was accustomed to the manners of the Quichuas, and this 
indifference did not trouble me. After exchanging a few words with this woman, my 
guide requested me to dismount, and seek for a room in the house that would suit me. 



72 PERU. 

I looked at the Indian to judge by her expression if she were agreeable to this or not. 
As soon as she caught my eye she faced about and turned her back upon me. 
" Silence gives consent," I said to myself, as I passed her haughtily and entered. 

That which Nor Medina — no doubt from regard for the sex — had called a house 
was a square space, black, smoky, and sordid. Tattered garments were everywhere 
hanging from the rafters. The original colour of these rags was hid under a covering 




I 



HAMLET OP COMPUEKTA. 



of soot. A fire of llamas' dung was burning in the centre of the place, spreading an 
odour like musk, which, added to the thick smoke it emitted, offended both sight and 
smell. A pot placed before the fire indicated that some kind of supper was in pre- 
paration. I lifted the cover, and saw one of those broths composed of water and the 
flour of maize, which the Indians highly relish in defect of anything better. To me it 
seemed but poor stuff. I drew a stool before the fire, and while I reflected, as I 
stirred up the embers, on the meagre fare which awaited me, a cock which was roosting 
in a corner of the hut began to crow. I started up at this unusual sound, and signing 
to Nor Medina, who entered just then followed by the Indian, he came near me. 

"I do not care for elagua," I said in a low tone, showing him the Lacedaemonian 
broth that was stewing in the pot, " but the cock I heard crow just now is exactly to 
my mind: is it possible, do you think, to get it for supper?" 



AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 73 

" Nothing is more easy," he replied, in the same low tone. Then turning to the 
woman, "Mamita," said he, "go and see if the mules are all right." She went out, 
and returned in a minute or two to utter a cry of rage at the sight of Nor Medina 
seated before the fire, his legs wide apart, and in the act of plucking her favourite 
rooster, whose jugular he had already cut. 

" Mamita," he said, in reply to her cry of rage, " this fowl is very thin." 

"Monster!" she cried in Quichua, "dog of a M^tis, thief, murderer! To kill a 
cock that I myself reared, and that told the time so well by his crowing. What had 
the poor thing done to you?" And thereupon she began to cry. 

"Silence! woman,'' said Nor Medina, gravely. "The elagua that you were cooking 
is not to the taste of this traveller, and as it was absolutely necessary he should 
have something to eat, your old rooster will have the honour of satisfying his hunger. 
Besides we mean to pay you for the skinny brute! How much may it be worth? 
A real? Two reals?" 

The Indian, accustomed like others of her caste to exactions, often accompanied 
with violence, from the descendants of the Spaniards, appeared so surprised and 
delighted at the idea of being reimbursed for what, till then, people had contented 
themselves with taking from her, that her tears suddenly ceased. Nevertheless, from 
the singular manner in which she looked at Nor Medina, it was evident she thought the 
offer was made in derision ; so to end her anxiety, 1 took from my pocket a piece of 
four reals, and putting it in her hand, begged her to excuse the rough manners of my 
guide. She received the money with a sort of doubtful astonishment, turned it over 
and over, as if to assure herself that it was not bad ; then, convinced of the goodness 
of the metal, she smiled, and slipped it into the hem of her petticoat. 

"In fact," said she, drying her eyes, "it is better so: the apuhualpacuna [literally, 
lord of hens] prevented Juan from sleeping, and sooner or later he would have wrung 
its neck." And to show the muleteer that she bore him no malice, she sat down by 
his side, took one wing of the fowl, and set to work plucking it, while Nor Medina 
devoted himself to the other. Thanks to their emulation, the cock was soon despoiled 
of his coat of many colours, singed, cleaned, dismembered, and thrown into an earthen 
pan which the woman furnished with the best grace, as she did also some beef-dripping, 
and some onions which she took out of a hole in the wall that appeared to serve as a 
larder. A few pleasant words which I addressed to her by way of acknowledgment, 
and two or three friendly slaps on the back which Nor Medina gave her, restored to 
the Indian all her good humour. 

While my supper was cooking the sound of voices was heard without. " That is 
Juan and his friends come from the mine," said the woman. As she finished speaking the 
door opened, and four Indians enveloped to the eyes in their striped ponchos entered. 
At the sight of the strangers they could not hide a grimace; but Nor Medina having 
welcomed them home, and the woman having shown her husband the half-piaster 
which she had received, their physiognomies, for a moment hostile, brightened, and 
they smiled in imison. Whilst the Indians took off their cloaks the woman lighted 
one of those resinous torches, done up in the spathe of the banana-tree, and which 

VOL. I. 10 



74 



PERU. 



they obtain from the eastern valleys. In its light — though, by the way, it emitted 
more smoke than flame — the Quichuas, seated on the ground, took from their wallets 
a wooden porringer, which they handed to the hostess, and which she filled to the 
brim with smoking 6lagua. 

Then commenced a most amusing pantomime, the notion of which would have 
delighted Pierrot-Debureau. Each Indian, on receiving his full porringer, balanced it 
on the tips of his five fingers, then making it revolve, began to sup that portion of 
the soup which had been slightly cooled by its contact with the wood. The dexterous 
rapidity with which these honest fellows manoeuvred their bowls, the twinkling of their 
eyes, and the play of physiognomy which accompanied the operation, combined to form 
a spectacle so new and curious, that while I watched it I quite forgot I had eaten 
nothing since the morning. 

The fact however was recalled to me by Nor Medina's announcement that supper 
was ready. He had spread my saddle-cloth on the ground like a table-cloth, and set 
in the middle of it the earthen dish and its contents, sharpened a piece of wood to 
serve as a fork, and provided a jug of iced water. I had nothing to do but to fall to 
work. My repast finished, and observing that my muleteer was disposed to appro- 
priate all that was left of the supper, I desired him to offer the mistress of the house, 
as a token of my perfect esteem, a portion of the fowl whose tough flesh had made my 
jaws ache. The man eagerly obeyed, only instead of a wing or a thigh which I had 
wished to see him offer my hostess, it was the wreck of the carcass that the rascal gave 
her, which however she sucked with evident pleasure. 

" Poor apuhualpacuna" said she, as she licked her fingers, " if anything could 
console it now, it would be to think it had been eaten by a Spanish cavalier!" 

The sitting soon came to an end. The Quichuas, after consulting together in a low 
tone, disappeared, saluting us with Quedense con Bios — Rest with God! By the 
rummaging which followed in the adjoining hut, I concluded they had bestowed them- 
selves there for the night, and had given us entire possession of the apartment we 
occupied. This was confirmed when the woman, having added some handfuls of fuel 
to the fire which was on the point of going out, went to rejoin her husband. Left to 
ourselves, we spread our skin-cloaks at some little distance from the hearth, and threw 
ourselves upon them with all our clothes on. In five minutes we were sleeping like the 
blessed. 

At six o'clock in the morning we resumed our journey. The ground fell away 
rapidly irom west to east. The landscape which lay at our feet was concealed by 
a thick white fog, the borders of which were feebly illumined by the rising sun. 
In the measure we descended the fog lifted, and very soon all the lower part of 
the plateau stood out well defined and clear, whilst the heavens were veiled by a 
thick mass of vapours. After a moment these vapours began to move in masses 
that rolled over one another, and from opaque white changed to transparent red; 
then the immense curtain was rent, and we beheld in all their splendour the ethereal 
blue and the orb of the rising sun. 

The distance from Compuerta to Cabana, which we intended to reach before 



AREQUIPA TO LAMPA, 75 

night, is estimated at six leagues; but these six Hispano-American leagues are equal 
to nine French leagues, or twenty-seven miles. Moreover, the landscape, a very 
unimpressive one, offered nothing to the casual observer but short grass and stones, 
so that the tourist in search of recreation would more likely have found himself 
wearied to death with its monotony. Not so, the learned devotee of Flora or of Cybele. 
For him there was no lack of subjects for delighted admiration. Thanks to the 
spectacles he habitually wears, which enlarge objects, and occasionally make them 
appear double, he discovers in the grass beautifully branched fragosas of liliputian 
size, little stemless flowerets, gentians, wei^nerias, loasas, lysipomias, lobelias, &c., for 
the most part white, justifying the local saying, Oro en la costa y plata en la sierra.^ 

If from the vegetable kingdom the same learned traveller turns to the mineral, 
where the tourist sees nothing but stones, there is visible to him, always aided by 
his spectacles, mighty masses of trappean porphyry, composed of nitrous feldspar and 
amphibolite, in which he recognizes the character of the materials employed by the 
Incas in their beautiful constructions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 

As it was neither in the character of a savan nor that of a tourist that I was 
travelling, but as a man occupied with his own affairs, I neither looked for discoveries 
nor for diversion in the landscape. All my attention was concentrated upon my 
mule, urging him on by voice and spur, while listening, without replying, to the 
perpetual chatter of my guide. 

Since leaving Compuerta we had kept steadily along by the river bank, with the 
view of avoiding the mountains and declivities that lay in the direct line to Cabana. 
This had been decided on by Nor Medina, not out of consideration for me, as one 
might have thought, but for the sake of his beasts, who, he said, were almost done up 
with these perpetual transitions from the nadir to the zenith. Any one else in my 
place would have remonstrated, and compelled the worthy muleteer to follow the 
more direct line, especially as the curve of the road we were following lengthened a 
little the stage. My amour propre, however, prevented me from grumbling. I feared 
to give the honest man occasion to laugh at a traveller who should complain 
of a league more or less of road, when he had himself gone eighty miles out of the 
way to gratify a mere whim. 

The sun rose high ; hour after hour passed by. The river of Compuerta changed its 
course from south-east to east, and then north. The ground fell away in a more 
decided slope. At that moment, to speak nautically, we were off Chucuytu, at 
the distance of forty-five miles from which stretched the immense basin of the Lake of 
Titicaca, and if there had been a high mountain at hand we might have looked from its 
summit upon the sacred lagune, the thirteen isles dotted over its surface, and the 
fourteen rivers which assist to swell its waters. In the impossibility of delighting my 
eyes with the spectacle of that alpine sea, by turns so calm and so furious, the eleva- 
tion of which is nearly 12,800 feet above the level of the two oceans, I recalled to 

* Oold on the coatt and diver in the nerra. Almost all the flowers which grow in sight of the Pacific Ocean, and 
which are of the Aiter, Helianthus, Hieracium, Actinea, and Chrysanthemum characters, are in fact of a golden-yellow colour ; 
while those which we meet with in the Sierra are silver-white. 



70 PERU. 

mind, day by day, the happy time when I wandered without care on these banks, 
seeking to surprise in their aquatic sports, but never finding them, the "green spider," 
the "gyrinus" (a species of water-beetle), and the "bearded triton," of which Father 
Valera speaks in his Histoire Naturelle du Peroti. I remembered, too, how vainly I 
had rummaged among the reeds and rushes to find the Polygonium amj)Mhiuvi, 
mentioned by the same learned writer; and how, disappointed in my fruitless researches, 
I had stopped to crunch a biscuit, or make ducks and drakes with the white and black 
stones on the river side. Alas ! that the memory of the past should bring with it so 
much that is sad and melancholy. 

At the moment of leaving for ever these elevated regions, about which many closet 
savans had written so learnedly without having seen them, I felt myself drawn to them 
by every bond of habit and sympathy. I would gladly have carried in my hand, as 
Charlemagne carries his globe, this historic country, of which the ancient civilization of 
India, in its march round the world, had made a centre of light. With what ethnogra- 
phical fervour, with what archaeological enthusiasm, I could have deposited it in some 
European museum, under a glass case, in order that our savans, by studying it close 
at hand, might agree, once for all, as to its origin and history ! 

These memories of the past absorbed me so completely for some hours, that I felt 
neither the Imnger from which I was nevertheless suffering, nor the cold caused by a 
penetrating wind which blew from the snowy Andes of Crucero, as the sun set behind 
us. Neither did I remark that at the extremity of the plateau we were crossing, there 
appeared, like white and black points, the houses of two villages, built opi^osite each 
other, and separated by the breadth of the river Compuerta. Nothing less than an 
exclamation from Nor Medina that we were drawing near the end of our day's march, 
would have served to dispel my reverie, and overthrow the scaffolding of hypotheses 
that I had been so busily erecting. 

I had scarcely realized the fact that the villages in sight were those of Cabana 
and Cabanilla, when my stomach reasserted its long disregarded rights. A moment 
afterwards we entered the village of Cabana, leaving on our right that of Cabanilla, 
which a roughly constructed bridge of three arches, built of gray trachyte, unites to its 
neighbour. 

Cabana, to which the makers of Peruvian statistics, with a modesty which savours 
of good taste very rare among them, simply allude in their little compilations, without 
attaching to its name any striking epithet, is neither an illustrious capital, a well-deserv- 
ing city, nor a heroic town ! It is a cluster of small houses constructed of broken stones 
and mud, thatched with ichu, the stiff straw of the Cordilleras, and disposed in the 
form of a Z. The middle of the downward stroke of this letter forms a kind of plaza 
or square, occupied by the church, a modest structure of mud, with a square belfry, 
the projecting roof of which, supported by pillars bent with age, is turned up at the 
edge like the roof of a pagoda. On this little belfry, lit up for a moment by a ray of 
the setting sun, a dozen black vultures [Percnopterus urubu), like undertakers in feathers, 
had aligned themselves in that immobility of pose which is the characteristic of this 
obscene bird. 



AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 



79 



Notwithstanding the neighing of our mules, who had scented the stable, and the 
clamorous manner in which Nor Medina announced our arrival, not a soul appeared at 
the doors of the houses. The melancholy village seemed to be enchanted, or unpeopled 
by a pestilence. On remarking this to my guide, he explained that the inhabitants had 
probably gone to explore the quebradas, rivers, and brooks of the neighbourhood, in 
search of gold-dust or fragments of silver-ore, with which to pay their dues. 





TH2 VILLAGES OF OABAKA AND OABANILLA. 



"But," I objected to the man, "the abolition of tribute has been decreed, and con- 
sequently the Indian has no longer anything to pay to the state!" 

"Cabal" (just so!) he replied; "but if the Indian pays no tribute to the state, he has 
always his little accounts to settle with the sub-prefect of the province, the governor, 
and the alcalde. I say nothing of the lord-bishop, of the cur^, of the vicar, and of the 
monks of our convents, holy men, who care so little for silver that they content them- 
selves with deducting a tithe from the crops of potatoes, chuno, quinoa, oats, or what- 
ever the Indian may grow. Perhaps he has no crop at all; but his wife has a distaff", and 
she spins and sends to the tithe-collector {diezmero) a few balls of llama's wool, which 
are always received with pleasure. In default of wool she has perhaps a guinea-pig, a 
few eggs, a cake of tallow, or other article : any of these will do, and the little presents 
she makes serve to keep up a good understanding. Our Indians know this so well, 



80 



PERU. 



that although they may grumble a little, they take care not to neglect these little duties 
when the time comes to pay court to the civil and religious authorities." 

"But this is frightfully tyrannical," I exclaimed. 

"It would be unpolite to contradict your lordship," replied the mule-driver, "but 
assuredly the Indian looks at these things from a different point of view. He may 
grumble, sometimes, but he does not raise a clamour. Habit counts for much in so 
many things. I will even venture to say that most Punarunacunas^ view these 
excursions into the quebradas as nothing more than a party of pleasure. They would 
like to enjoy the outing alone, and at liberty; for all are lawfully married, and a 
married man is never sorry to be free for a moment. But Scripture having ordained 
that the wife is to cleave to the husband, the Indian wife, caring nothing whether it 
pleases her lord and master or not, follows in his wake, under the pretext of preparing - 
his food and mending his clothes, but really only to vex him. Then, as the children 
could hardly live without their mother, and as the dogs would die of ennui without 
the children, it comes to pass that both man and beast absolutely abandon their 
village for a time; considerations which will explain to you the complete solitude we 
have found here. 

"Our Indians will remain ten or twelve days afield. At the end of this time, if 
they have filled their chuspa with metal, they set apart the few piastres which are due 
to the superior authorities, and lay out the rest in the purchase of brandy and coca. 
At home once more, they will dance merrily to the sound of a tin trumpet and a 
charango; drink, get drunk, and soundly beat their wives, as a lesson not to leave the 
conjugal roof another time. But this is labour lost. A woman is by nature incor- 
rigible, and an Indian woman has a taste for being beaten. It flatters her amour 
propre. A good shower of blows from a stick or a knotted cord, administered now and 
then by him she calls her palomachay ,^ or "cherished dove," is a better proof to her 
than any number of protestations and oaths that the man in question has chosen her for 
his companion, and continues to cherish her above all other women. . . ." 

Here the dissertation of Nor Medina was interrupted by the baying of a dog which 
seemed to be affected with laryngitis. 

"It is the alcco of the cur^," he said, "a poor animal that has grown as useless as 
his master." 

At this moment we turned the angle of an almost broken-down wall, and I 
discovered a miserable house built against the apsis of the church, of which the 
projecting thatched roof protected it from the north wind as the foliage of a tree 
protects the nest of a bird. This dwelling, furnished with one window and one door, 
was so low that a horseman by rising upon his stirrups could rest his elbows upon its 
summit. 

' Runa, man ; puna, plateau ; cuna, the ; — the men of the plateau. This is the name given to the indigenes of the 
region of CoUao. 

^ The word paloma, pigeon or dove, is Spanish, this bird not being found in the wild state in South America, but 
having been naturalized there by the Spaniards. On the other hand, there are seven or eight varieties of turtle-doves, of 
which the largest is the size of a wood-pigeon, and the smallest that of a common sparrow. The first is called urpi ; the 
second cuculi. It is the urpi that, under the name of urpi-lla and urpilla-chay, sweet turtle-dove, darling turtle-dove, 
figures in the greater number of yaravU and poems of the Quichuas. 



AREQUIPA TO LAMP A. 



81 




Alstrcemrria, 
Called by mistake the LiJy of tlie Incaa. 




The front of this humble abode was somewhat enUvened by being whitewashed. 
On the window-sill, in a common earthen pot, but of such a shape as to recall the art 
of the Etruscans, blossomed one of those alstroemerias which European horticulturists 
improperly call the Lily of the Incas} and of which the variety tomentosa, which I 
recognized at a glance, flourishes in the shady thickets in certain sheltered spots of the 
Entre-Sierra. The sight of these pretty flowers, with their petals of greenish pink, 
spotted with a brownish red, gave me much pleasure. They 
indicated on the part of their possessor a certain delicacy of 
organization, which seemed a good augury for the refreshment 
and shelter which I designed to beg of him. As the dog, 
a miserable cur, toothless, blear-eyed, his hair bristling, re- 
doubled his noise on seeing us alight, an old woman made 
her appearance on the threshold, regarding us with an 
astonished air. 

"Dios hendiga d U. mamita" (God bless you, little mother), 
cried my guide, in a tone at once respectful and familiar. 

"Alii llamanta Hueracocha" (Good day, signor), the woman 
answered in the idiom of the Quichuas. 

The manner of the salutation, and the difference of idiom 
between the two personages, testified not only to a greater 
degree of civilization in the one than in the other, but the 
title of honour which the woman had accorded to the muleteer in answer to the 
qualification of "little mother," seemed to imply an inferiority of position, with which I 
could not help being struck. I had no opportunity of asking my guide about this. 
The old woman on learning from him that I desired to see the cur^ Cabrera, imme- 
diately invited me to enter the house. I therefore followed her in, leaving Nor Medina 
to unsaddle our mules. 

Having crossed the first room, which appeared to serve as ante-chamber, kitchen, 
and dining-room, my conductress stopped and asked me timidly if my business with the 
cur^ was of so pressing a nature as to make it necessary to wake him out of the siesta 
in which he was just then indulging. 

To this inquiry I courteously replied that it was not necessary to interrupt 
the holy man's slumber, that I could very well wait, more especially if to wile away 
the intervening time, my hostess would give me something to eat. Hardly had this 
sentence escaped me than the cur^, who was not, as the good woman believed, 
asleep, and had heard me through the partition, called out in Quichua, "With 
whom are you speaking, Veronica I" 

"With a white-skinned Hueracocha, who says he has business with you, my 
brother, and who asks for something to eat. . . ." 

" For he is faint with hunger," added I, raising my voice, and using purposely the 
idiom employed by my hosts. 

' It is the Narcissus amancaes, not the Alstrameria, which the natives call Lili/ of the Incas. 



VOL. I. 



11 



g2 PERU. 

"Eh! my sister, to work quickly," replied the cur^: "kill a guinea-pig, beat 
some eggs and make an omelette; do you not hear that this poor traveller says he 
is hungry? And you, sir," said he, addressing me, "be so good as to walk in here 
where we can converse with more comfort." 

I left the good dame Veronica to her culinary preparations and took advantage 
of the curd's invitation. When I had opened the door which formed the communi- 
cation between the two apartments, I found myself in a room of some size, though 
with a low ceiling. A Verenguela stone, transparent like glass and cut square, 
was fixed between the rafters of the roof and illuminated the room after the manner 
of an artist's studio. 

The curd was seated on one of those square blocks of masonry which serve among 
the common people the purposes of chair, table, and bed. A pile of fleeces, with 
coarse woollen coverings over them, modified the hardness of this couch. The pastor 
was saying his rosary, which he suspended to a nail when I entered. Then as I drew 
near, he stretched towards me in an uncertain manner, as though seeking mine, his 
two hands. 

"Help me, dear sir," he said with singular sweetness of expression, "I know 
you are there, but cannot tell your exact position; four years since God deprived 
me of the light of the sun, and now I cannot see earthly things except in thought." 

I eagerly took the old man's hands, who drew me towards him and made me 
sit on his bed. I was so moved by the discovery of an infirmity so unexpected, 
that I was unable to ofi'er the slightest attempt at consolation, or even a word of 
politeness to the venerable father. As I stealthily examined him he caressed my 
hands with an effusion quite juvenile, felt the stufi" of which my clothing was made, 
and seemed to give himself up to a physiological examination of which I could not 
imagine the aim. 

"You do not belong to this country," he at length said, "you have neither the 
tone of voice nor the exterior of my countrymen; tell me, dear sir, whence you come, 
whither you go, and what kindly wind has drifted you to my humble dwelling?" 

"With great willingness," I answered. "I left Hay last week, and I am on my 
way to Brazil, which I hope to reach before three months are out. My motive in 
coming to your home is a very simple one. Nearly five years ago, when visiting 
en amateur one day the museum of Lima, I perceived in a corner of the hall which 
contains the genealogical tree of the Incas, a portrait of Don Juan Pablo Cabrera, 
the cure of Macusani. This portrait, painted in oils, by an artist of the country, was 
of small value as a painting, and my attention would have been immediately turned 
from it if I had not read the biography of the original inscribed in a corner of the 
canvas. I was so impressed by this account of a holy and laborious life that I vowed 
to myself I would not leave America without seeing the original of the portrait. 
It is in fulfilment of this determination, reverend father, that instead of taking the 
road to Cuzco by the Andes I have come by way of Lampa, feeling almost certain 
that I should find in the village of Cabana him whom I wished to see, and whom 
I had long loved without knowing." 



AREQULPA TO LAMPA. 



83 



"You have done that for me!" exclaimed the poor priest, raising my hands 
to his lips with such eagerness that I could not prevent this demonstration of pro- 
found gratitude and wonderful humility. "Ah! sir, ah! my child — because I guess 
from your voice you are young — God will bless you, since you remember those who 
suffer and are forgotten." 

A thoughtful silence prevailed between us for some minutes. 

" Europe is a noble country and her sons have noble heart.s," said the cur^, at 
length, as if in reply to sonic anterior meditation. It is to Europe we owe the great 




THE CURfi OF MACUSANI, A TRUE PKIEST AOCOBDING TO THE GOSPEL. 



ideas that have been disseminated among us. If those ideas have produced nothing, 
if the good seed has dried up in the ground, or has given but the stubble without 
the ear, it is because our hearts and our understandings were not prepared to receive 
it. When I dwelt at Macusani I knew Europeans who were drawn to these 
countries simply by their love for science. Although my relations with them were 
of the shortest duration, their memory has been deeply engraved in my heart." 

Whilst the priest spoke I studied his physiognomy and mentally compared it with 
the horrid portrait I had seen of him. His features presented the type of the Iranian 
race, but without the projecting cheek-bones and prominent curvature of the nose 
which characterize that race. A constant habit of thought, instinct with human 
charity and divine love, seemed to have still more ennobled and refined the contours 
of a face that was already noble and perfectly formed by nature. The old man's 
eyes, closed, as he himself had said, to the light of this world, and not communicating 
to the spirit any reflection from exterior nature, imparted to his face the noble calm- 
ness of a beautiful antique mask. The Quichua idiom, with its ornate expressions 
and high-flown metaphors, which he employed in preference to the Spanish when 
conversing, had added spirituaUty, so to speak, to that plastic beauty by taking from 



84 PERU. 

his thought I know not what mysterious grace, what sustained elevation, which had 
nothing in common with the habitual language of men. 

The costume of the priest consisted of a kind of loose gown or wrapper^ made of 
bayeta, a coarse cloth manufactured in the country. His shirt was made of unbleached 
cotton cloth, and a handkerchief of cotton stuff with a square pattern served him for 
a cravat. As for the room itself, it was, like the old man's garments, simple almost 
to bareness. Whitewashed walls, a bolster for his head, a linen cloth representing the 
Virgin Mary des sept douleurs; a holy-water vessel, and a rosary by the side of the 
image; here and there a few benches and stools, a leathern trunk, and some objects 
of no value; on the right side of the chamber, in the shade, a second couch, probably 
that of the priest's sister Veronica, completed the humble furniture, and brought to my 
memory these lines of a poet— 

" La croix de bois, I'autel de pierre, 
Suffit aux hommes comme k Dieu." 

The worthy pastor had been silent for some time when I asked him, with suitable 
apologies, to relate some details of his past history and the life which he led in this 
solitude. 

" My child," he replied, with a beautiful smile, " did you not tell me you have read 
the inscription on my portrait?" 

"That inscription," I replied, "has only told me of the virtues of the priest and 
the labours of the man. It has told me nothing of his sufferings, and it is of them 
I wish to hear, because, if I had not gathered as much from your words, I should have 
divined, on seeing you and hearing you speak, that you had suffered." 

An expression of bitterness passed over the old man's face, as the shadow of a 
cloud over still water. But he promptly replied: 

" The day is far advanced, and it is fifteen miles to the nearest estancia. Will you 
give me your company this evening and pass the night under my roofi On that 
condition I will tell you the story of my life, not as you have read it in the museum 
at Lima, but as God alone knows it. ..." 

" I will not quit you till to-morrow morning," I replied. 

"Veronica!" he cried, leaning towards the door of communication, "will it be 
long before the supper of our guest is ready?" 

"A little patience, brother," replied Veronica; "the couy^ is only done on one side, 
and I have still my omelette to make." 

As I apologized to the cur^ for the embarrassment and trouble I had occasioned 
to his sister with these preparations for a meal, when a morsel of bread and cheese 
would have sufficed: 

" Oh ! " he said, " we are not in Lent and to-day is not Friday, that you should be 
half-starved; I am only vexed that there should be any delay in serving you. The fact 
is, Veronica has no one but herself in the house. Our sister Epifania is gone to Lampa 

• Houppdande in French ; it has neither a collar nor sleeves fitted to the figure, and is geuerally wadded. — Tr. 
' The Quichua name of the guinea-pig (Cavia minima). 



I 



I 




AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 85 

to sell the wool which the poor girls have spun together during the past week, and I do 
not expect her back till the evening." 

"That is a journey of six leagues" (eighteen miles), I observed. 

"Six there and six back," replied the cur6; "making twelve leagues (thirty-six 
miles) that our sister will have to walk to-day, so that she will return thoroughly 
tired. Thank God the river of Lampa will not be flooded, for Epifania will have 
to cross it by a ford, and the current is very strong. . . . 

"With a good mule she has nothing to fear," I remarked. 

"Alas!" said the priest, "we have neither horses nor mules, and our sister is 
obliged to go afoot. This is one of my greatest troubles. My poor sisters, whom I 
would willingly surround with every comfort in their old age to recompense them for 
their past labours. . . . But God will know how to reward them in my place. ..." 
This conversation was interrupted by Dame Veronica, who called out that supper was 
ready. 

" Give me your arm," said the cure, " and let us go to the table. Whilst you eat 
I will finish saying my rosary." 

After I had satisfied my lumger, and Nor Medina had also had his wants supplied, 
the cur6 proposed that we should walk out to enjoy for a moment the evening air. 
As we left the house a joyous chime of bells struck up in the direction of Cabanilla. 
"Already the oracion!" said the priest. Dame Veronica, who had followed us to the 
door, looked at the summit of the hills, which were reddened by the last rays of 
the setting sun. " My brother," she said without hesitation, " it is six o'clock. I will 
put back my watch: it makes three minutes past six." " That woman," I said to myself, 
"is a veritable chronometer." 

The cur^ having passed his arm within mine, we walked through the village, all the 
houses of which were closed, and out on the plain. A silence unbroken by the voice 
of man, the song of bird, or the chirp of an insect, reigned around. The sun had 
sunk to rest in a winding-sheet of violet, fringed with purple and gold ; in these lati- 
tudes, where there is no twilight, night follows day suddenly. Already the distance 
was gathering darkness, vapours ascended from the bottom of the ravines and rose 
in the air like smoke from the tripods of antiquity. The nearer cerros grew dark as we 
gazed, the stars began to twinkle, yet daylight had not completely disappeared. A 
vague and charming glimmer of rose-coloured light, reflected from the purple of the 
setting sun, tinged the snows of the Crucero which bounded the horizon in the east. 
These snows so delicately coloured and so life-like in the midst of the dull, gray, sleepy 
landscape, might be compared to the smile which lingers upon the mouth of a beautiful 
woman whose eyes have already closed in sleep. In presence of this calm and radiant 
spectacle of the earth hushing its noises and heaven kindling its stars — a spectacle 
which God gives every evening to his creatures, and which it was my privilege 
to contemplate — I felt a sense of inexpressible pity for the poor priest to whom for 
four years all this glory had been but a memory. 

We continued our walk in silence. From time to time my companion dropped 
a short sentence, to which I replied in the same laconic manner, and then we again 



80 



PERU. 



relapsed into meditation. We continued to walk thus, purposeless, dreaming rather 
than talking, until the night grew cold, when the old man manifested his intention 
to return home. Half an hour afterwards we were seated on his bed. Dame Vei'onica 
had taken her distaff, and, squatted on a bit of carpet a few steps from us, was 
occupied in spinning by the smoky flame of a lamp. 

"The moment has arrived," said the cur^, "to tell you that part of my history 
of which men are ignorant and God alone knows. I was born at Canima, a small 
village in the department of Puno, and not at Macusani, as my biogi*aphers have said. 
I was a priest at twenty-five, officiating in the cure of Macusani, in the province 
of Carabaya. My two sisters, Veronica and Epifania, left alone after the death of 
our parents, had come to live with me. Impressed with the greatness of my office, 
and thoroughly alive to the obligations it imposed on me, I had resolved to raise from 
the brute-like condition to which they were reduced the wretched Indians whom God 
had given me for my flock. To open the eyes of their spirit to the true light, to bring 
hope to their withered hearts, to make of the poor slaves, whom fear of the whip kept 
in subjection to their masters, freemen, brothers in Jesus Christ united indissolubly 
by the bonds of affection and devotedness, such was the dream which I had cherished 
before taking orders, such was the idea to which, when I became a priest, I resolved to 
consecrate my life. 

"After a first year passed in the exercise of my functions, and during which I 
rebuilt, by the aid of my own money, the church of Macusani, which had fallen to 
decay, I realized all the difficulty of my apostolic mission, of which I had previously 
regarded only the end without embarrassing myself with the means. Brutalized by 
the oppression of three centuries, the men who surrounded me were incredulous or 
indifferent to my words. They saw nothing in the future but a fatal continuation of 
the past. Accustomed to seek oblivion of their sorrows in the fumes of drunkenness, 
they did not comprehend that it might be found in the renunciation of self and devotion 
to others; in love, charity, and fraternity; in a word, in the soul's life. 

"For a long time I studied these unhappy beings, degraded by long suffering and 
abject fear, seeking a vulnerable place where the sword of the Word might penetrate. 
But I gave up the study in despair, as I recognized its utter inutility. No longer 
hoping to convince them by reason, I substituted sentiment for logic, and gave them 
the evidence of a life absolutely devoted to their welfare. In acting thus I expected 
to awake their gratitude, to draw their affection to myself, and to reach their spirit 
through their hearts. But in this again I was cruelly deceived. In return for all my 
efforts in their behalf I met only with doubt and suspicion, often irony, malice, or 
falsehood, almost always baseness under apparent mildness. Ten years of the best 
part of my life were devoted to this thankless work — ten years, which fell into the gulf 
of the past, without having caused to grow a single blade of gi'ass upon its borders. 

" Oh, my child ! how disenchanted, how wearisome life appeared to me when thus 
thoroughly convinced that my idea of regenerating this degraded race proved to be a 
chimera, in the pursuit of which I had laboured in vain ! During a considerable period, 
the exact duration of which I cannot fix, I felt thrown back upon myself and indifferent 




AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 87 

to everything. If I was sustained in this trial, it was by the loving care of my poor 
sisters, who sympathized with my sorrows without understanding the cause. 

" Cast down by the loss of my illusions, hurt in my dearest sympathies, yet without 
anger or hatred for the men to whom I had opened my arms and my heart only to be 
repulsed, I gave myself up to the study of nature, expecting to find a cure for my 
sorrows, and at the same time food for my thoughts. I trusted that the contemplation 
of the Infinite, by exciting a new order of ideas, would draw me away from the troubles 
of this world and open to my sight the glories of heaven. I became an observer of the 
wonders of creation, trying to follow nature in her various transformations and to 
penetrate her secrets. I listened in ecstacy to her capricious harmonies, I tried to 
penetrate their hidden sense, I was filled with enthusiasm for the order and beauty 
of the universe and the regularity of the laws which govern it. After having thus 
marked effects, I tried to ascend to causes, I aspired to know the thought which had 
presided at the creation, and often uttered a fervent prayer to God that he would 
satisfy my longing. By-and-bye I perceived that this constant strain of admiration 
exhausted my powers, without recruiting them. My spirit floated with no guiding 
hand in this immensity, like a vessel without oars and without a compass, and my eyes, 
blinded by the light of the stars, closed in very lassitude. I understood then by the 
strange void which opened in me that I was not meant for a contemplative life. To 
enjoy instinctively these serene and mysterious scenes, an organization more poetic 
than mine had been necessary; to study the mechanism of these spheres, and explain 
in a satisfactory manner the laws and affinities which govern them, had needed an 
intelligence matured by studies of a more substantial kind than those which are 
customary with us. 

"Again I was thrown back upon myself, and felt anew my soul crushed by the 
weight of ennui. The study of nature, which had smiled upon me for a moment, had 
become hateful. For months, for years, I lived this sad and languid life, doing 
scrupulously all my duties as a priest and a Christian, but never finding that inward 
satisfaction that is given by the certainty of a duty accomplished. The errors and the 
evils for which I had been unable to find a remedy were like so many phantoms which 
still pursued me when I was awake, and still returned to trouble me in my sleep. 

"The revolution of 1824 broke out. Eoyalty had to yield to the republic. 
Great institutions were shaken in a day, the ruins of which encumbered every 
path. For a moment I hoped that something great and useful would result from 
this political and social catastrophe — that a happy era had commenced with our 
populations. But my hope was of short duration. The word 'Liberty' emblazoned 
on the banner of Simon Bolivar labelled the new power with a lie. As in the past, 
despotism reigned without control. Instead of viceroys there were presidents, and 
that was all. The people remained as they were, and as you see them at this 
moment, miserable, ignorant, brutalized, and, what is worse, either satisfied with 
their condition, or consoling themselves with drunkenness. This is a phase of my 
life which you do not read of in the inscription on my portrait, because men are 
ignorant of it. If I have concealed it from them with the solicitude that one con- 



83 PERU. 

ceals certain private afflictions, it is because it would only have excited their incre- 
dulity, irony, or indifference, instead of the sympathy which I had a right to expect. 

"I now come to a circumstance of my life which has caused my name to be 
widely spoken of, and gained for me the honour of a place in the museum of Lima 
as one of the benefactors of Peruvian industry. The facts are these. When strolling 
about one day in the hilly region Avhich separates Macusani from the first valleys of 
Carabaya, I found in the hollow of a rock a male alpaca just born; the mother, avIio 
was cropping the grass a few steps off, fled at my approach. I brought away the 
little creature in my cassock, and on arriving at home gave it to my sisters to 
bring up. The alpaca grew in company with a vicugna which we had domesticated. 
At the end of fifteen months these animals presented us with a kid, of which the 
wool was remarkably fine. A specimen of it having been sent to the merchants of 
the province attracted so much attention that my sisters saw in the crossing of the 
pacocha and vicugna breeds a means of recovering the little fortune of which San 
Martin and the Independents had deprived us.^ I assisted the poor girls in the exe- 
cution of their project rather from affection for them than for anything I cared for 
the fortune. With much trouble we succeeded in prociiring several alpacas and 
vicugnas, and at the end of seven years our flock of hybrids numbered sixty heads. 
But what pains we had taken to arrive at that result! 

"Meanwhile the news of our enterprise had spread to Lima. The president of 
the republic, impressed by the advantages which might accrue from it to the com- 
merce and industry of the country, interested himself in our success. He conde- 
scended to write me a flattering letter, and as a proof of his particular esteem he 
wished to place my portrait in the museum of Lima, and to strike a golden medal 
in my honour, besides giving me the choice of any living I preferred in the depart- 
ment of Cuzco. That offer I declined. For thirty years I had lived at Macusani, 
and should have felt it too painful to remove elsewhere. Subsequently, how- 
ever, circumstances compelled me to beg the bishop of the province to allow me to 
remove. The favour of the great had excited a feeling of hatred against us in the 
country; people who had hitherto regarded our enterprise with indifference grew 
jealous, and as they dared not lay hands on us personally, they attacked our poor 
beasts, and poisoned them one by one. My sisters, deeply affected by their loss, 
and not knowing where the malice of our enemies would stop, entreated me to 
abandon Macusani. In fine, we established ourselves at Cabana, of which Ca- 
banilla, the neighbouring village, was then an adjunct. We had lived here two 
years when the hand of God was again heavy upon me. I lost my sight. As I 
could not fulfil my ministerial duties, the bishop transferred the seat of this cure 
to Cabanilla, and sent a priest there to supply my place. Left without resources, 
I addressed a memorial to the government, which concluded with a statement of the 
distress to which we were reduced, and begged, in place of the honours which the 
chief of the state had offered me, that he would allow to each of my sisters a 

* Doa Jose de San Martin commanded the liberating army of Peru, and assumed the title of Protector, 
August 3d, 1821.— Tr. 



AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 



89 



<*Av, 



m^' 




b 



k 



piastre a day to assist us to live. My petition had the honour of being presented 
to the Chamber, where the deputies made it the text of many fine speeches; but 
time passed, and no reply came. As we had no means of living, my sisters, with 
their own hands, cultivated a small field; besides which, we bred chickens and 
guinea-pigs, and thus obtained food and the means of barter with our neighbours. 
By-and-bye my sisters conceived the idea of spinning and knitting for the charitable 
people of Lampa, who recompensed them suitably for their work. Little by little 
we enlarged our resources, and without rising above poverty succeeded in getting 
enough to keep us alive. For four years we have lived 
thus, one consoling the other, and drawing closer the bonds 
of our mutual affection in the degree that we approach 
the time when death will unravel them." 

The cur6 ceased to speak; his head slowly inclined as 
if some thought, brooding in secret, had caused a stupor. 
Perhaps the recital of his history had been too much for 
his strength. I looked at Dame Veronica, who continued 
to spin. Her countenance expressed nothing but a serene im- 
passibility. Had the habit of suffering blunted the sensibility 
of the poor old soul, or had she learned from her brother's 
example to bear her cross patiently? I know not; but her 
whole attention seemed to be concentrated upon her spinning, 
as from time to time she examined the thread by the lamp- 
light, as if to assure herself that it was of equal thickness. 

The hour had come to retire; the good priest desired them to make my bed in his 
chamber. Some sheepskins, which his sister spread on the ground, formed a soft 
couch. As Nor Medina brought in my saddle, which was to serve me for a pillow, the 
dog outside began to bark and the voice of a woman replied. "God be praised!" 
exclaimed the priest, "that is our poor Epifania returned from Lampa!" Dame 
Veronica went out to meet her sister, and an instant afterwards the two women 
reappeared together. Epifania took her brother's hand, kissed it, and placed it on her 
head according to the ancient custom of the Quichuas. "God bless you, my sister, as I 
bless you!" he murmured. 

"You must be very tired after such a journey," I said to the poor woman, whose 
dusty feet were cased in sandals of untanned leather, such as are worn by the common 
people of the country. 

"Bah! I shall sleep all the better for it," she replied gaily; and then placed in her 
brother's hand some pieces of silver, no doubt the produce of the sale of her work, 
which the old man slipped under his pillow; then the two women hastily collected 
some fleeces and woollen coverlets and left the room, closing the door behind them. 
I was thus left alone with the cur(5, who having wished me good night and desired 
me to extinguish the lamp, turned round to the wall. For a moment I heard him 
praying in a low voice, and sighs were mingled with his prayer. Then my eyes closed, 
and I fell into a profound slecjx 



Dame Veronica. 



13 



9Q PERU. 

I was up early in the morning, but not before the two sisters had prepared a bowl 
of porridge made of the flour of maize, of which they insisted I should eat some 
spoonfuls as a protection against the morning damp. While I was supping my 
breakfast Nor Medina came to announce that the mules were saddled. I gave him my 
porringer, half full, that he might finish it, which he did in three mouthfuls. My host 
and his sisters came to the door to witness our departure. I took the hands of the old 
priest in both mine 

"Reverend father," I said, "I have nothing to offer you in exchange for your cordial 
welcome and touching confidence. I am about to quit this country, never to return; 
but I have at Lima, at Arequipa, and at Cuzco influential friends, who I am certain 
would receive favourably any request that I might address to them in your behalf. Tell 
me what they can do that would be agreeable to you?" 

"Absolutely nothing," he replied; "my time upon earth is too short for any- 
thing that men can do to be available. Go, my dear child, and may God guide 
you! You will be remembered in the prayers of the old man whom you have 
come so far to see." The venerable priest folded me in his arms, and the two 
women shook hands with me as if I were an old acquaintance. 

At the moment of quitting for ever these unfortunate but noble souls, I felt my 
heart swell and the tears come into my eyes. " Good-bye," I said abruptly 
as I jumped into the saddle. "Good-bye, and bon voyage," replied all three. Nor 
Medina was already mounted. " Vamos!" he cried, urging on his mule, whom mine 
immediately followed. In five minutes afterwards the villages of Cabana and Ca- 
banilla, and the three-arched bridge which tied the one to the other, had vanished 
behind us. 

I was too completely absorbed with the remembrance of my hosts to interest 
myself in the locality we were traversing, or in the always glorious spectacle of a 
sunrise in the Cordillera. Nor Medina, while respecting my silence, appeared desirous 
of ending it by making occasional remarks in a high voice. Now it was the girth 
of my mule which appeared too loose; now my saddle-cloth which hung too much 
on one side; or, again, he had something to say about the distance to Lampa. 
I let him talk without replying. When he saw that his indirect endeavours produced 
no result, he adopted another method, aiming straight at the mark. 

"Was not monsieur pleased with his reception at Cabana?" he asked with an 
obsequious air. 

"Why that question?" said I. 

" Because monsieur has not opened his mouth since we started, and his silence 
makes me suppose he is discontented. However, I told you that old Cabrera Avas 
a little cracked, and if he has wearied you it is not my fault." 

At these irreverent words I rose in my saddle, and standing in my stirrups in 
order to crush my interlocutor with the whole height of my stature and my scorn, — 

"Nor Medina," I said, looking like thunder at him, "you are, and you will 
never be anything else than a — muleteer ! " 

"Indeed, I hope so, monsieur I" he replied, raising his hat to show how he 



^ 



AREQUIPA TO LAMPA, 91 

respected himself; "my grandfather was a muleteer, my father was a muleteer, 
and I have succeeded my father, as my boy will succeed me some day. Muleteer, 
caramba! is it not the finest thing in the world 1" 

Before such a profession of enthusiastic faith, it was impossible to remain serious. 
The wrath which had been boiling in my veins exploded in a burst of laughter. 
The ice was broken. Seeing me laugh, my guide laughed also; and becoming good 
friends on the spot, we recommenced our gossip of the evening before just where 
we had broken off. After following for two hours the course of the river of Cabana, 
which now ran with a gentle current, now hurried on its course, according to the ever- 
varying level, we left it flowing eastward, and took the northward direction to Lampa. 
The sky was beautifully serene, the landscape was lighted up by a glorious sun; 
but in about two hours all this glory was hidden behind a curtain of dark clouds. 
These dense vapours, of the nimbm kind, looked as if they would burst in thunder, 
hail, and snow, and we had prepared ourselves to receive the shock as philosophically 
as possible, when Providence took pity on us. The black whirlwind passed like a 
waterspout over our heads, satisfied with having filled our eyes, nose, and ears 
with dust, and swept along to burst in storm over the Titicaca, to the great terror 
of the web -footed inhabitants of the sacred lake. An instant afterwards, the sky 
resumed its serene azure, and the sun shone brilliantly over our heads. 

It was four o'clock when we crossed the shoulder of a hill, over which were 
scattered fragments of a blackish green obsidian, so sparkling that it pained our 
eyes. Here and there were erratic blocks of a rectangular shape, and of enormous 
dimensions, looking like the ruined walls of some fallen edifice. As we passed within 
a few steps of these masses I noticed a bush of the tolas kind (Baccharis obtiisifolia) , 
with stiff and dark-looking foliage. It grows in spots sheltered from the north 
wind. Round about it, half hidden in the fine shiny grass, some dwarf eranthis 
(herbaceous Ranunculaceae, known as winter -aconite) peculiar to these latitudes, 
opened their white petals. I was about to dismount and collect a bouquet of these 
alpine flowers, which recalled to my memory the golden-hearted daisies that April 
scatters over the green sward of Europe, when a bird, coming from I know not 
where, darted like an arrow upon them, and without letting his feet touch the 
ground, passed from one to another, dipping in their chalice his curved and sharp 
beak, which was of an extraordinary length. In the buzzing flight of this bird, in 
his quick and jerky movements, and his peculiar configuration, I recognized an 
individual of the humming-bird species {Trochilus). But a humming-bird of this 
size, measuring almost a foot from tip to tip of its expanded wings, appeared to me 
so prodigious that for a moment I doubted the evidence of my eyes, which opened 
wide with wonder. However, it was impossible to doubt that this was truly a 
humming-bird, though a giant one, compared with which other individuals of his 
species was as the sparrow to the dinornis, if the dinornis still exists. 

While the humming-bird balanced himself for a few moments over every flower, 
which he tore with strokes of his beak when he could obtain nothing from it, I 
fancy I remarked that the plumage of his back and wings was of a blackish green, 



92 



PERU. 



Imving a metallic glitter, and that his breast was of a blue or blackish gray, 
passing to a dirty white on reaching the belly. His repast of honey finished, the 
bird disappeared by a movement of the wings which reminded me of the whirling 
flight of dried leaves which an autumn storm carries far away from the woods. 

As I had nothing better to do I took out my note-book and wrote the fol- 
lowing lines in pencil, now so nearly obliterated that I am obliged to use a mag- 
nifying-glass to decipher them. 

" This day, July 7th, the festival of San Firmin, Bishop of Pampeluna, who lived 




1 



BACCHARIS OBTUSIFOLIA. 



in the fourteenth century, I observed between Cabana and Lampa, at an altitude 
of about 12,000 feet, a humming-bird of extraordinary size. This humming-bird, 
brought by the wind, was also carried away by it. The naturalist Tschudi has already 
established the fact that humming-birds have been found seeking their food at an 
elevation of 13,700 feet above the sea. But he has said nothing of the flowers which 
the bird sucks at that altitude. Now the humming-bird which I have this day 
accidentally seen sucked the honey from an Eranthis gracilis, the nectarium of which, 
or the petalloid scale which serves as a nectary, can contain nothing but an acrid juice 
of venomous properties like that of the Eanunculacese. Submit to the judgment of the 
first savant I meet this curious case, as it seems to me, of humming-birds flying 
above the limit of perpetual snow and feeding on poisons." 

An hour after the appearance of the humming-bird, which my guide had taken for 
a swallow, we crossed by a ford the river of Lampa,- a stream of no importance in 
the dry season, but which becomes a furious torrent on the melting of the snows. 
Already the sun had sensibly declined; the atmosphere, of wonderful purity, seemed 
to be saturated with gold-dust. The lichens and the lepraria which covered certain 
rocks took from the reflection of the declining sun tones of reddish brown like the 



I 




AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 93 

iridescent hues of a dove's neck. The eastern hills assumed a bluish hue, and as 
evening approached vi^ere shrouded in an atmosphere like gauze; while those of the 
west, coloured like ochre and bitumen, stood out with surprising boldness against the 
purple back -ground of the heavens. At the instant when the sun disappeared a dark 
and serrated line barred the horizon before us. We were approaching the end of our 
day's journey; that line was formed by the houses of Lampa. We pushed resolutely 
forward, and in half an hour more were crossing the stone bridge of three arches which 
spans the river of that city. 

This bridge, which has been built some fifteen years, replaces an old one of mimhres, 
the invention of which is attributed to the Incas. The present chief of the state, 
feeling that a mere swing of osiers recalled injudiciously the past barbarism of the 
province, had it taken down and replaced by a bridge of stone. This was very speedily 
done, thanks to an extraordinary contribution of 5000 piastres (about £1000 sterling) 
which the Lampenos, anxious to beautify their river and to please their president, 
heroically imposed on themselves. 

Having crossed the bridge I found myself surrounded with low houses grouped 
without the least order. A pulperia or liquor and grocery store, of the most dilapi- 
dated aspect, its interior walls covered with soot, threw a livid light upon their squalid 
facades. I shivered from head to foot without knowing why. A profound silence 
increased the depression caused by the gloomy aspect of the place. The town seemed 
to have lost all its inhabitants. Nevei'theless as we advanced further I could just 
distinguish some passengers gliding along by the walls like shadows, and here and there 
a ray of light shone through the cracks of the shutters. This was little enough, yet it 
was something, and I felt a renewal of hope. At last we came to the grand square 
occupied by houses tolerably well built. The heavy mass of a church with square 
towers loomed above their roofs. A few shops badly lighted, but still open, proclaimed 
that this was the commercial centre of the place, which counted about 2300 souls. 
I pulled rein at one of these tiendas or tradesman's stalls, the proprietor of which was 
busy taking in piles of plates, salad bowls, and other articles of crockery, which had 
been exposed at his door, and begged him to direct me to the house of a certain 
Senor Don Firmin de Vara y Pancorbo, a trader in printed cottons, to whom I had 
a letter of introduction. The man pointed out at the further end of the plaza a 
house with a wooden balcony, its well-lighted windows contrasting cheerfully with 
the darkness of the neighbouring dwellings : " You will find the company very merry," 
he said. 

I thanked the crockery merchant for his information without dreaming of asking 
for an explanation of his words. On arriving before the house I heard a noise of voices 
and laughter. My guide and I dismounted. The door was opened by a pongo, whom 
I sent to inform his master of my arrival. An instant afterwards the wooden staircase 
of the house creaked under the foot of a man who threw himself down rather than 
came to meet me. " I am Don Firmin ! " he cried on perceiving me, " and you, senor, 
who are you, and what do you want with me?" From the singularity of this reception, 
and the flushed face of the draper, I concluded that I had interrupted him in his 



94 



PERU. 



worship of the "divine bottle," to quote Rabelais. But as his brusqueness appeared 
to be kindly meant I did not stand on ceremony, but took a letter from my pocket-book, 
containing a few lines which recommended me to his attention, and presented it to 
him with a smile. 

"You are welcome," he said, after having read it, "my house is at your service 
as long as you choose to stay. I am a bachelor. To-day is the festival of San Firmin, 
and I have invited a few of my friends, merchants like myself, and some charming 
women. You will assist us to keep the festival of my blessed patron." 

Without waiting for my acknowledgments the merchant took my arm and walked 




VIKW OF LAMPA. 



me upstairs. Arrived on the landing he opened a door and ushered me into a large 
apartment, slenderly furnished but brilliantly lighted, where I judged there were some 
fifteen persons of both sexes seated round a table. The dirty cloth, the disarranged 
viands, and the empty or overturned bottles, indicated that precise moment of a 
Peruvian entertainment when the hunger of the company is completely satisfied, but 
their thirst is only just beginning to enforce its demands. On seeing me enter arm in 
arm with the amphitryon of the feast, men and women set up a loud hurra, which the 
passengers in the streets — if there were any — must have heard to the extremity of the 
city. When this sudden excess of enthusiasm had calmed down, each began shoulder- 
ing his neighbour aside to make room for me. I squeezed in between two lovely 
women, a little passe, but charmingly decollete, who with that graceful assiduity 
which is the exclusive privilege of their sex, devoted themselves to my comfort; one 
loading my plate with various kinds of eatables, the other urging me to drink. While 
doing full justice to these viands, for I was as hungry as a dog, I did my best to answer 
the questions which these straightforward people at once plied me with. By my dusty 
and dishevelled costume, and the clank of my Chilian spurs, the gentlemen had judged 
that I had arrived on horseback, and they wished to know whence I had come, whither 
I was going, whether I was wholesale or retail, and what articles I traded in. When 
I told them that I was travelling through America with nothing but an album and a 



AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 95 

few crayons, for the purpose of sketching anything remarkable that I might discover, 
these Philistines looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes and bit their 
lips to avoid laughing. I saw that I had failed in my intended eflfect, but I consoled 
myself by eating all the faster. 

However, if the avowal I had made had alienated from me the sympathies of the 
men, it had piqued the curiosity of the women, as I judged from the singular glances 
they directed towards me. The sweeter half of the human race loves the mysterious 
and the unintelligible. In this respect a woman is like a child. Anything odd or out 
of the way pleases her, the complicated charms her, the obscure and incomprehensible 
takes her whole soul captive. It was sufficient that the beauties who surrounded me 
could not understand why a man should cross America with no other baggage than 
an album, to be instantly interested in him. At least I judged so from the toasts 
which these charming women proposed to what they called "my journey en deshabille." 
I acknowledged the favour with becoming warmth by raising my glass to the height 
of my shoulder, passing it from right to left, and, according to the custom of the 
country, drinking to her who had so honoured me, after having expressed a wish that 
she might live a hundred years longer. 

This exchange of courtesies with ladies evidently younger than themselves was not 
very pleasing to my companions. I was made aware of this fact by two rather sharp 
nudges of the elbow which they gave me simultaneously. Women of a certain age 
have strange manners sometimes! However I bore the shock bravely; seeing which, 
the ladies quickly filled their glasses to drink with me, and counterbalance if possible 
the rising influence of their companions. In addition to this polite attention, they 
thought it the right thing to ply me with bocaditos, or choice little morsels of food 
which they put in my mouth with their foi'ks, or more often with their fingers. All 
this kindness was mingled with arch looks and flattering remarks whispered in soft 
tones close to my face. From regard for their sex, rather than respect for their 
experience of the world, I allowed them to have their way. At last they grew so eager 
in their rivalry that I was at a loss which to attend to; the one invariably interrupting 
me at the very moment I was about to speak to the other. As I drank a glass of wine 
with my Clotho— I had given this mythologic name to the lady on my right, not 
knowing what she was really called — the lady on my left, whom I called my Lachesis, 
whispered in my ear, " Sweet friend, this last mouthful for the love of me," and, turning 
quickly round, I received the said mouthful, which I afterwards found to be a bit of 
fowl's liver, in my eye instead of my mouth. As it had previously been peppered with 
ground pimento I felt as if a thousand needles had been thrust in my eye. At the 
howl I set up all the company laughed, and every one wanted to know what the joke 
was. The author of my mischance told the simple fact. Her calm manner, while I 
was suffering the most dreadful torment, completed my exasperation. At that moment 
I felt the fury of Othello, and could have strangled the silly woman ! 

Meanwhile the burning and inflammation caused by the pimento had become 
worse. Unable to remain in my chair, I rushed across the room, with my napkin 
to my eye. A mozo (man-servant) brought some cold water, in which a woman — an 



QG PERU. 

angel iu comparison with the society in which she was — beat up the white of an egg, 
and dipping her cambric handkerchief in tliis salve, she applied it to my burn like 
a compress. I soon felt quite revived, and by repeated applications the irritation 
was so much lessened that at the end of ten minutes I was able to open my eye 
and direct a look of thunder at the abominable woman who had done the mischief. 

The humour of the company, damped by this incident, resumed all its hilarity. 
The servants carried away the remains of the repast, removed the cloth, and set on 
the table one of those huge cut-glass tumblers, as big as a pail, which are manu- 
factured in Germany and imported into this country. Our amphitryon emptied into 
it six bottles of Bordeaux, four of sherry, and two of rum, sweetening and season- 
ing the whole with sugar and nutmeg. Into this fiery amalgam, called cardinal, 
he threw a strawberry,^ which sunk and disappeared, but rose again to the sxirface 
of the liquid. Then each of the company, taking from their host the gigantic 
tumbler, and dipping his Ups in the beverage, tried to drink up the strawberry, 
either by suddenly snatching at it, or by drawing it into his mouth with the help 
of a perfidious eddy. The little strawberry, however, knew its business, and turning 
on itself, disappeared every time that an open mouth approached too near it. 
After several vain attempts, and the absorption, voluntary or otherwise, of copious 
mouthfuls of liquor, the poor victim passed the glass to his neighbour, who fol- 
lowed the same tactics with no better success. This pleasant pastime, called "fish- 
ing the strawberry," of which a bishop, Melchior de la Nava, who lived at Cuzco 
in the beginning of the eighteenth century, is said to have been the inventor, is for 
the Peruvians of the Sierra merely an honest pretext to drink. The poorer classes 
fish the strawberry in a great glass of chicha (the local beer already described), 
the rich make a heterogeneous and expensive mixture of fine liqueurs and foreign 
wines. The means, as one sees, may differ, but the result is always the same. 
Drunkenness is the port at which these strawberry fishers all alike fatally arrive. 

When the glass reached me in its round, I was obliged, whether I liked it or not, 
to dip my lips and pretend to catch the strawberry. But I was careful to keep my 
teeth so close shut that no drop of the liquid, in which so many indigenous mouths 
had dabbled, could get down my throat. This local amusement lasted as long as any 
liquor remained in the vessel. Then the strawberry, which had settled at the bottom 
of the glass, was eaten by one of the drinkers. 

Under the inspiration of the traitorous drink, which soon fermented in their brains, 
all the company rose. The guitars strummed a triumphant razgo; the women attended 

1 Fraga reniformis, one of the five varieties of strawberries cultivated in Chili and Peru. It is not a native of 
these countries, as our horticulturists still believe, but was imported from Spain about the end of the seventeenth 
century, as other plants, which botanists call after Chili and Peru, were also originally brought from Europe ; such 
are the Scilla, or Peruvian hyacinth, the Pancratium ringens and P. latifolium, the Crinum urceolatum, and the 
Amaryllis aurea and A. flammea, originally found in the Azores and the Philippines, but naturalized in Europe by 
the Portuguese. Some plants of the F. reniformis variety, taken from the island of Mocha or Conception, on the 
coast of Chili, by Captain Frezier, to whom we owe an account of his visit to these countries, were carried by him 
to France in 1712. As the reader may be surprised to find strawberries in the midst of the snows of Collao, it is 
necessary to state that twice a week convoys of asses and mules provision the ninrkets of tlie principal cities of the 
Sierra with European and tropical fruits. 



« 



AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 



97 



for a moment to the flying frippery of their garments; the men flourished their hand- 
kerchiefs; the zamacueca called on the dancers. A couple renowned for the agility 
of their movements opened the ball with one of those character dances which the 
Spaniards call simply troche y moche, but at the sight of which a Parisian sergent de 
ville would hide his face for shame. Instead of the enormous glass tumbler, they 
now produced a leathern bottle of brandy, a bacchic bagpipe, from which each in turn 




5«»«**» 



AT LAMPA — PREPARATION OF THE CARDINAL. 



drew sweet sounds. The orgie now assumed the proportions of a Babel, and I 
watched my opportunity to slip out of the room. On the landing I found a mozo, 
whom I collared in a friendly way, and drew into a corner. "Listen," said I, "it is 
necessary that I should leave here early in the morning, and I want to get a little 
sleep; show me into a room where, to make all safe, you can lock me up, and take care 
of the key. If by any chance the master asks for me, tell him I am gone. Take this 
pourhoire and be discreet," I added, slipping into his hand a piastre; "for if you tell 
where I am, the muleteer who accompanies me will not fail, under some pretext or 
other, to give you a thrashing before we leave the house." The mozo was sharp 
enough to understand. "Come, monsieur," he said, pocketing the money, "this is 
the festival of San Firmin, and the master will not dream of going to bed. I will 
therefore put you in his own room, and if he should want to go in, I will tell him 
the key is lost." 



98 PERU. 

A moment afterwards I was comfortably stretched between two white sheets which 
the mozo had substituted for those of his master, an attention which I took kindly of 
him. The worthy mozo presently left me to my reflections, taking away the key 
as I wished. At first it appeared strange to be occupying the chamber and bed 
of a man whom I had not known at sunset, and without his knowledge; but this 
scruple, if I may call it one, soon vanished. I considered the thing philosophically, 
and admiring the secret ways by which Providence supplies the birds of the air with 
food, and the benighted traveller with rest, I laid my head on the pillow, and at the 
end of five minutes, notwithstanding the roaring of the human tempest a few steps 
from me, I was fast asleep. 

I had not awoke in the morning when my careful jailer came to open the door. 
"Your mules are saddled," he said, "and the arriero awaits you in the street." I 
sprang out of bed, and while dressing asked the mozo if the night had been a bois- 
terous one. "You shall judge for yourself before you leave," he said. When I had 
finished my toilet I was going to rejoin my guide, but as I passed the chamber where 
the banquet and the ball of San Firmin had been held, the mozo who preceded me 
opened the door. "See!" said he. I put my head in, and a sorry spectacle presented 
itself. The whole company of the previous evening, then so gay, so noisy, so full of life 
and health, were lying one over another on the ground. The faces of the women had 
assumed a greenish hue, while those of the men were purpled. Some, with their mouths 
open, showed their teeth. Broken chairs, stringless guitars, empty leathern bottles, here 
and there articles of clothing and objects of the toilet, a net of false hair, a tumbled 
head-dress, formed the accessories of this picture. A ray of sunlight entering by the 
window enabled me to see more clearly; but it did not revive these bodies, chilled and 
stijBfened by drunkenness. "Horrible, O horrible, most horrible!" I exclaimed like 
Macbeth, as I shut the door and sprang down the staircase four steps at a time. 
Nor Medina was waiting at the door. The mozo who had followed me held the 
stirrup while I settled myself in the saddle. "Give my compliments to your master 
when he awakes," I said to the honest gar9on : " I will not fail," he replied, laughing. 

As we passed the last houses of Lampa, northward, I recalled to mind that the 
episodes of the evening had caused me to neglect entering in my diary certain details 
relative to the commerce, the industry, and the inhabitants of the province. I im- 
mediately filled up this lacuna, not so much from a love for statistics, or to put myself 
en Hgle in respect to learned societies, as to deprive travellers present and to come, 
commissioned by the latter, of all pretext for dazzling the public by a pompous display 
of authentic documents, official evidence, and accurate figures. 

The province of Lampa, inclosed by those of Arequipa, Chucuytu, Puno, Azangaro, 
and Canas y Canchis, occupies an area of about 4000 square miles. In this extent of 
country, completely denuded of trees and shrubs, but diversified with hill and dale, 
with ravines and gullies, and furrowed by three rapid streams,^ are contained one 
capital city/— the town we have just left — forty-three villages — read hamlets of the most 



1 



' The Pilsara-Ayaviri, the rivers of Lampa and Cabauilla, and some streams of less iiaportance. The three first 
named debouch iu the Lake of Titicaca. 



AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 99 

wretched description — and 108 pascanas or shepherds' huts. The population of 
the province is about 57,000 souls, and the number of sheep about 400,000. Thanks 
to the vast deserts carpeted with moss and yarava, interspersed with lagunes of 
stagnant water from one to three leagues in circumference, which characterize the 
provinces of CoUao in general, and that of Lampa iu particular, sheep, cattle, and 
Camelidse cross and multiply marvellously. Butter in bladders, cheeses shaped like 



THB MORNING AFTER THE FESTIVAL OF SAINT FIRMIN. 



gruyere, smoked mutton (sessina), the beef of oxen and llamas cut into strips {charqwi), 
candied batatas^ {chuno) — of which we count three varieties, the tunta, the Dioraya, 
and the mosco — form the most important branch of the commerce of Lampa with the 
neighbouring provinces. As for their external trade, the annual shearing of sheep and 
alpacas, whose wool is bought on the spot by two or three speculators from Arequipa, 
and by them sent into Europe, enables the Lampenos to boast that their commercial 
relations extend to the two ends of the world. 

Mining, from which the country once derived large revenues, has decreased year 
by year. A number of productive mines have been abandoned, others have been 
submerged by incessant infiltrations from the Andean lakes. Among those which are 
still worked may be mentioned the eight socabons or galleries of the Cerro of Pomasi, 

' Batatas are the "sweet potatoes" that were commonly used in England three centuries ago, not only as pot-herbs, 
but candied, and made into sweetmeats. — Tr. 



100 PERU. 

the annual produce of which has decreased from 35,000 marks at the commencement 
of this century to 8000. This enormous difference in the result is not occasioned, as 
one might suppose, by the exhaustion of the metallic deposits, but simply by a 
parsimonious application of the means of working. For a long time labour and capital 
have both been wanting. Where they once employed entire populations and large 
sums of money, they are now contented with spending a few hundreds of piastres, and 
employing a very few labourers. As to the surface workings of minerals, so celebrated 
in the financial records of the country, when virgin gold and silver were obtained by 
the simple operation of a chisel or pick, it is now only a thing of memory. Those 
splendid bolsons, nevertheless, abound in the mountainous parts of Collao; only the 
Indians who discover them by chance, or who know of them by hearsay, do not care to 
reveal their existence to the descendants of the Spaniards. Knowing by tradition all 
that their ancestors had to suffer from the insatiable greed of their conquerors, and 
fearing to be employed like them in the labour of the mines, they keep their knowledge 
to themselves. 

The commerce of Lampa, as we have seen, is very limited. Its industry is 
confined to the fabrification of the coarser kind of pottery, and hair rugs or coverlets, 
of which the village of AtuncoUa has had the monopoly some two centuries. As 
to the vegetable products of the soil, they owe nothing to botanical science nor even 
to culture. In this rigid climate two kinds of potato, the sweet and bitter {papa 
franca and papa lisa), grow with difficulty. The country also produces a variety of 
oats, and very poor barley which does not develop spikelets, but is eaten by horses 
and mules as grass; two Chenopodiums — the one sweet, called quinua real} the other 
bitter, called canahua, the grains of which are eaten by the indigenes in their soups, 
and the leaves in their chupe. 

The statistics I have been able to give, if in all respects trustworthy, are not 
very flattering; one might even, speaking with strictness, pronounce the account 
a beggarly one. Yet notwithstanding this poorness of the country, or perhaps by 
very reason of it, Lampa is of all the sixty-three provinces of Peru, that in which 
the indigene is best satisfied with his lot and does not count the hours as they roll 
by. Without ambition and without desires impossible of fulfilment — exempt from 
cares and disquietudes, disdaining sickness and laughing at death— he lives from 
day to day in a philosophic calm. In vain insects devour him, and oppression crushes 
him; in vain his natural masters, the presidents, the bishops, the cur^s, the sub- 
prefects, the governors, and the alcaldes, squeeze him like a lemon, — all in vain the 
military despoil him, and citizens abuse him; he consoles himself for all by a fresh 
draught of chicha and brandy; by fishing the strawberry and dancing the zapateo. 
Some pessimist or badly informed travellers have mistaken this quietude of spirit 
which characterize the Lampenos for brutishness ; I avow that it has always appeared 
to me the highest result of worldly wisdom, and therefore as the height of carnal 
felicity. If some Jerome Paturot, in his search for happiness, were to travel the whole 
world over, it is in the province of Lampa that he would certainly find it. 

• By corruption quinoa. 




THE I'UNA OK PLAIN OF LLALLL 



THIKD STAGE. 



LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 



The plain of Llalli. — How to soften tlie heart of the Indians and procure a dinner. — Affecting history of a mother- 
in-law and a daughter-in-law. — Manibiia date lilia plenis. — A royal courier. — If day succeeds day in Peru with 
little in which they resemble each other, village succeeds village with little in which they differ from each other. — 
Apachecta, a monument crowned with flowers. — Pucara, its etymology and its fair. — A sick man and aj doctor. — 
A new balsamic preparation recommended to any good wife who has a bully for a husband. — Dithyrambic essay 
on the subject of streams. — Drunken farewells. — The cur6 Miranda. — A pastoral with a curious accompaniment 
of stone-throwing.— Santa- Rosa. — A fete in the midst of the snows. — The postmaster of Aguaa-Calientes. — Something 
that distantly resembles the marriage of Gamache le Riche. — The author discloses in a familiar epistle the blackness 
and perfidy of his soul. — The temple of Huiracocha. — Two miraculous crucifixes.— Useful notes on the beer of 
Combapata, and the manner in which it is brewed. — Remarks upon the past history of the Canas and Canchis 
Indians. — The question arises whether Csesar shall pass the Rubicon. — At Acopia. 

If the town of Lampa looks dull when we enter it at nightfall by the pampas of 
Cabana, it does not present a more brilliant aspect when one leaves it at sunrise 
by the puna of Llalli. Such was the judgment I formed as the last houses of that 
capital disappeared from my view, and the two cerros, or low hills, behind them 
sank in the horizon. 

The puna of Llalli, which we now prepared to cross from south to north, is a vast 
and gently undulating surface, carpeted with moss and short grass, and with a few small 
sheets of water interspersed, on the margins of which grow thin, rigid, and blackish 
looking rushes. A silence like that of death reigns in this plain, which is bounded 
on the west by the first snowy ridges of the Cuesta de la Rinconada,^ and on the east 
by the rapid stream of Pucara. I should remark that, journeying as we did through 
the middle of the desert, we could discover neither watercourse nor mountain, and 

* Recoin, nook or corner: that is to say, the nodus formed by the reunion of the Sierras of Cailloma and Huilcanota 
and the chain of the Western Andes. Junctions of this kind are called porco by the people of the country. 



102 PERU. 

that the landscape as far as we could see embraced nothing but a greenish and far 
from attractive horizon. Twice or thrice Nor Medina, disquieted by my dulness, 
had spoken to me, but as all conversation is antipathetic to a fasting man, I had 
taken no notice of his questions, and the poor fellow, repelled by my obstinacy, 
began to whistle an air of the country. 

From Lampa to Llalli, the first stage of our route, was about nine miles. We 
arrived there between eleven and twelve o'clock. Llalli is a little nest of hovels, 
eight in number, constructed of fragments of stone cemented with mud. The door 
of one only was open. When we pulled up at the threshold Nor Medina wished to 
enter alone, fearing that the apparition of a HueracocJia} like me would frighten the 
inmates and deprive us of whatever little chance there was to get a dinner. I let him 
have his way. A murmur of voices greeted his entrance, and as I listened attentively, 
thinking them of bad presage, two cries rang in my ears, which I knew to be 
the cries of women. Forgetting Nor Medina's advice, I sprang from my mule, and 
entering the house saw indeed two women, one old, the other still young. The old 
woman, scared and trembling, was hastily closing a sack, in which something was 
crammed, whilst the younger, with arms extended and flashing eyes, seemed to be 
saying to Nor Medina, "Stir another step if you dare!" 

" What is the matter?" I demanded of him. 

"The matter is," he replied in Quichua, that the mistresses of the house might 
understand him, " how to compel these two devilish Avomen here to give us something 
to eat, and I see no better way," he continued, with an assumed air of severity, " than 
to tickle their shoulders with my lasso." 

"Wretch, dare to touch either of these women!" I exclaimed, stepping before 
the arriero, and menacing him with my clenched fist. 

"Don't you see that I am joking!" he said in Spanish, that the women might not 
understand him. "I know well enough that a man who deserves the name should 
never beat any woman but his own, and what I said was only meant to frighten the 
good old souls and make them agreeable. Already our tigresses have drawn in their 
claws; see if they have not!" 

The old woman, in fact, was leaning comfortably with her elbows on her sack, 
and the arms of the younger had fallen supine by her side, whilst the expression 
of her face had considerably softened. 

"O sovereign law of the whip!" I murmured aside; "dura lex, sed lex; here are 
two women who, a moment ago, were on the point of flying in our faces like wild 
cats, suddenly become afiable, and almost smiling on us. After all, as La Fontaine 
has remarked, the reason of the strongest is the best." 

Seeing the happy result of his little comedy. Nor Medina advanced to the old 
Indian, and opening the sack took from it successively a smoked shoulder of mutton, 

* This name, gay the chroniclers, was at one time given by the Indians of Peru to their Spanish conquerors, 
whom they believed to have come from the sea like their ships. Huera in the Quichua idiom signifies foam, and 
cocha or atun-cocha the great lake. This expression, diverted from its original meaning, is now a title of nobilitv 
given to the first comers (and their descendants), and equivalent to caballero in Spanish. 



LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 



103 



some onions, some dried pimento, and some handfuls of frozen potatoes,^ which the 
honest woman had tried to hide from us. Now that the pot of roses was discovered^ 
it was useless to feign any longer, and the threat of the lasso made resistance next 
to impossible. The two women, therefore, neither pretended nor resisted ; but yielding 
to the situation, acted their part with something like graciousness. One of them 
knelt before the fire and revived the embers, whilst the other filled an earthen pot 
with water and threw into it pell-mell the various ingredients which compose a Peruvian 
soup (chupe). To the sentiment of repulsion which our appearance had provoked 
in the two serranas (mountaineers) soon succeeded a touching confidence. Whilst 




A HOTBEB-IN-LAW AND HEB DAUOHTBR-IN-LAW— QDICHD A INDIANS. 

the chupe was in preparation they ingenuously told us all their little afiairs. The 
old woman had been long a widow, and longer still a spinster! From morning to 
night she was employed in spinning the wool of the brown sheep, which she sometimes 
sold to the inexperienced for llama's wool Each ball of this caytu-llama, weighing 
a pound, brought her four reals. With this money she would buy at Lampa — it might 
be maize to make acca — the chicha of the moderns — or it might be brandy, thirty- 
six degrees above proof A handful of coca leaves and a few glasses of alcohol 
restored, for a moment to the poor woman, her past youth and her lost illusions. 
Speaking in her figurative language, it was, she said, " like pale flowers that she 
threw upon the setting^ of her sad life." While listening to her the date lilia of Virgil* 
came into my mind and awakened a feeling of tenderness. 



* Potatoes alightly crushed and exposed for some nights to the frost. Boiled with cheese they are much relished 
by the inhabitants of the Sierra. 

* An allusion to a French proverb: decouvrir le pot aux roses, is to find out a secret. Its equivalent in English 
is to let the cat out of the bag.— Tb. 

' The French couchant, used figuratively for the decline of life, cannot b6 rendered in correct English without 
spoiling the pathetic beauty of the old woman's expression. — Tr. 

* jEneid. vi. 883. Manibus date lilia plenis — give me lilies in handfuls. — Tr. 



104 



PERU. 



In her turn the younger woman told us that she was the daughter-in-law of the 
elder; that like her she passed her time in spinning, and also shared in her pecuUar 
tastes. The produce of their labour, which the two women alike devoted to the 
purchase of Erythroxylum Coca and strong liqueurs in place of sending it, the one to 
her son the other to her husband, who demanded it to get drunk with himself, was 
made by him an occasion of quarrelling with them. As a respectful and obedient son 




THB "BOTAL OOUBIEB." 



he did not dare to abuse his mother, but made no scruple of beating his wife with 
his clenched fists. Setting aside these occasional storms in the heaven of Hymen, the 
young woman assured us that she had nothing to complain of in the behaviour of her 
lord and master. These local details, which I penned in my note-book at the time, in 
addition to some philosophical reflections which the circumstances inspired, besides 
sketching the portraits of the two women, helped to pass away the three-quarters of 
an hour occupied by the preparation of our dinner. At the end of that time it was 
served up in an earthenware plate, and we ate it with our fingers. That done, I settled 
my account with the ladies, and we resumed our journey, followed by their thanks 
and blessings. 

We had not ridden many yards when the sound of a Pandean pipe was heard. 
I turned my head in the direction of this harmonious noise, and saw a chasqui coming 



LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 



105 



towards us at a pace called in military language the i)as gymnastique. He held by the 
halter a bony horse, on whose back was a leathern trunk containing the postal 
despatches. 

" This is the correo real (royal courier), who goes from Puno to Cuzco," said my 
guide. 

" Say correo nacional" I replied. " The word royal is erased, as seditious, from the 
dictionary of a republic." 

The arriero looked at me with a surprised air, and was probably about to ask for 
an explanation of my words when the chasqui came up, and having saluted us by 
raising his hat and giving a flourish on his mouth-organ, he inquired, in a gracious tone 
for a courier, whence we came, and whether we were going to Cuzco. My guide 



PAMPA OP LLALLI— VILLAGES OP CUPI AND D'OCUVIKI. 



answered these questions, and the two men began to chat in a friendly way about the 
snow and the frost, the break-neck route of the Sierra and the lack of provisions — 
things which I had long been familiar with. When they had exhausted these conver- 
sational topics, finding nothing more to say, they parted, each recommending the other 
to God, and civilly exchanging a few coca-leaves, as two snulF-takers in Europe might 
offer each other their snuff-boxes. The courier, losing no more time than was necessary 
to exchange his old chew for a more juicy one, and saluting us by whistling the scale 
up and down on his mouth-organ, trotted off" with his hair streaming in the wind. 

Two hours after this rencontre we were passing between Cupi and Ocuvu'i, two 
groups of cabins, highly distinguished by the name of villages, and so exactly alike, 
that it was easy to make a mistake at night, and dismount in the one instead of the 
other. By daylight their situation in relation to the road assisted the traveller going 
northward to distinguish them, Ocuviri being on his right and Cupi on his left. My 
companion, to whom I pointed out the singular sameness of these mole-hill hamlets, 
in which every door was shut, admitted that they had a family likeness, but then, he 
added, this similarity with which I appeared to make merry, was precisely that which 
gave to the cities and villages of Peru a special stamp unlike anything in the neigh- 



14 



100 PERU. 

bouring republics. No doubt the man had a fine classic taste and a love for the 
unities, without which it is said there is no such thing as perfect beauty. I did not 
contradict him. 

The same day we roused successively the hamlets of Macari and Umachiri, as 
silent and close as those we had left behind us, and, like them, of singular ugliness. 
A league from Umachiri we passed before an apachecta, which an Indian and a woman 
who accompanied him in charge of a troop of llamas, had just then approached for 
the purpose of spitting out, by way of an offering, the cud of coca they had been 
chewing. This fashion of thanking Pachacamac, the omnipotent, for having arrived 
safely at the end of a journey, always appeared to me no less original than disgusting. 
After all, however, as every country has its customs, which are either respectable or 
ought to be respected, we will not criticize this act of worship, but, passing from the 
effect to the cause, consider the character of the monument itself 

The word apachecta, which is easier to translate than to analyze, signifies in the 
Quichua idiom a place of halting or repose. The cemeteries which the Spaniards 
sometimes call pantheon and sometimes campo-santo, bear among the Indians the 
name of apachecta. As to the monument in question, it is composed at first of 
a handful of stones, that a chasqui, an arriero, or a llama packman, who had rested 
there a moment, deposited at the road-side, as a tribute of gratitude paid ostensibly 
to Pachacamac the Creator and Lord of the universe. Days and even months might 
roll on before a second Indian by chance passing the same place, and seeing the 
stones collected by his predecessor, adds a few to the heap. In time the handful of 
stones becomes a pyramid of from eight to ten feet in height, which the passers-by, 
as it increases in size, cement with mud if it happens to be a rainy day. When 
the work is thus finished, some unknown hand places on its summit the sign of 
salvation; another adds a bouquet of flowers; the flowers wither and are renewed 
by successive worshippers ; their degree of freshness indicating that the route is 
a more or less frequented one. 

Often I have stopped before these monuments, not to worship Pachacamac — a god 
of whom I know nothing— but to examine the flowers placed on their summit. These 
flowers were white lilies, Heliconias, Erythrinse (coral-trees) of a reddish purple, and 
red Amaryllides with green striae, which grow under the shadow of the shrubs in the 
eastern valleys. From the place where they were taken to the apachecta where I 
have found them, the distance, approximately estimated, was from 90 to 120 miles. 

These monuments, which a learned European took ofi'-hand for tumuli, and an 
employe of the survey for milestones, arrest attention not so much by their architectural 
character, as by the singular appearance of the greenish splashes, with which they are 
literally covered from the base to the summit. These splashes or blotches are caused 
by the number of Indians who have passed by, and who thought they were performing 
a reUgious act by spitting against the monument the coca they were chewing. 

Hearing us approach, the Indian and his wife, who had resumed their journey, 
halted a moment to see us pass. While looking at us with a wondering air, they did 
not forget to salute us with an alii llamanta, at the same time raising their hats. The 



LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 



107 



llamas had halted also like their masters, but, less polite than the latter, they were 
contented to gaze upon us with their soft unimpassioned eyes, without honouring us 
with any salute whatever. By nightfall we arrived at Pucara, having travelled nine 
Spanish leagues, equal to twelve French leagues or thirty-six miles, across the Puna. 

Pucara was once an isolated point of the territory occupied by the Ayaviri Indians. 
About the close of the twelfth century Lloqui Yupanqui, the third emperor of Peru, 




APAOHBOTA, OR WAYSIDE ORATORY OP THE QDIOHUA INDIANS 



having subjugated these natives after a bloody struggle, built a fortress here, in which 
he placed a garrison to keep them in awe. Four centuries later, in the partisan wars 
provoked of the Spaniards, this same Pucara witnessed the defeat of the Spanish 
captain Francisco Hernandez Giron. 

The site of the old Pucara is now occupied by a dull village of that name, con- 
taining about a hundred dwellings built half of mud, half of unburned bricks {tapias), and 
covered with that stubble of the Cordillera which the Indians call ichu, and botanists 
jarava. The village has no other claim to attention than its comparatively large 
church, characterized by two square towers with a triangular pediment of wood and 
mud; its river, which for want of a bridge one has to cross when it is flooded by 
using bundles of rushes as stepping-stones; and its fair, which is held every year 
in December. This fair, like that of Vilqua, is one of the most important in Peru. 



108 PERU. 

Great numbers of mules nearly in a wild state are brought there from all parts of 
the country; but the dealer breaks them in on the spot before delivering them to 
the buyer. Under temporary sheds and screens, or covered waggons transformed 
into shops, decorated with coloured calico and cut paper, all manner of true and 
false jewelry, porcelain and crockery, glass and stone ware, cloths and silks, woollen 
and cotton goods, articles of cutlery and ironmongery, toy-ware, and other products 
of European industry, ai*e displayed in the most attractive manner to dazzle the eyes 
of the natives. 

In the midst of this vast bazaar — a commercial and industrial Babel, to the building 
of which all the nations of the globe had contributed their quota and furnished their 
stone — a stone of stumbling, it is true — tables for monte, nine-pins, bowls, marionnettes 
(fantoccini shows), conjurers, mountebanks whose grotesque artifices were transparent 
enough, drew around them the knowing ones from the towns, and made the Indians 
of the Sierras gape with admiration. Vendors of cakes, fruits, and sherbets, and sellers 
of fried fish, were stationed in the most frequented places, or pushed their way through 
the crowd, shouting, gesticulating, and proclaiming in loud tones the quality of their 
wares, and occasionally wiping with their shirt-tails the tray or the table upon which 
those wares were displayed. Every cottage in the village, every petty cabaret and 
eating-house, was transformed at night into a ball-room with the simplicity and rapidity 
of a change in a pantomime. They removed the tables, stuck a couple of tallow-candles 
against the walls, substituted a guitar for the porridge-pot, and all was ready for the 
dance, which went on merrily till the morning. 

During the fifteen days that this fair lasts, the echoes of the Puna, accustomed to 
repeat only the lowing of herds and the sighs of the wind, resound with the rolling 
of drums, the tooting of tin trumpets, the hollow roaring of pututus (horns of Ammon), 
the melodious notes of the queyna and of the pincullu (two kinds of flutes or flageolets), 
and the strumming of the charango, the national three-stringed guitar, made by the 
Indians themselves with the half of a calabash, to which they attach a handle, and 
strung with catgut. The roaring of the crowd, the barking of dogs, the neighing of 
horses and mules, the hissing of frying-pans, and the crackling of fires kindled in the 
open air, form the bass of the wild concert. The amount of beef, mutton, llama's flesh, 
chickens, and guinea-pigs, devoured during the fifteen days of the fair, would serve to 
provision a German duchy for a year. As for the quantity of brandy consumed, it is 
not possible to be exact, but we shall not be far wrong in believing that it would suffice 
to supply three rations a day to the crew of a fleet during its circumnavigation of 
the globe. 

Nothing of this kind was to be seen on our visit. It was the 8th of July, and 
the period of these alien saturnalias was yet distant. Some holes in which the poles 
had been erected, beef and mutton bones picked clean by poultry, here and there the 
blackened traces left by the fires, alone marked out the scene of the last annual fete. 
The crowd and the noise had vanished like a dream, and silence had resumed pos- 
session of the locality. Sic transit gloria mundi, I said to myself, as I dismounted 
at the door of the post-station where we had to pass the night. 



LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 



Ill 



With little difficulty we obtained, by paying for it, a little dried beef (charqui) and 
some frozen batatas. The water of the river sufficed to quench our thirst. After 
supper, one of the Indians seeing me scribble in my note-book, imagined I could be 
nothing less than a savant and brujo (sorcerer), for with this simple people science 
and sorcery are synonymous. He asked me if I did not possess in my bag of charms 
a remedy which would heal or relieve the postmaster, who was lying ill in the 
next room. I learned the nature of the complaint from which he was suffering by 
a species of pantomime. The Indian, not knowing what to call it, inflated his cheeks 
like ^olus: "Voila!" said he, making a comic gesture; I understood at once that the 




A SICK MAN AND HIS DOCTOR. 




man was suffering from some kind of tumour or abscess. Entering the room we found 
the invalid reclining on a truckle-bed with a woollen coverlet. One of his cheeks 
was so swollen that the eye could not be seen. So violent was the tension of the skin, 
that it had displaced the nose, drawn up the mouth, and altogether made the poor 
fellow look like one of those india-rubber dolls, to which we can give any expression we 
please by pressing it with the fingers. Only the grimace of the postmaster was fixed ! 

"What is to be done?" asked the Indian. 

" For the moment," I replied, " I see nothing better than to keep him out of a 
draught, and apply a poultice of mallow-leaves or bread and milk." 

The Indian looked at me cunningly. 

"Bread and milk!" he said, "why, we make pap of that for huahuas (infants). 
Have you nothing better to propose?" 

"Absolutely nothing," I said. 

"In that case I have a better remedy myself" 

"Apply it then," I replied, turning my back on him, and leaving him with the sick 
man, whose condition, I ought to say, was not at all alarming. 



112 PERU. 

The uext moment as I was preparing to lie down, the Indian re-entered with an 
earthenware plate which he placed on the fire, and in which he put to melt a 
bit of fat or grease, together with some bruised coca-leaves and a pinch of ashes 
from the hearth. He stirred the whole up with a bit of wood ; then, when he thought 
his mixture was properly cooked, he turned it into a wooden bowl, which he filled up 
with chicha. 

"What are you messing with there?" I asked him. 

"This is my remedy," he replied, gravely. 

"The d it is; and how do you apply your remedy?" 

"I will give him the half of it to drink and wash his face with the other half" 

When I left Pucara in the morning the man was better, which the reader may 
attribute to the " remedy " or not, as he pleases. For an hour we followed the course 
of the river. There is nothing more fresh and delightful than these Andean torrents in 
a time of drought; now they flow gently over a white or golden sand, now they hurtle 
Avith a soft murmur against the polished stones, and seem to complain in the notes of 
turtle-doves of the obstacles which obstruct their course. Every passing cloud mirrors 
itself in the pellucid water for an instant, and throws upon it a slight shadow. There 
the sun breaks his golden arrows, the moon flings her silver rays, and the vultures and 
condors come to make their toilet. In a moment, however, these wayward streams, 
peaceful as they look, may be lashed to fury. Leaving the course marked out for them 
by nature, their spreading waters rush impetuously over the plain, rolling in their course 
enormous blocks of stone, carrying away pell-mell sheep and shepherds, even the bridges 
of stone and mud-built cottages which they encounter in their passage. These formidable 
floods are occasioned by the sudden melting of the snows of the Sierra. They last from 
eighteen to twenty-four hours, and take place in the middle of the night or early 
morning, rather than when the sun is above the horizon.^ 

About six miles from Pucara we witnessed, though at too great a distance to 
appreciate the details, one of those cacharparis, or farewell festivals, so frequent in the 
Sierra between Indians of the same village when they are about to separate for some 
time. These adieus would make one's heart ache if we did not know that in the 
chymic composition of the tears which accompany them, there is much more chicha and 
brandy than any other constituent. The parting, in fact, is only a pretext for an orgie 
on both sides. Following the custom of ages, the travellers quit their homes in com- 
pany with relations and friends of both sexes, and supplied with provisions both solid 
and liquid. They halt at a place previously agreed upon, and, seated in a circle, 
begin to eat and drink. They drink much more than they eat, and at the end of their 
lunch, dance the zapateo to the sound of the flute and guitar. When the moment of 
parting arrives, or the liquor fails, they begin a lament, in which each emulates the 

* I have often witnessed inundations of this kind, apart from the great annual thaw of the snows of the Cordillera 
in January and December. The river, which I have left calmly reposing on its bed in the evening, has swollen suddenly 
during the night, and on the next day overflowed the country. But as these anomalous floods were preceded or followed 
by earthquakes, which more often occur in the evening or before daybreak than in the middle of the day, I have con- 
cluded, rightly or wrongly, that this partial melting of the snows of the Sierra was occasioned by the heat which the 
volcanic phenomena suddenly determined on the strata which form, so to sneak, the foundation of the Andean chain. 



LAMP A TO ACOPIA. 



113 



other in deploring their hard fate. The men weep and raise their hands to heaven; 
the women utter piercing cries and tear their hair. At last the critical moment arrives, 
the last embrace is given, the stirrup-cup is drunk, if anything should be left to drink, 
and with a supreme effort they tear themselves from each other's arms. When fairly 
on their way the travellers often look back and see from a long distance, on some rising 
ground or rock, the relations and friends they have left behind, giving way to the most 




THE CACHAETARI, Oil FAREWELL FESTIVAL OF THE QUICHUA INDIANS. 



P 



violent grief, and saluting them by waving a rag of baize in default of a handkerchief 
These eaeharparis are sometimes repeated at several stages, that is to say, they fini.sh 
at one point to recommence at another, and are even known to extend over three days 
and nights, obliging the travellers to postpone their actual departure to the eighth day, 
so much has excess of emotion and brandy impaired their strength. 

Although a distance of a hundred yards separated us from the actors in this 
familiar drama, and the departing travellers were nearly out of sight on our left, my 
companion, as familiar with all that occurs in the Cordillera as a savage with the forest, 
flid not hesitate to reply, when I asked him who these people were: "These are 
Indians of rujuja or Caminaca whom the sub-prefect of Lampa has sent to work in 
some mine of the Raya." 

Ayaviri, where we arrived about four o'clock, is a village of the same family as 



le 



114 



PERU. 



those which we had left behind us. Its situation upon the left bank of the river (if 
Pucara, a wooden bridge, a good sized church built of stone and mud without the least 
pretensions to style, and a school where twenty pupils, taken from the populations of 
Pucara, Ayaviri, and Santa Eosa, learn to spell out, correctly or incorrectly, the Psalms 
of David translated into Castilian, and to repeat from memory the Paternoster and 
Ave Maria, are the only peculiarities which recommend to the attention of statisticians 
this group of about eighty cottages. As a faithful chronicler I must add that the 
pedagogue charged with the duty of instructing and training the youth of the country 




i 



DON CALIXTO MIRANDA, THE OURK OP AYAVIRI. 



amuses himself with a little quiet trade in wool, butter, and cheese, which often obliges 
him to be absent; at such times the doors of the school remain closed, like those of the 
temple of Janus in times of peace. Some families of half-breeds, the only aristocracy 
of the country, are a little indignant at these doings of the schoolmaster; not so the 
children, who are delivered for a time from their daily recitations, and the coscnrrons^ 
with which the lessons are often accompanied. I do not know what profit the master 
may get from his commercial transactions, but his scholastic sinecure is worth £00 
per annum. 

These details were given to me by the cure of the place, to whom I had civilly 
presented a cigarette in exchange for his polite salutation in front of the church, 
where I was pretending to admire some imaginary sculptures — an innocent trick by 
which I hoped to render myself agreeable to the pastor, and get into his good graces. 



' Coscorron, a kiud of blow with the fist which Peruvian schoolmasters give their scholai-s in place of using the ferule. 
I say, a iritid of blow, because in the coscorron the fist is not fairly doubled as when the puiietazo, or ordinary blow with 
the fist, is given, but the middle finger is bent upon itself in such a way that the middle joint sticks out. Besides, 
the coscorron is delivered upon the scholar's head, never elsewhere, and not perpendicularly or horizontally, but obliquely, 
so as to produce a contusion, which is followed by extravasation. Fathers of families will excuse the length of these 
details. 



I 



LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 115 

For an instant I Hattered myself I had succeeded. Not only did he entertain me 
with his personal affairs, but he related those of his coadjutors, and especially of the 
schoolmaster, whom he described as a povreton, or poor-spirited fellow. Without 
troubling myself with the motives which the cur^ might have for his confidence, I 
pretended to be quite charmed with it, and in my turn confided to him that I was 
dying of exhaustion; having had nothing to eat during the day but the half of a soft 
cheese bought at a shepherd's hut which we had found en route. My expectation of 
an invitation to some kind of repast with the holy man was, however, disappointed. 
After a half-hour's conversation, he politely saluted me, and resumed with slow steps 
his walk to his presbytery. The name of this charitable priest, which I learned from 
the Indians at the post-house, was Don Calixlo Miranda. May it be immortalized 
in my humble prose, in which hope I have inserted it in italics ! 

The next day at eight o'clock we were already far from Ayaviri, when I remem- 
bered that this town or village, call it what we will, had secured a place in the annals 
of Peru by the successive rebellions of its native inhabitants against the emperors 
Lloqui Yupanqui and Mayta Capac, who lived in the twelfth century. In 1780 also, 
Tupac- Amaru, a cacique descended from these emperors, tried to raise the inhabitants 
of Ayaviri against the viceroys, an attempt which he expiated by a frightful death 
at Cuzco. After being dismembered {ecartele) his trunk was burned on the heights 
of that, city, while the members Avere distributed to the towns which he had excited 
to insurrection. Santa Rosa, the nearest town to Ayaviri, had for its share one of 
the legs of the unhappy cacique. Four years after the battle of Ayacucho, and the 
extinction of the royalist party. General Bolivar,, at the suggestion of his friend 
Alexander Von Humboldt, having caused a geodesic survey to be executed by Lloyd 
and Falmarc, upon a line of thirty myriametres (about 186 miles), Ayaviri had been 
one of the 916 stations set out on that line. With such illustrious antecedents, the 
l)lace was certainly entitled to a few words in my note-book; but half from idleness, 
half from spleen against the cure Miranda, I left the aforesaid book at the bottom 
of my bag, judging it useless to devote any space, however short, to a place which 
had for its spiritual ruler so inhospitable a priest. 

On leaving Ayaviri, the landscape acquired movement, as painters say; the hills 
drew together, they were connected by their base at some points, and heaped together 
at others; their undulations stretching from north-west to south-east. Could a bird's- 
eye view have been taken of these irregularities of the soil, they would have presented 
the appearance of a sea, the waves of which had been fixed. Totally devoid of trees 
and shrubs, thei-e was nothing to animate the landscape, for long distances, but herds 
of oxen or flocks of sheep, and troops of llamas and alpacas feeding at various points. 
Now and then a pascana, or shepherd's hut, with its roof of stubble and its door so 
low that one can only enter by crawling, presented itself, but this Avas seldom. In 
passing a troglodytic den of this kind, you would naturally look for the inhabitant, 
with the idea of exchanging a friendly good-day, or of buying a cheese. He is not 
there; but while you are lamenting the mischance, the sound of a flute is heard over- 
head; looking up you will discover ])erched upon a rock the shepherd playing on a flute 



116 



PERU. 



or tiageolet. If you possess a little imagination, and ever so small an animal Avitli 
horns is feeding at the foot of the rock, you will picture to yourself Argos and the 
cow lo. Mercurius septem muket arundinibus, you repeat after Virgil. This tribute 
paid to the eclogue, you ask the shepherd to stop his tootling and sell you one of the 
cheeses which he employs his leisure in making. He seems not to understand you. 
Raising your voice, you request him to come down from his pedestal; you show him 
a piece of money, and add that you have no time to wait. A sustained trill is the 
only response the man vouchsafes. Getting impatient, you spring from your mule; 
"Eh! scoundrel I" you ciy, at the same time throwing a stone at the shepherd to 




A SHEPHERDS HUT IN THE SIERRA NEVADA. 



attract his attention. If he is naturally of an amiable disposition he takes the hint, 
puts his flute under his arm, and comes smiling to meet you. But more often he is 
surly and unsociable, and as he usually has his pockets filled with stones to throw 
at the beasts when they stray awny, he instantly seizes his sling and lets fly at his 
interlocutor. In such a case you have only one way of escaping the storm ; that is, 
to put spurs to your mule and ride away as fast as possible. 

I hardly know at this distance of time if we had anything to eat that day, but 1 
well remember that we arrived at Santa Rosa quite famished and benumbed. A fire 
of bosta in the post-house, and some llama's flesh cut into strips and dried in the sun, 
of which they sold us a few yards, helped to keep the cold and hunger at bay. 
Santa Rosa, like Ayaviri and Pucara, is one of those dull-looking villages which seem 
rather intended for the discipline of criminals than the abode of honest people. The 
river runs through the middle of the village, and its murmur, which anywhere else 
would be cheerful and harmonious, is here only one sadness the more. It is as if 
the voice of Nature bewailed herself eternally in this solitude. Let us add that Santa 
Rosa is of all the places we have passed through the coldest and least sheltered 



LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 



117 



from the storms of the Cordillera, built as it is at the foot of the snowy chain of 
Huilcanota. As a triHing consolation it possesses a large church with square towers, 
a pediment, and something in the likeness of acroteral ornaments; but the facade is 





SHEPHERDS OF THE SIEKRA NEVADA. 



cracked, the pediment is broken, and the towers gape with more than one crevice, 
so that the wood and the mud employed in their construction are distinctly visible. 

By the unaccustomed movement that evening in the post-house of Santa Rosa, 
by the sparkling eyes of the Indians, and the vivacity of their gestures, above all by 
the unusually loud tone of their voices, I surmised that some bacchic festival had 
taken place during the day. On questioning the least drunken of the company, he 
told me that he had been drinking the blood of Jesus Christ. As his reply seemed 
as absurd as it was unintelligible, I begged him to explain ; when he told me that 



118 PEKU. 

a neighbouring estancia, of the name of Funculluta, had for patron la sangre de Jesus 
Crista, of which the festival was being celebrated by dancing, and drinking, and various 
sports. To give more pomp to this religious solemnity, the inhabitants of Santa Rosa 
had united with the Indian estanciei'o (farm-bailiffs). My informant added tliat "the 
festival had only commenced the day before and would last two days longer, and as 
the estancia of Punculhitu was on our road I should be able to judge for myself of 
the grand style in which the Indians of this domain did things." I thanked the 
drunken fellow for his information, and went to bed a few steps from Nor Medina, 
who was already as fast as a top. 

When we left the next morning the Indians of the post-house, who had passed the 
night in drinking and chewing coca, were asleep on the ground, wrapped in their 
ponchos. Among the pedestrians of both sexes with whom we mingled on the road, 
some were returning from Puncullutu to Santa Rosa; others, on the contrary, were 
going from Santa Rosa to Puncullutu. In this chasse-croise all as they passed ex- 
changed a salutation, a burst of laughter, or a merry phrase. The former plodded 
along with an uncertain step, the latter footed it nimbly. These, full of illusions, 
sprung joyously towards the goal; those had touched it, and were returning on their 
path fatigued and disgusted with themselves. Such is life Avith its opposite currents, 
I said to myself, at the sight of these indigenes, one half of whom stumbled along, 
while the other half walked straight. A reveillie sounded by tin trumpets reached our 
ears as the harmonious prelude of the local fete. We pushed on our beasts, and the 
inspiriting fanfare was soon succeeded by the mingled sound of drums and flutes. 
After a ten minutes' rapid trot, we arrived at the foot of a hill surrounded with snow. 
A hundred Indians were assembled, and had just commenced the day's revels. 

At the summit of the eminence an altar had been set up. It was made of planks, 
imperfectly concealed by the draperies of the local calico called tocuyo, over which 
were pinned cotton handkerchiefs of a blue and red square pattern, uhich gave it a 
cheerful look. A frame of osiers, of an elliptic form, ornamented with ribbons, mirrors, 
flags, and streamers of the Peruvian colours, formed a kind of reredos to this rustic 
altar. An artificial tree stood at each corner of the platform. When I say artificial, 
I must explain that the trees were nothing but sticks fixed in the ground, and crowned, 
in place of foliage, with a bunch of those reeds which grow on the shores of ponds or 
lakes. One might have called them four gigantic brooms. Although it was but early 
morning, and the cold was piercing, the female chicha-sellers were already at their 
posts, and their admirers with empty purses were fluttering around them with no 
other amorous intention than that of getting drunk on credit. Some musicians, 
trumpeters and flutists, in order to give their lips the inflation and elasticity necessary 
for blowing a wind-instrument, applied them from time to time to the mouth of a 
gourd filled with tafia, which some among them carried saltier-wise, like St. James 
of Compostella. One of these artists leaned over an empty jar in which L-j was 
blowing his flageolet, and thus filled with harmony, instead of liquid, the dark interior 
of the vessel. This kind of melody, little known in Europe, is used in the Sierra at 
funerals for threnodies, or laments, which the living are supposed to address to the 




LAMPA TO ACOPIA. hq 

dead. Flageolets of different tones, v/ith their mouths iu various sized pitchers or 
jars, are played by fits and starts, passing suddenly from grave to sharp, or from sharp 
to grave, and are supposed to express, by the frightful charivari they keep up, the 
trouble, the grief, and the heart-rending affliction of the human soul when constrained 
to separate for ever from the object of its affection. 

After having sufficiently enjoyed the spectacle of the f6te, and commenced a sketch 
which the cold prevented me from finishing, I signed to Nor Medina, who appeared to 
be highly amused with the scene, that it was time to turn our backs upon it, and 
continue our journey. 

"At five o'clock in the evening the fete will be at its height," he said, with a sigh 
of regret. 

"Alas!" I said, sighing also, "the vultures alone will be able to judge, for every 
one here will be dead drunk, and unable to distinguish their right hand from their left." 

On leaving Santa Rosa the gradually diminishing breadth of its stream indicates 
that we are approaching its source. It is here necessary to observe that all the rivers 
and streams of Peru take their name from the village by which they flow, an absurdity 
which throws the geography of the country into confusion. Thus the river of Santa 
Rosa becomes in succession the Ayaviri, the Pucara, the Nicasio, and the Calapuja. 
After two hours' march along the course of this river northward, and after having sur- 
mounted the Cordillera of Huilcanota, which the map-makers and inhabitants of the 
country call by corruption Vilcanota, and which at this spot is called the llaya} we came 
to a plateau of irregular form, where two little lakes, of some miles in circumference, 
spread their mirror-like waters. The southernmost of these lakes, called the Sissacocha 
(Lake of the Flower), overflows in a thin stream, which is augmented in its course by 
two torrents from the Cordillera. This is the river we had followed from Santa Rosa, 
and crossed at Ayaviri. At some fifty rniles from Pucara it receives the two rivers, 
already united in one, of Lampa and Cabanilla, and continues its course to the Lake of 
Titicaca, in which it debouches near San Taraco, a village of the province of Azangaro. 

The second lake, situated on the north side of the plateau, and named Huilcacocha 
(Lake of Huilca),^ gives birth to a stream which is enlarged some leagues further down 
by the overflow of the lagune of T>angui, and takes the name of Huilca-Mayo (River of 
Huilca), which it soon exchanges for another. After a course of about 900 miles, it 
flows, under the name of the Rio de Santa Ana, into the Apurimac. 

As I had long been familiar with this locality, I merely glanced at the two lakes 
with an absent look as I passed by. I observed, however, that their waters reflected 
the tint of a cloudy sky, and were therefore of a leaden colour. I was in haste to 

• For the Spanish word rai;a (ray, limit, dividing line), by which the inhabitants of the country designate this 
passage of the Cordillera of H\iilca, the Indians substitute nota, which in the Quicfaua idiom has the same signification 
as raya in Spanish : hence Huilcanota, or the boundary line of Huilca. 

* The Huilca, or as corrupted, ri7ca, is a tree of the natural order of Leguminosce, division Mimosce. In the Argentine 
provinces it is known as the algaroba; it is very common there, and the pulp contained in its pods is used to make 
brandy. On the other hand, it is rare in Peru ; the hot valleys on the Pacific coast are the only places in which I have 
found it. How to explain its existence in the midst of the snows of Huilcanota, and to account for its name being 
given to that chain of the Cordillera, is out of my power — the thing seems absolutely inexplicable. 



120 



PERU. 



reach the post of Aguas-Calientes,' to get a morsel of something to eat, and, after a 
night's rest, have done with tlie region of the Punas, of which I was getting rather 
tired. We reached the little station about the close of day, and found its occupants 
in a state of anxious expectation of a great event. 

An ex prefect of Ayacucho, who had become a general of division owing to some 
political accident, and was charged by the government with a secret mission to the 
Sierra, was expected to halt at Aguas-Calientes, and stay there some four-and-twenty 
hours. The postmaster and several women, who had trudged on purpose all the way 
from Layo and I^angui, villages about eighteen miles distant, were in the midst of a 
lively discussion about the ceremonial to be observed on this occasion. They thought 




THE I.AKK8 OF SISSACOCllA AND 11 U I LC ACOCH A, ON THE RAYA PLATEAU. 



nothing less would do than to hang the cracked walls of the station with a tapestry 
of baize and calico, hoist a pennon above the roof, and strew with green rushes the 
approaches by which his excellency would arrive. Some spirited old dames proposed 
to dress themselves in red and white, the national colours, and thus attired go to meet 
the great man, and dance before him as he approached. As usual, the jug of chicha 
and the brandy bottle went the round, and each in turn had some ingenious idea 
or fresh advice to give. 

This supposed question of etiquette so absorbed their attention that not one of 
the company noticed my arrival, or if they were aware of the fact they pretended 
otherwise. I waited patiently some minutes till the ma.ster of the post, a fat and 
ruddy-faced Indian whose black tresses hung almost to the ground, shoiild deign to 
turn his head. Seeing this hope was in vain, I made my presence known by a friendly 
tap on his hat, which, whether the said hat was a little too large for the oblong head it 

' This name is derived from a spring of hot water which comes in slender jets from a rock level witii the gi-oiind, 
about two hundred yards eastward from the post-house. 




LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 121 

covered, or that my hand was a little too heavy, descended suddenly upon the Indian's 
nose, the contour of which resembled an eagle's beak, and there lodged. His astonish- 
ment was great, to judge by the way he swore before he saw daylight again. 

" God be with you ! " I said, in the idiom of the Children of the Sun, while he 
disembarrassed himself of his hat, and looked at me at once wonderingly and wrath- 
fuUy. "I have come from Santa Rosa, and am dying of hunger; can't you get me 
something to eatV 

" Manancancha, manamounanichar} go to the devil, and let me alone!" he replied. 

1 philosophically allowed this ebullition of bile to pass unnoticed. 

"Now listen," I said; "your conversation with these mamacunas"^ — so I designated 

the group of gossips — "has made me aware that General L is on his way to 

CoUao, and will halt at the post of Aguas-Calientes. The general is one of my friends. 
Some time ago I retouched a portrait which he did not think sufficiently like him, and 
lengthened by six inches the epaulettes of his uniform, which he thought too short. 
I have besides given to his wife the recipe of a wonderful paste to make a lovely pink 
and white, and I have taught her three daughters the difficult art of selecting the 
proper colours for their toilet, of which before they knew nothing. You see then the 
general and his family are under obligations to me. . . ." 

Here I purposely made a slight pause to give the Indian time to digest my words. 

"True, very true," he said, "thou art a friend of his excellency." 

"It is so true," I replied, with freezing dignity, "that I think of staying here till 
the general arrives; not to congratulate him on his new dignity, or to help you with 
my advice on the subject of the reception you are preparing for him, but to beg 
my worthy friend to let one of his soldiers dust your back with a twisted strap, to 
teach you the civility of which you are ignorant and the laws of hospitality which you 
have outraged." 

"No, tayta; no, taytachay;^ you will not beat a poor pongo* who never did you any 
harm!" 

' There is nothing ~ I will not. These two phrases require explaining. When, travelling in the Cordilleras, one asks 
an Indian to sell a sheep out of his flock, to avoid dying of hunger, his invariable answer is, Manancancha — There is none. 
Naturally you give the lie to his assertion by pointing to two or three hundred sheep feeding around him. He then 
replies : Manamounanicha — I will not. These are the only words that can be extracted from him. In such a case the 
only way to get out of the embarrassment is to select, through the agency of the mozo or muleteer who accompanies us, 
a nice fat sheep, have it killed and skinned on the spot without listening to the abuse of the proprietor, who, obliged to 
submit to force, cries, groans, and shows every sign of exasperated grief. When the sheep is cut up you pay four reals 
(the regular price) to the owner, to whom also one generously abandons the head, the feet, and the intestines of the 
beast, to make a cluipS. In a twinkling he passes from the bitterest distress to the liveliest joy ; he thanks the traveller 
a hundred times, kisses his hand or the stuff of his poncho, lavishes upon him the most gratifying and endearing 
epithets, and ends by wishing him every possible blessing. If a few conscientious travellers honestly pay the shepherd 
for what they take, it must be remembered that the greater number simply help themselves, and push their liberality 
80 far as to beat the proprietor of the animal into the bargain. 

2 Mama, mother ; cuna, plural article of two genders. The name of mama is generally given to Indian women of a 
certain age. 

3 Tayta, father ; taytachay, dear little father. 

* In the great cities, pongos are Indians of the lower class, who very reasonably value their services at fifteen francs 
a month. They are employed indoors to cany wood and water; to sweep the stones, and to open and close the entrance 
gate, behind which they sleep squatting. Their name of pongo is derived from punca, gate, by corruption ^on^o. They 
are the porters of the country. 



122 PERU. 

In his terror of the strap, the man descended voluntarily from the dignity of 
postmaster to the condition of a pongo. Such accesses of humility are frequent 
among the Indian caste, and I am not surprised at it. The end that I proposed to 
attain, and which I had partly attained, had otherwise claimed all my attention. I 
replied then to the postmaster, who had seized the fringe of my poncho, and whose 
eyes glared and nostrils trembled with the fear of the vengeance I had threatened. 

"I believe I told you that I am hungry. As you must have some provisions in 
the house you will prepare a chupe as savoury as possible; you will give dry 
fodder to my mules, and to-morrow before leaving I will settle for that little matter. 
As to the general, do not trouble yourself to prepare a surprise for him. I will 
write a line or tAvo that will induce him to dispense with any ceremony on his 
account. 

The postmaster let go the border of mj poncho, overcome with joy. 

"O tayta," he said in a coaxing voice, "good taytachay, ... if you but knew 
how grateful . . ." 

"That's all very well, my good fellow," I replied, interrupting him, "but leave for 
the present your gratitude, which will not put a single onion in the soup, and lose 
no time in getting my chup6 ready." The man addressed some hasty commands to 
the gossips, who had listened to this dialogue with the greatest interest, and in the 
twinkling of an eye the station was turned upside down, every one was rushing here 
and there in search of the domestic animals. I heard the cry of anguish of a fowl 
whose neck they wrung, followed by the squeak of a guinea-pig, to which one of 
the Avomen gave chase, and which she killed by breaking its back. Half a sack of 
llama's dung was thrown upon the burning embers: everything about me assumed the 
appearance of cheerfulness and abundance. The postmaster assigned to each his task ; 
two Indian postilions had to attend to the fire and blow it without ceasing; four of the 
Avomen were charged with the cooking of the chup6, which consisted of an old hen, a 
bit of dried mutton, and some real potatoes, the chuno or frozen batatas having been 
unanimously declared too common for a delicate taste like mine. The quantity of salt, 
of pimento, or of garlic, proper to season the broth, was the object of a discussion among 
the women, who only settled the point after the maturest deliberation. Never was a 
plat convert or gastronomic delicacy of any kind destined to excite the Avorn-out 
appetite of a despot, or to tickle the nervous papillte of a bishop's palate, watched, 
combined, and cooked with more loving care and attention to details than the vulgar 
pot-au-feu which was boiling in my sight. The postmaster himself took charge of the 
friture. Like Brillat-Savarin he found, apparently, that the art of frying is a very 
delicate one, and would trust no one but himself with the handle of his frying-pan. His 
guinea-pig singed, washed, cleaned, spread open, larded over, sprinkled Avitli ground 
pimento and kept flat in the pan by means of a stone placed on the belly, only aAvaited 
the moment when it could be popped on the fire, to acquire, by being quickly fried, 
that golden colour which recommends the animal to the appreciation of Peruvian 
gourmets. 

At length this splendid supper was served up, not on a table, the station did not 



LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 



123 



possess one, but on a piece of baize spread on the ground, and by which I squatted like 
a tailor on his board. A wooden spoon was placed at my service, a fork was out of the 
question. My ten fingers did good duty for one. The postmaster willingly served me 
as cup-bearer. A quarter of an hour sufficed to sup and return thanks. Then the 
spectators who surrounded me, having seen that my skins were drawn near the fire, 
and understanding that 1 wished to sleep, retired into an adjoining apartment. Nor 











\>\5 ^i^''^^^^^^^^®^ 



PREPABATIOK OF A SUPPER AT THE STATION OF AGU AS-C A LIENTES. 

Medina, at a sign from the postmaster, joined the cortege and followed them into the 
room, letting fall behind him the cow's-skin which, hung up by the tail, served for a 
door. Soon the noise of eating, mingled with merriment and laughter,^ made me aware 
that the servants were supping on the left victuals of the master, and were enjoying by 
anticipation the pleasures of paradise. 

In the morning I rose early and found the postmaster already up. After giving him 
a dozen reals, the price at which I valued my supper and the provender of my mules, 
I tore a blank-leaf out of my note-book, and having been repeatedly assured by the 
Indian that he was unable to read any kind of writing, I addressed the following lines 
to General L : 



1 Hire a la cantonade: a phrase of the theatre, for merriment heard behind the scenes. — Tr. 



124 PERU. 

"My dear General, — The herein-named Ignacio Muynas Tupayanchi, postmaster of Aguas-Calientes, had intended 
to follow the example of his fellow-citizens, and burn a little incense on your visit. I have persuaded him to do 
nothing of the kind, feeling assured that at the moment I am writing you are tired of ovations, and official banquets, 
and harangues. If then you do not find at Aguas-Calientes the usual display of hangings, flags, aud garlands of green 
rushes, do not blame the aforesaid Ignacio, who has simply yielded to foreign influeuce. The honest fellow will 
compensate you by his cuisine for the loss of the vain honoura he would have rendered you. He excels in fritnres, 
and with a common guinea-pig can make a dish fit for the gods. It is in this quality of cuisiuier that I recommend 
him to you, my dear general, that on arriving at Aguas-Calientes you may put to the proof the peculiar talent of its 
postmaster, whom I do not hesitate to declare as good a friturier as he appears to me to be a good citizen, devoted 
soul and body to the public good. 

" I pray that St. Eose, the patroness of Peru, may watch over your days, and over those dear to you." 

I was informed afterwards that the unhappy postmaster, put in requisition by 
General L. and his escort, who had taken my advice seriously, was kept at the frying- 
pan for eighteen hours, during which time he fried a fabulous number of guinea-pigs 
collected in the neighbourhood. But let us not anticipate events. 

About six miles from Aguas-Calientes, after a slight but continuous descent, we 
arrived at Marangani, a poor village, which has no other claim to attention than its 
situation at the confluence of the Huilcamayo (which we have seen to take jts rise 
from the Lake Sisacocha, on the Eaya plateau) with the stream of Langui issuing 
from the lake of that name. The temperature is here a little ameliorated. In some 
winding nooks of the mountain, sheltered from the wind and cold, were growing 
little patches of potatoes, barley, oats, quinoa, and a species of the Oxalis locally 
called occa, which the Indians eat in their chupds. 

It may be noted as a geographical and statistical detail, that the northern extremity 
of the Raya plateau forms the frontier which separates the province of Lampa from 
that of Canchis. The village of Marangani pertains to the latter, which is one of the 
smallest provinces of Peru. Its area is 540 square miles. 

Nine miles from Marangani, northward, and on the right bank of the Huilcamayo, 
is situated Sicuani, which is marked in the Peruvian maps as a city, but is really 
only a big village, as monotonous as it is badly built. Its population in the time 
of the viceroys was 7500 souls, now it is hardly 3000. An hospital for both sexes, 
founded in the seventeenth century by the viceroy Count Gil de Lemos, has disappeared 
from the earth with its founder. As to the massive silver lamp which still existed 
in the church of Sicuani at the beginning of the century, it has been replaced by 
a poor thing of copper with three branches. A Spaniard named Joaquin Vilafro 
had presented it to the Virgin df, 'Si'cuani, not so much as a devotional offfering as 
an atonement or apology, in dread of the Inquisition and the viceroy, for the immense 
wealth he had acquired in a short time from the mine of Quimsachata, near the 
sources of the Apurimac; a precaution, however, which did not save him from being 
hung par ordre for the sake of that same wealth. The lamp of the unfortunate 
colonist, after having long been the ornament of the choir and the admiration of the 
faithful, was taken to the mint and coined into piastres during the war between the 
Royalists and Independents. 

It was at Sicuani that the cacique Matheo Pumacahua, who in 1781 had betrayed 
Tupac Amaru to the Spaniards, received, thirty-four years afterwards, the price of his 



LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 



125 



services. The Spaniards, who had promised him the epaulettes of a colonel, deferred 
the promotion till they settled their debt in full by cutting off his head. 

A natural curiosity of Sicuani, of which travellers have made no mention, probably 
because they were unacquainted with its existence, is the lagune of Quellhua, or more 
correctly Quellhuacocha, as it is called in the country, which is situated on the 
Iieights to the east of tlie village. Let any one picture, if he can, a liquid sapphire 







SIOUANI, SEEN FKOM THE HEIGHTS OF QUELLHUACOCHA. 



eighteen miles in circumference, in a setting composed of the five rounded backs of 
mountains which extend to the horizon the snowy summits of the Cordilleras of 
Chimboya and d'Atun-Quenamari, and which are charmingly belted with those totoras, 
or large-leaved rushes, of which we have elsewhere spoken. Nothing can be more 
calmly beautiful, or more freshly poetic, than this Andean lake, which no wind ruffles, 
and no vessel has ever furrowed; in which clouds and stars, sunlight and moonlight, 
are alone reflected; and the whole physiognomy of which is so ineffably sweet that 
we have exhausted the resources of language when we say it smiles upon us like 
something human ! 

San Pablo and San Pedro de Cacha, situated about nine miles northward of 
Sicuani, are two neighbouring hamlets of the dullest character, and closely resembling 
each other in the misery of the inhabitants and their wretched mud -built huts. The 



126 



PERU. 



villagers of St. Paul boast that they have very much the advantage of St. Peter, and 
support the assertion by pointing to the school with eighteen pupils which the former 
possesses, and the latter does not. The rector of a university might appreciate this 
evidence of superiority; we prefer, for our part, the geological grandeur and archaeo- 
logical illustration of St. Peter, which, instead of a school and schoolmaster, may 
well be proud of its fine ruins, above which towers a very respectable volcano, 
unhappily extinct, though the time has been when it covered the country with lava, 
scorise, and pumice. This volcano, the crater of which is inclined from north to south. 




THE TEMPLE OF HUIBACOCHA, ACCORDING TO THE HISTORIAN GABCILASSO DE LA VEGA. 



lifts its head above a platform of low hills, on a site which bears the name of 
Racchi, and from which the volcano has been corruptly called the Riacha by the natives. 
At the foot of those barren hills, which form its pedestal, we find a plastic clay, of 
which the potters of the Cordillera make pitchers, vases, and drinking-vessels of charm- 
ing shapes. Here also are found several ochres, a red ochre called taco; and magnesia, 
which the thrifty poor, who call it chacco (milk of the earth), collect, and of which, 
mixed with a little water, they make a poulette, or white sauce, to be eaten with 
potatoes by the family. 

At some bow-shots from the hills of Racchi, in a place called Yahuarpampa,^ are 
the remains of an ancient edifice which can be seen from a long distance, and which 
travellers have called the ruins of Tinta without saying one word of their origin. 
We do not well know where these travellers got the name. Is it derived from the 
fact that the province of Canchis, in which these ruins are situated, once formed, 
together witTi the province of Canas, a single government, under the name of the 

* Plain of Blood, so called because there the Inca Huiracocha completely defeated his father Yahuar-Huacac, who, 
having been deposed by his subjects on account of his vices, had come to reassert his right to the empire at the head 
of 3000 Chancas Indians, who perished in the engagement. 



LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 



127 



Corregimiento de Tinta ?* We do not positively affirm this, but what we dare repeat 
after the historians of the Conquest is, that the ruins are those of the temple built 
towards the middle of the fourteenth century by Viracocha, or more correctly Huira- 
cocha,^ the eighth Inca, in remembrance of a dream in which an old man with a 
long beard, wearing a flowing robe, and holding a chained dragon, had appeared to 
that prince when as a young man he kept the sheep of the emperor Yahuar-IIuacac, 
his father, in the plains of Chita.^ 




TEMPLE OF HUIRACOCHA, ACCORDING TO THE HISTORIANS CIE5A DE LliON AND ACOSTA. 



¥ 



To this dream, from which the heir presumptive had inferred a command from 
Heaven relative to the subjugation of the Chancas, and which at a later period he 
religiously accomplished by destroying 3000 of these indigenes, and annexing their 
territory to the empire, must be ascribed the merit of having enriched the country 
with a memorial temple 240 feet long and 120 feet wide, the walls of which, thirty 
feet high, were built half of worked stones and half en pis6. This edifice, erected 
on a plateau which overlooked the environs, was reached by five terraces or steps. 
It had three doors and three windows upon the northern and southern sides, and a 
door and two windows at each of its ends or facades. Five pillars, erected at equal 
distances on the principal walls, and tied by transverse beams, served to support the 
chief timbers which carried the thatched roof The overhanging eaves of this roof 

1 Foam of the Lake, so named on account of his milky-whiteness, say the historians of the seventeenth century ; 
but, considering the habitual exaggeration of these estimable writers, we cannot help thinking that this pretended 
whiteness of Huiracocha was only a kind of milk-and-coffee colour, instead of the burned brick tint which marks 
the race generally. The sister and wife of this Inca, who was equally unlike her features in the comparative fairness 
of her skin, was called Mama Rnniu (the mother-egg). 

^ We must leave to the historians of the Conquest the responsibility of this apocryphal dream and the explana- 
tion of the young prince's presence in the frightful desert of Chita, 120 miles south of Cuzco, the capital of the 
empire, and keeping sheep, which the conquerors did not introduce into America until two centuries later. 



128 



PERU. 



formed along the sides of the edifice a sort of pent-house, under which passers-by 
surprised by a heavy shower could take shelter. 

According to Garcilasso, this temple was only 120 feet long by 60 feet broad, or 
half the dimensions assigned to it by Cie9a de Ldon and Acosta. He also states 
that it had no roof, as the dream which it commemorated occurred in the country, 
sub Jove crudo, and its interior decoration consisted of nothing but a simple cube of 




BUINS OF THE TEMPLE OP HUIRAOOOHA. 



black porphyry, upon which was placed the statue of the mysterious old man seen 
by Huiracocha in his dream. At the period of the Conquest, the Spaniards threw 
down the statue and destroyed its pedestal, in the expectation of finding hidden 
treasure. 

Of these architectural splendours nothing is left but the ruined walls, about 
twenty feet in height. It is true these walls have nine doors, while the primitive 
edifice had only eight according to Cie9a de Ldon and Acosta. Happily this fact is 
known to myself alone, for if the ninth door had been discovered by the delegates 
of a learned society, not only would it have set rival societies by the ears and caused 
a great waste of paper, but the spirit of paradox would have been ready to declare 
in public that insatiable Time, tempus edax, who gnaws with ceaseless tooth the poor 
works of our hands until little is left of them, had, on the contrary, added to those 



LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 



129 



of Peru. From regard for those respectable old women Kecord and Tradition, I will 
not say anything so paradoxical. I will admit, with the above-named historians, that 
the temple of which they speak had only eight doors, and that the ninth was opened in 
its walls by a shock of the neighbouring volcano. No other way of accounting for 
the discrepancy occurs to me just now. 

Six miles from St. Peter and St. Paul, we come to the village of Combapata. The 
distance traversed is a continual descent, and in the measure we descend the tem- 





VILLAOE AND LAGDKB OP COMBAPATA. 



perature becomes milder, and belts of verdure begin to appear at the foot of the 
mountains. Combapata, of which we find no mention in any geographical work or in 
any known map, is a village of some threescore hearths, situated near a turbulent 
and rapid river. Its little church is very bright and clean, its whitewashed walls con- 
trasting pleasantly with the dirty look of the cottages in its neighbourhood. A Christ, 
of life size, decorates the chief altar. The work of a sculptor of Huamanga, it is 
venerated by the faithful under the name of Seigneur de Combapata, and is credited 
with the performance of miracles. It has given sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, 
and speech to the dumb. In the eighteenth century, when the Jesuits were exiled from 
Peru, tears of blood, they say, ran from its eyes — made of enamel. The same prodigy 
occurred in 1821, when the viceroy La Serna, banished from Lima by the Independents, 
was compelled to depart for Spain. Unfortunately for the Seigneur de Combapata, 



17 



130 



PERU. 



the Christ of Tungasuca, a neighbouring village, has also the gift of miracles. This 
latter, known as the Seigneur d'Anaipampa, renders barren women fruitful, heals the 
reputed incurable, and preserves sheep from the scab. Like his rival the Seigneur de 
Combapata, he weeps, on occasions, tears of blood over the miseries of this world. 
From this identity of powers there results a bitter rivalry between the faithful of the 
two parishes ; the inhabitants of one village glorifying their own Christ by depreciating 
that of their neighbours. Often in the bacchic solemnities with which each village 
celebrates the file de I'Homme-Dieu, have we seen the Indians, drunk with fanaticism 
and brandy, use their heads like battering-rams for the greater glory of their lord. 




THU OEUOIFIX IN THE CHUHOH OP COMBAPATA. 



The river which runs by the village, and debouches in the Huilcamayo, under the 
name of the Rio de Combapata, takes its rise from the western side of the Andes 
of Crucero, between the provinces of Lampa and Carabaya. It is an auriferous stream, 
and when its waters are swollen by the melted snows, it bears along in its muddy 
waves particles of gold detached from the mountains. The inhabitants of the country 
at one time established a gold-washing place on its banks. The rapid slope of the 
lands which it waters gives to its floods a formidable character; it is less a torrent 
than an avalanche, which hurls itself upon the surrounding country and in an 
instant submerges it. Two stone bridges, of two arches, built solidly enough to stand 
for ages, have been successively carried away by the flood. Each of these bridges cost 
the province 2000 piastres (£400), and the slender resources of the inhabitants have 
compelled them, as a measure of economy, to return to the swing-bridges of osiers, 
with which for six centuries their ancestors were contented. 

That which distinguishes Combapata from the other villages of the Sierra is not, 
however, its miraculous Christ or its gold-bearing river. It is the quality of the chicha 
brewed by its inhabitants. For a long time the process by which the matrons of that 



LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 



131 



village obtained their local beer, the smell and transparency of which remind one of 
the manzanilla or claret of Spain, was kept secret; but like other secrets it has at 
length been divulged, and now every one knows that the chicha is indebted for its 
quality to the previous mastication of the gunapo or sprouting maize from which it is 
brewed. The invention of this process is traced back to the ancient Aymaras; and 
the chicha -brewers of Cochabamba in Upper Peru, who are descended from those 
autochthones, still employ it with success. The process, to which we think it our duty 
to call the attention of the editors of Cookery for the Million and Useful Recipes, is one of 
the most simple and inexpensive conceivable. Several old men and women squat on the 




BBIDGE OP 0SIEB8 OVER THE EIVER OF COMBAPATA. 



door round a heap of bruised maize. Each takes a portion of the maize, which he puts 
in his or her mouth, and chews with more or less vigour and for a longer or shorter 
time according to the strength of his grinders. When sufficiently macerated, it is 
spit out into the hand and put on a little sheet of leather, spread out in front of each 
operator. The chicha-brewer then collects these little heaps and throws them into the 
jar which serves as a substitute for the caldron. 

According to the chemists of the country, who have analyzed these chews or this 
chicha, it is to a remarkable addition of juices from the salivary glands, and of secretions 
from the pituitary membrane combined, that the maize of Combapata is indebted for 
the precious qualities which it communicates to the chicha. I would not venture to 
say whether the local chemistry is right or wrong, having always declined to taste the 
chicha of Canchis; but I confess that I have taken great pleasure in watching the old 
men and women who were assembled to chew the maize ; the mouths of these honest 
people opening and shutting with such mechanical regularity, as to recall to my mind, 
with the memory of my absent country, D^sirabode's artificial teeth working up and 
down from morning to night, in their glass case. 



132 



PERU. 



After Combapata, the traveller's next halting-place is Checcacupi, a poor village 
about nine miles further, containing about thirty hovels, and situated near a small river, 
flowing, like that of Combapata, from the Andes of Crucero. On crossing this river 
by a bridge of stone, which dates from the time of the viceroys, and leaving behind us 
the neighbouring provinces of Canchis and Canas, once combined to form the Cor- 
regimiento de Tinta, we enter the province of Quispicanchi. Before we go further, let 







CHEWING THB MAIZE FOR MAKING CHIOHA. 



us throw a rapid coup d'ceil over the past history of the double province, which we have 
abandoned never more to revisit. 

A long time before the appearance of the Incas in Peru, two rival nations, the 
Canas and Canchis, occupied an area of about 14,000 square miles: from north to south, 
it extended from the Sierras of Chimboya and d'Atun-Quenamari to the plateaux of 
Ocoruro, and from east to west it reached from the Cordillera de Huilcanota to the 
torrent of Chuquicabana. The Huilcamayo, of which we have seen the source at 
Aguas-Calientes, and followed as far as Checcacupi, ran through a portion of this 
territory. The Canas occupied, in the north and west, the present seat of the villages 
of Pitumarca, Combapata, Tinta, and Yanaoca, extending as far as the heights of 
Pichigua and Mollocahua, in the neighbourhood of the river Apurimac. The Canchis 
inhabited the eastern and southern parts, the district in which are now situated the 



LAMPA TO ACOPIA, 



133 




villages of St. Peter and St. Paul de Cacha, Sicuani, and Marangani, as far as the 
Raya plateau.' 

These two nations, numbering about 25,000 men, were governed by their curacas 
or respective chiefs. Their rivalry, which was of ancient date and occasioned bloody 
quarrels between them, appears to have had no other cause than the difference of 
their origin and temperament. The Canas, inhabitants, originally, of the Sierra 




■??TS^ 




THE VILLAGE OP OBEOOAOnPl. 



Nevada, took their name from the volcano of Racchi, which overlooked their territory, 
and of which they boasted themselves the descendants. Cana, in the Quichua idiom, 
signifies the seat or scene of a conflagration. The Canchis came in old times from the 
temperate regions near Arequipa. Their name recalls their natal soil with its pale 
flowers and grasses. Cancha, in Quichua, signifies an inclosed place or garden. This 
difference of origin was aggravated by a difference of costume, the former invariably 
wearing black, the latter a mixed colour. 

The character of these indigenes agreed wonderfully with their national patronymic. 
The Canas, gloomy and taciturn of disposition, but wrathful and impetuous on occasion, 
jealous of their independence to the point of sacrificing all for its sake, struggled 
for four centuries against the power of the Incas, and only submitted at last when the 

' The present limits of the two provinces imperfectly recall those of their ancient territory. 



134 PERU. 

daughter of their chief became one of the three hundred wives of Huayna-Capac, the 
twelfth emperor of Cuzco. The Canchis, on the contrary, gentle and timid of character, 
lukewarm and undecided in spirit, like the climate in which they were born, submitted 
without resistance to the dominion of the Children of the Sun. 

In the sixteenth century the territory of the Canas and the Canchis was formed into 
one province under the name of the Corregimiento de Tinta, and these indigenes, who 
now formed only one and the same people, passed from the yoke of the emperors under 
that of the viceroys. For them the halter simply took the place of the collar. As their 
robust constitution fitted them to Avork in the mines, they were treated as slaves by 
their new masters. Every year the Spanish officials came to carry off one-tenth of the 
entire population in the name of the state. The unfortunate recruits, designated by 
lot, were collected before the church to hear a mass said on their account, and for 
which they were supposed to pay themselves. After mass the cur6 received their oath 
of fealty and obedience to the King of Spain, then sprinkled them with holy water, 
pronounced the customary blessing, Vete con Bios, and — turned his back on them. 

These recruits, escorted by relations and friends, who answered their tears with 
groans, took the road to Cailloma, Carabaya, or Potosi, sites of those rich deposits 
of mineral wealth which the viceroys of Peru worked a little for their own benefit and 
for that of the King of Spain. Doomed to the labours of excavation, the poor Indians 
descended into the bocaminas and socabons — pits and galleries — where the want of the 
pure air to which they had been accustomed, and the emanations of deleterious gases, 
brought on, according to the doctors of the country, a kind of asthma, called ckacco, of 
which they died in a year. When the supply of workers was thus exhausted by death 
the representatives of the Spanish monarchy had only to throw in their drag-net and 
again recruit the ranks of the labourers. 

Things went on thus during more than two centuries before the population, weary 
of their yoke, endeavoured to throw it off. The inhabitants of Aconcahua, in the 
province of Canas, exasperated by an increase of the tribute of gold-dust exacted from 
them by the state, seized the Spanish collector on one of his visits, and gave him more 
than he wanted by making him swallow a quantity of the melted metal ;^ after which, 
to escape the pursuit of justice, they abandoned for ever their village, the site of 
which is still recognizable. Tupac Amaru, cacique of Tungasuca, after having hung 
with his own hand the corregidor of Tinta, Antonio Arriega, and raised the country 
against the Spaniards, was defeated by them and cruelly put to death. Angulo, Bejar, 
Pumacahua, and Andia, who succeeded Tupac Amaru, paid with their heads the 
penalty of failure in the work they had undertaken, and which nine years later Simon 
Bolivar accomplished on the plains of Ayacucho. 

When the blow for independence was first struck, the government of Tinta was 
divided into six districts. These were Sicuani, Tinta, Checca, Checcacupi, Langui, and 
Yauri, comprising twenty-three villages, the situation of which on the mountain or in 

• Para saeiar de este modo la sed insaciable dd recaudador — To appease by this means the insatiable greed of the collec- 
tor, naively says Pedro Celestino Florez, who relates this fact in a work entitled, Patriotismo y amor d la libertad. The 
honest writer adds by way of a reflection: The oppression of those intrusted with power, and the failure of justice in a 
coiirUry, often drives the oppressed to commit atrocious deeds, for which the circumstances are some excuse. 



LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 135 

the plain, and their consequent difference of temperature, had caused them to be classed 
into higher and lower villages. Many of them no longer exist; others have become 
simple estancias (farms), though from respect for their past history, and the souvenirs 
which they recall, the statisticians of the country have preserved for forty years in their 
annual reports, and will preserve for a long time yet, the rank and situation which 
they formerly occupied. In like manner the illustrious grenadier, whom France 
delights to honour, continues to figure long after his death upon his old regimental 
list, and to answer the roll-call day after day, by the voice of one of his brothers in 
arms. 

While giving due credit to these statisticians for an idea evidently inspired by the 
purest patriotism, we cannot but censure them for an artifice which gives to the world 
in general, and to the neighbouring republics in particular, a false idea of the numerical 
forces of the country. . According to them the figure which represents the existing 
population of each of the provinces of Canas and Canchis is exactly that of the entire 
population of the government of Tinta in the time of its splendour. Unfortunately 
for these gentlemen, we know that of all the provinces of Lower Peru, that of Tinta 
was the worst treated during the Spanish occupation. Its population, decimated in 
turn by epidemics, subsidies for the mines, forced enrolments, voluntary emigration, 
and all the exigencies caused by spiritual power and political revolution, did not 
exceed, in 1792, 36,314 souls. In 1820 it numbered 36,968, and in 1836 it had risen 
to 37,218. Yet we are expected to believe that a population which had increased by 
900 souls in forty years, could almost double itself in the year or two following! 

On quitting the village of Combapata it had been arranged between Nor Medina 
and myself that we should pass the night at Checcacupi, and the next day push on to 
Huaro, doubling the stage and passing, without stopping, the villages of Quiquijana 
and Urcos. But feeling there was little prospect of a bed or a supper at Checcacupi, 
and knowing we should have to cross the Huilcamayo on the next day in order to take 
the road to Cuzco, the idea occurred to me that we might as well cross to the other 
bank at once and push on for Acopia, where we had some chance of finding food and 
lodging. As this would add six miles to our stage, I said nothing to Nor Medina, who 
would have been in an agony about his mules; and we continued our march. As we 
were nearing San Juan, a little hamlet agreeably placed by a lagune, I suddenly de- 
scended to the river and looked for a fordable place. A bed of flints and pebbles, in- 
termingled with larger stones, was visible through the transparent water. I pushed my 
mule resolutely forward to cross. Nor Medina, seeing this change in our itinerary, 
called out as he galloped up: — 

"Where are you going, sir?" 

"As you see, I am going to cross the Huilcamayo: Kuhos aneriphto. May destiny 
be favourable to me, as to Csesar!" 

"But the river is full of holes; you will get drowned and lame my mule." 

My only reply to this remark of a venal soul was to shrug my shoulders, seeing 
which my guide followed me into the river. 

"Why has monsieur taken this road?" he demanded with some brusqueness. 



136 



PERU. 



The question was so natural that I was tempted to explain my motive; but the tone 
in which it was put arrested my confidence on my lips. I looked at Nor Medina, du 
haiit en bos, and replied : — 

"I have taken this road for particular reasons." 

"Ah!" said he, "and where is monsieur going?" 

"To Acopia." 

"To Acopia?" 

"To Acopia." 

"That suffices. If monsieur has particular reasons for going to Acopia it is my 
duty to conform to those reasons and follow him." 

This, however, he did with difficulty, as his mule twisted about upon the slippery 
stones, and with the efforts which it made to keep on its feet, splashed us all over from 
head to foot. 

A wetting in the Cordillera is never agreeable, but in spite of its unpleasantness I 
could not help laughing to see Nor Medina venting his ill-temper upon the mule, 
calling it heartless and good for nothing— aio. infamous style of conversation to which a 
mule is particularly sensitive, either because it indicates a certain amount of contempt 
for the beast, or because the words are generally accompanied with blows. We 
arrived on the other side, and having dried ourselves as well as we could, resumed our 
march, leaving to our left San Juan and its lagune, from which flows a stream which is 
tributary to the Huilcamayo. If it was Nor Medina's duty to follow me, as he said, 
I must admit, to his credit, that he fulfilled it to the letter, but by preserving between 
us a distance of thirty geometrical paces he gave me to understand tliat he was in the 
sulks. A Peruvian arriero is very susceptible. The least thing ottends him; he is shut 
up by the merest trifle. His humour is a limpid lake, moved by the slightest zephyi\ 
The mere fact that I had passed from one side to the other of the Huilcamayo without 
taking counsel of my guide had hurt his feelings, and turned him against me. Out 
of consideration for my character, as a traveller paying his way, I abstained from 
calling him to my side, and left him to trot along at his pleasure. We arrived at 
Acopia without having exchanged a word. 




FOUETH STAGE. 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO 



Dissertation on the province of QuispicaucLi, which the reader raay pass by. — Acopia, its pretended ruins and its 
tarts. — Compromising hospitality. — The widows Bibiana and Maria Salom6. — A demonstration that if all men 
are equal in the sight of death, they are not so in the sight of fleas. — A dream of happiness. — The Quebrada 
of Cuzco. — Andajes and its pistachio- puddings.— The Chingana (or cave) of Qquerohuasi. — A quarry worked in the 
time of the empress Mama Ocllo Huaco. — A botanical discourse which all the world may comprehend. — The 
traveller laments his spent youth and lost illusions. — A muleteer may be at cnce a herbalist and a logician. — 
Quiquijana and the great stones of its little river. — Something about Urcos, the chief village in the province of 
Quispicanchi. — The Mohina lake and its lost chain of gold. — Zoology and arboriculture. — Huaro, its steeple, its 
weather-cock, and its famous organ. — Valleys and villages characterized, en passant, by a word. — The village of 
Oropesa. — Why called Oropesa the Heroic. — The traveller has another squabble with his guide.— Sketch of San 
Jeronimo. — San Sebastian, and its noble families. — The tree of adieux. — The convent of La Recoleta, its prior 
and its monks. — The Corridor-du-Ciel and the Devil's Pulpit. — A monolithic chamber. — Three sorcerers of Goya in a 
holy-water font. — By what road we arrived among the descendants of the Sun.— Silhouette of a capital. — Last 
words of counsel from the lips of Wisdom in the pei-son of a muleteer. — The author packs his trunks with 
one hand, while writing his memoirs with the other. — Cuzco, ancient and modern. 



II 



The village of Acopia belongs to the province of Quespicanchi, or Quispicanchi, 
according to the orthography adopted by modern statisticians and the editors of the 
Calendario. The limits of the province are not well defined, the Peruvian govern- 
ment not having yet found time to arrange for its survey. All that we can say, 
geographically speaking, is, that it is inclosed by the provinces of Paucartampu, 
Urubamba, Paruro, Cotabamba, Chumbihuilcas, and Canas y Canchis; that eastward, 
beyond the oriental Cordillera, it comprises the valleys of Marcapata, Ayapata, 
and Asaroma, and extends across regions still unexplored as far as the frontiers 
of Bolivia and Brazil. 

The civilized population, or the people so called, of that immense territory, 
scarcely number 40,000 souls. As to the savage tribes who live on the shores of 



18 



138 



PERU, 



its rivers or upon the borders of its forests, they are by no means so numerous as 
seems to be beheved in Europe. Generally speaking, travellers who have treated of 
American anthropology' have singularly exaggerated the number of these redskins. 
For that exaggeration there are two causes: first, the amour-jyropre of the traveller, 
who wishes to persuade the public that after having piled Pelion upon Ossa, he has 
discovered the singing water and the talking bird, vainly sought for by those who 
preceded him. Secondly, some allowance must be made for the incorrectness of 
notes and documents supplied to the traveller by the inhabitants of the country, 
who, when they are asked a question, blow themselves out like the frog in the fable 
in order that a great opinion may be formed of them Vanitas vanitatum, omnia 
vanitas. Let us return to Quispicanchi, which was once the name of a nation, but 
is now only that of a province. 

In the middle of the eleventh century, when Manco-Capac, chief of the dynasty 
of the Sun, had founded Cuzco, and made it the capital of his empire, the first 
crusade which he undertook to rally to the worship of Helios-Churi the aboriginal 
tribes who were spread abroad in the Cordillera, was that of Collasuyu. ^ The Ques- 
picanchis, the Muynas, the Urcos, the Quehuares, the Cavinas, and the Ayamarcas,^ 
then occupied in that direction a territory of about 1500 square miles. These tribes 
responded to the call of Manco, and ravished by the sweetness and unction of his 
words — to believe his biographers, the Inca spoke with a mouth of gold like Chrysostom 
— they listened to him with docility. Manco instructed them in a number of things 
which we are sorry we cannot insert in our text to impart to it more of local colour. 
After having convinced them that the worship of the sun was preferable to that of 
adders, toads, and trunks of trees, which these Indians adored, he taught them how to 
build huts, for the most of them were troglodytes, and, like the chinchillas of their 
country, lived in burrows. When he judged they were sufficiently refined, and suffi- 
ciently impressed with the advantages of civilization over barbarism, he settled then\ 
in forty villages on the borders of Collasuyu, and made them his subjects and tributaries. 

Manco-Capac, on whom Spanish historians have conferred two faces like Janus, 
the one simply good, the other cunning, did not stop at this with regard to these 
indigenes. As a mark of his esteem, and at the same time as a witness to future 
ages that they were the first idolaters of the Sierra in whom the eyes of the spirit 
had been opened to the light of the sun, he conferred on them, by means of the quipos, 
equivalent to our letters-patent, titles of nobility, with honours and dignities which they 

' D'Orbigny, in his work entitled L'Homme Amiricain, has swelled the sum total of his figures to sjitisfy his own 
taste, aud has also grafted some alien branches on the Ando-Peruvian stock. Thus the inhabitants of the village of 
Apolobamba, in the eastern valley of that name — Indians and Cholos of the Sierra for the most part — have become 
under his hand the tribe of Apolistas; of the Cholos and half-breeds of Paucartampu, he has made the tribe of Fau- 
cartambinos ; of the Chuncos (a generic name of the savage iu Peru), a distinct caste, &c. 

^ From su^/u, direction ; direction from Collao, or the territory of the Collaa Indians. This is one of the { I or 
primitive divisions of the empire, established by Manco-Capac, and corresponding to the four quarters of the heavens : 
chincha-suyu (north), collasuyu (south), anti-suyu (east), and cunti-suyu (west). 

' All these tribes, perfectly distinct before the establishment of the Incas, became mixed and confounded in their 
time with the great Aymara-Quichua family. The villages of the Sierra, to which these autochthones have left their 
name, are situated on the territory which they occupied in the tenth century, before the appearance of Manco-Capac. 



r 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 139 

could transmit to their descendants. Some had the right to cut their hair square 
across the forehead to distinguish them from the vulgar, others to let it float freely 
in the wind ; these elongated the lobe of their ears to the length of half a foot, those 
pierced them for the purpose of suspending a bit of osier, a wooden rundle, the 
tip of a reed, or a tuft or pompon of variously coloured wool. The favour was as highly 
appreciated as it was appreciable, say the historians of the Conquest, parenthetically, 
and the aborigines always showed themselves grateful for it. 

The Spanish conquerors, in their own brutal way, compelled the Indians to 
sacrifice all these tokens of a nobility that had endured for five centuries. The 
way in which they scofied at the great Quichua dignitaries, whose ears hung down 
to their shoulders, prevented the descendants of the latter from continuing the custom. 
Under the futile pretext that they could not approach them without feeling a dis- 
agreeable itching, Pizarro and his officers compelled the curacas (governors of villages) 
to cut off" the luxuriant hair untouched by a comb which served to distinguish them 
from their subordinates. With the abolition of the capillary privileges, old modes 
and customs also died out. The regime of brute force reigned supreme. In place 
of the padded collar worn by the Indians in the time of the Incas, Spain substituted 
a heavy one of iron bristling with spikes. The populations, decimated by the sword, 
exhausted by exactions and the labour of the mines, died out, or emigrated, abandoning 
the stubble, the llama skins, and the three calcined stones Avhich represented for them 
the house, the bed, and the domestic hearth. At this day, what archaeologist, however 
patient and minute he might be in his research, even if aided by spectacles and the 
works of Garcilaso, Valera, Acosta, Cie9a de L^on, Zarate, Torquemada, and other 
chroniclers, could discover, on the imperial road of Collasuyu in a circuit of nine 
miles, a vestige of the forty villages of which it boasted in the middle of the 
sixteenth century? 

The province of Quispicanchi, which of all its past splendour has nothing left 
but the ruins of an aqueduct, is now divided into four districts, in which are contained 
three towns and a score of villages. These villages are all alike. Their temperature 
alone differs, according as they are situated in a quebrada (or gorge), like those of 
Huaro, Andahuaylillas, and Oropesa; in a, puna, like those of Mosoc-Llacta and Poma- 
canchi ; or at the foot of the snowy Andes, like those of Ocongate and Sangarara. 

The village of Acopia, where we had now arrived, owes to its exceptional situa- 
tion, at the base of a plateau and at the entrance of a quebrada, an exceptional 
climate. It blows, it rains, and it thunders often enough; it hails and snows some- 
times; but water there never passes from the liquid to the solid state. 

On each side of the road leading into this dull village, which the natives call a 
town, are the remains of a wall of sun-dried bricks, several feet in height, broken along 
its summit, and of the agreeable colour of a bituminized mummy. This debris of an 
inclosure, some twenty years old at most, has a false air of antiquity, by which an 
enthusiastic and inexperienced traveller might easily be taken in. As I am neither a 
novice nor an enthusiast, I was not deceived, but passed by the pretended ruins without 
looking at them. My whole attention, in fact, was concentrated upon the piles of tarts 



140 



PERU, 



wiuth two Indian womea, who make tiu» their trade, had datj^befed <m wooden 
beadbet at the entrance (^ tJie village, in a fuAaaa to tempt the ^^petites of jgemex^hj. 
On dianionntiiig bj tibeae stalk, the womai looked at me ainmltaneon^, with that 
sweet eommerdal smile with wfaicfa the ttXkx nsnally greets the bajer, as the serpent 
fasrinatf* the Inrd; and I began to reason with mysdf thus: "This road is little 
frequented, the pastrj before me has been e^qMsed for a month or two to the detri- 





VAKT'SBLLBBS A* ACOFIA. 



mental action of the atmoi^here; the layer of dust which corers it, and the singular 
hardness which time imparts to such things, justify, in some degree, this supposition. 
But, should a hungry stomach hesitate about such toifles?" Without condescending to 
inquire, therefore, at what epoch the aforesaid tarts were manufactured, I immediately 
bought half a dozen of them, at the price of a real apiece; and having wiped one of 
them with my pocket-handkerchief, soon fastened my teeth in it I swallowed two 
mouthfuls without choking, but at the third stopped short. An indefinable mixture of 
tastes and smells made me feel sick at heart. Mechanically I thrust my fingers in the 
tart and drew forth, one after another, black olives, slices of onions, little bits of cheese, 
and leaves of mint All this was plastered together with burned sugar and hog's-lard. 
The secret of my nausea was discovered. As Nor Medina had trotted on before me 
into the village, I could not make him an offer of this pastry by way of regaining his 




ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 141 

good graces, I therefore offered it to my mole, to the great disgust of the two women, 
who looked at me with anything but a pleased expression. 

This fine exploit accomplished, I remounted my beast and went in search of my 
guide, whom I soon overtook. Then without a word passing between us, though we 
were both occupied by the same thought — that of supper and bed — we went in quest of 
some house where they would consent to take us in ; Acopia having neither caravan- 
serai, tampu, or hostelry to offer to unfortimate travellers. We wandered about for 
some time among the cottages, examining them from top to bottom, without being able 
to make a selection. For the most part they were singularly out of repair, and looked 
as if they were overrun with vermin. Two or three of the number were recommended 
to notice by having been newly thatched and whitewashed, but they were cruelly closed 
against us. The situation was becoming critical, for the sim had already disappeared. 
The horizon was enveloped in a violet-tinted gloom, while a slowly ascending fog 
floated round the village, and presented its outlines in gilhouette. Never had twilight 
seemed to me so wretchedly disagreeable. 

As we passed for the third time down a dirty little street, bordered on one side by 
the fronts of the cottages and on the other by the wall of a sheep-pen, a rather worm- 
eaten door was cautiously opened, and a woman, holding between her thumb and 
her index-finger a bit of candle, appeared as the personification of that hospitality 
of which I was in search. "I will go no further," I said to myself, stopping my mule 
before the beautiful unknown, who returned my salutation by a charming smile. 
I was pleased with the woman's kind manner and scrupulous neatness. Her hair was 
carefully dressed, and glossy with mutton-fat; her llicUa of white wool edged Anth pink 
ribbons veiled, without hiding, her bosom and her shoulders. Her petticoat was lost 
in the shade, but the hand which held the bit of candle, and the arm belonging to it, 
were well rounded and plump, bearing witness to robust health. 

nattered by the notice of which she was the object, on the part of a man with a 
white skin — ^it is of myself I must be understood to speak, for my guide was of the 
colour of a medlar — the beautiful imknown smiled again, and pursing up her mouth 
said, in a falsetto voice : — 

"What are you looking for at this time of the day, my good sir?" 

"A roof to shelter my head, and something to appease my hunger," I replied, 
in my natural voice. As the woman was on the point of assuring me I should find 
them with her, and better than elsewhere, I looked at Nor Medina, who, since 'we 
crossed the Huilcamayo, had not opened his lip& His expression was perfectly for- 
bidding, and his gray bushy eyebrows appeared to be drawn closer together than 
ordinary. I had scarcely realized my astonishment, when my attention was caiigbt 
by a whispering and laughing at the doors of the neighbouring houses, apparently 
caused by my colloquy with the woman in the white llicUa. 

Without stopping to think of anything sinister in these sounds, I dismounted, and 
at the same instant a voice, whose clear ring revealed one of the fair sex, pronoimced 
distinctly these strange words: — 

"Don't shear them too close, Templadora." 



142 



PERU. 



"Pack of pickpockets!" murmured the beautiful unknown, to whom probably this 
recommendation was addressed. 

"What does that mean?" I asked, looking first at my intended hostess, and then at 
Nor Medina, whose two eyebrows were knitted into one. 

"It means," replied the woman, "that I have bad neighbours, who wish to take 
the bread out of my mouth, under the pretext that I do not belong to the country. 
But come in, my good sir," she added immediately, with her benevolent smile. 

"Do not enter, sir!" Nor Medina said, impressively; "and you," he added, looking 




TEMPLADOBA— A HU AKMIP ANPA YEUN AC U NA OF ACOPIA. 



severely at the woman, "go to a hundred thousand devils; we are honest travellers, and 
want nothing to do with such chuchumecas as you." 

These words were hardly pronounced when, like a formula of exorcism which 
breaks some dark enchantment, they re-established the situation in clear daylight. 
The beautiful unknown let loose her tongue, blew out the candle, and shut the door in 
our faces. It was some seconds before I recovered my self-possession. 

"What!" I said at last to Nor Medina, "that woman with her hair so well dressed, 
and such a pleasant smile, was . . ." 

"Yes, sir," he replied, without giving me time to finish the sentence. "This was a 
snare set by Satan." 

"To what dangers is a traveller not exposed!" I murmured to myself; and while 
thankful to God for the visible protection he had afforded me in these circumstances, 
I remarked that night had fallen, and that a most depressing solitude reigned in 
Acopia. My guide had recommenced the search, and I followed him, reflecting on the 
probability that virtue would have to go supperless to bed, and that its bed would 
perhaps be on the hard pavement of the street. An exclamation from Nor Medina 
disturbed my reflections. He had discovered a chicheria, through the half-open door 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 143 

of which two fat, greasy-looking women might be seen squatted before a jar making 
their chicha boil by means of bunches of straw, which one twisted and the other 
put on the fire. The back-ground of the scene, and most of the accessories, were 
hidden from view by the smoke. 

"If you think good, we will pass the night here," said my guide. 

The place had a suspicious look, but the night was getting colder and colder, and 
hesitation would have been ridiculous. I therefore nodded my approbation, and 
springing from my mule, bravely entered the cabaret. At the rattle of my clumsy 
Chilian spurs a number of guinea-pigs, that had been attracted to the hearth by the 
light and warmth of the fire, scattered on every side with squeaks of terror. The 
chicheras, a little surprised by my sudden appearance, paused in their work for a 
moment and inquired what had brought us there at such an hour. A few words was 
sufficient to explain and settle with the.m the price of a supper and bed. For four 
reals, which I paid in advance, they consented to give up to us a corner of their hovel, 
and to prepare some kind of repast for us. Besides this, they pointed out to Nor 
Medina an inclosure in the neighbourhood where our beasts would find, in default of 
forage, companions of their own species. Then, judging by our wearied looks that we 
were dying of starvation, the good women hastened to fill a pot with water, into which 
they threw the various ingredients which compose a Peruvian chup6 in the Cordillera. 
To make it boil the quicker, I seated myself by the fire, which I fed with handfuls of 
straw, handed to me by the two ladies in turn. The frankness of my manner won 
their confidence, and in ten minutes I knew that they were widows; the one named 
Bibiana, the other Maria Salom^; that they had no property and no income whatever, 
but gained their living by making chicha, which they sold to the inhabitants of Acopia, 
and to the p^ons of the neighbouring estancias. For my part, not to remain in their 
debt, I related the various incidents of my entrance into the village, from the episode 
of the tarts to the compromising hospitality which had been offered to me by a woman 
of the name of Templadora. 

" Santissima Virgen!" exclaimed Bibiana, making the sign of the cross and kissing 
her thumb, "you have spoken to that heathen, come from, we know not whence?" 

"My good woman," said I, "what could I do, being a stranger and knowing 
no one? At first sight that woman seemed to me a Christian, and a good Catholic." 

"So Catholic," added Maria Salom^, "that if I were governor, or only alcalde, she 
should not be in Acopia another twenty-four hours; such creatures are the disgrace of 
our sex." 

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. Evidently the poor woman flattered 
herself That sex of which she spoke was as difficult to decipher in her countenance 
as a hieroglyphic cartouche of the time of Thothmosis. "After all," I said to myself, 
"the form alters, but the nature remains; beauty fades, the back becomes rounded, 
the limbs bowed, but the heart, like the gillyflower among ruins, continues to flourish 
and bloom when all is dead around it. Who can say that this chichera, with the 
figure of a hippopotamus, has not hidden, under the layer of fat which envelops 
it, the heart of a young girl, full of illusions, of tenderness, and of love . . ." 



144 PERU. 

While I mused thus, the broth boiled with fury. In an instant Bibiana, having 
tasted it, announced that it was cooked to a nicety, and took the pot from the fire. 
I seated myself on the ground, my guide sat down opposite me, and then with the 
pottage between our knees, and with the wooden spoon which Bibiana had handed 
to each of us, after wiping it with her petticoat, we scrimmaged our best. 

Our supper being finished, I considered, out of regard for the convenances of 
society, how to fabricate a screen, which dividing in two the common chamber, might 
isolate us completely from our hostesses. Some rags of serge and old dish-clouts that 
they brought me, not without laughing at my modesty, and which I hung upon a line, 
served the purpose. When this was done, I and my guide prepared our beds 
fraternally side by side, and, covered up to the eyes, awaited the moment when 
Morpheus should scatter over us his poppies. Already a languid torpor had paralyzed 
my spirit and my eyes were beginning to close, when two nimble and hairy bodies, 
the contact of which made me shiver, ran across my face. I could feel that each body 
had a tail. A cry of horror brought the widows to my side, and Nor Medina sprang 
up in his bed. 

"There are rats here," I cried. 

"Impossible!" said Nor Medina. 

"Monsieur has taken the guinea-pigs for rats," said one of the women. 

"Has a guinea-pig got a tail?" I asked. 

"Well, no;" said Nor Medina; "but even supposing they were rats," he added, 
"the noise you made has so frightened them, that it is a hundred to one they will 
not return to-night." 

This seemed so reasonable that I lay down again. After a few minutes I felt as 
if a thousand needles had been suddenly thrust into my flesh. As this attack was 
made at the same moment on every part of my body, my two hands were of little 
use in repelling it. Despairing of relief I rolled over on my couch with such cries of 
rage, that Nor Medina awoke again. 

"Monsieur does not sleep well," he said. 

"Can I sleep by merely shutting my eyes?" I answered, "I am devoured by fleas." 

Hearing this, the chicheras began to laugh. "Ah!" said one of them, "the 
gentleman is surprised he should be troubled by fleas; but they treat all alike in 
the Sierra, the rich as well as the poor. The fleas are like death, no one escapes 
them." 

In the frame of mind in which I then was, this aphorism appeared to me so stupid, 
and at the same time it so exasperated me, that I could hardly help addressing some 
rude apostrophe to the woman, who had really made the remark by way of consolation. 
I did, however, restrain myself, and tried to sleep; but only succeeded in doing so 
when the enemy, sufficiently gorged with the purest drops of my blood, ceased his 
attacks. Then I turned over like a log and slept heavily. In the morning when I 
looked into my pocket-mirror, I was startled by the image which presented itself I 
had become quite livid, my eyes were swollen, and my face more tatooed than that of 
Chingacook the Mohican. In contrast with mine, the skin of Nor Medina was as 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 



145 



smooth as velvet, and presented no sign of a puncture. I inferred from this, in spite 
of the woman's remai'k, that men, who are really equal in the presence of death, are 
not so in the sight of fleas, since the infernal beasts, while they devoured me, had 
thought it a duty to spare Tny guide. 

The sun was above the horizon when we thought of recommencing our journey. 
Nor Medina went to seek our mules, and began to saddle them. He was in the act 



Y' '''-W!'-: V''' 




A NIGHT OF TORTURE. 



of equipping mine, when the end of a strap which fastened the girth became unsewn. 
While he borrowed a needle and thread to repair it, I took a turn through the village. 
My evil star, or rather my ignorance of the locality, led me into the street where my 
interview with Templadora had occurred the evening before. I understood well 
enough the smiling and whispering which took place when some of the women, standing 
about the doors of their houses, recognized me again : but, strong in my innocence, I 
walked haughtily by without deigning to notice them. In this mood I found I had 
passed unconsciously beyond the houses of Acopia into the country, if one may so call 
the stretch of hilly soil, strewn with stones and bristling here and there with stunted 
shrubs, over which I was walking. Two lakes, which I saw at a distance, seduced me 
still further. The surface of both was on a level with the ground. No tuft of herbage, 
poor as it was in the locality, flourished on their banks. No feathered fowl gambolled 



19 



140 PERU. 

on their surface; in fine, their motionless waters seemed as if covered with a thin sliin. 
I turned my back upon them and retraced my steps. My guide had finished his task, 
and was beginning to feci surprised by my long absence. We took leave of Bibiana 
and Maria Salomd, whose roars of laughter during the night had very much lowered 
them in my esteem, and were soon far away from their disgusting abode. 

The day commenced under the brightest auspices; the sky was serene, the sun 
shone brilliantly, and the temperature of the air was sufficiently pleasant. Although, as 
yet, we knew not where we should get a dinner, we were not at all alarmed on that 
account. The double aspect of earth and sky sxtfficed for the moment to stay oiir 
stomachs, and their serenity, reacting upon oiir humour, coloured it with si^arkling 
reflections and rainbow hues of light. 

Under the influence of this expansion of our moral nature, we chattered — my guide 
and I — like old friends. He talked trade to me, I talked botany to him. From 
Mercury to Flora the distance is not very great, and in spite of some little incoherence, 
we understood each other perfectly well. We thus got over two leagues almost without 
knoAving it, such a charm had this broken conversation. Then, however, we began to 
feel a little tired, and after a few demonstrative yawns we both ceased talking, and 
continued our way communing with our own thoughts. 

The gaiety of mine was tempered by the reflection that I should never again 
revisit the scenes through which we were passing. We were approaching the Quebrada 
of Cuzco, and I recalled the happy, and already far-off" time, when I had passed 
through it for the first time in the midst of a merry company. My companions were 
muleteers who travelled by short stages. We had met about 200 miles from Acopia 
between Putina and Betanzos, and, mutually pleased with each other, had kept 
together. A few bottles of tafia, with which I paid my footing, had won the hearts of 
my new friends. During the seventeen days that our journey lasted, they habitually 
called me patron; an honorary title which flattered my vanity, and was worth a second 
pourboire to them when Ave parted. Singing, laughing, and swearing, we followed the 
direction of the chain of Crucero, white with hoar-frost from the top to the base during 
the whole year. What wicked jests, what repartee we exchanged during those 
seventeen days' march! what long nights passed side by side in the midst of the snows 
of the Sierra ! It was our custom to halt at sunset, when we made a fire of dry crottin, 
placed our camp-kettle over it, and prepared a sujDper of bean-soup or potatoes cooked 
with soft cheese. When the hour of rest arrived, my companions would pack up 
their luggage so as to form with it the three walls of a hut; three sticks, placed across, 
supported the roof, and under this convenient, though confined shelter, for it only 
covered my head and chest, I crept on all fours. In the twinkling of an eye I was 
asleep. 

While I slept, on one of these occasions, the fall of the barometer indicated a 
storm; the wind roared, the thunder rolled, the lightnings flashed; heaven, as we read 
in Scripture, opened its cataracts. I dreamed of idyllic scenes, of green fields, and 
pleasant streams. On awaking in the morning, I found my legs buried under a foot of 
snow, a spotless eider-down as warm as that from the birds' breast. This pleasant life 





ID 



a 

H 

m 



n 



Q 



acopia to cuzco. 



149 



came to an end. We reached Tungasuca, and took the road to Cuzco, through the 
Quebrada of that name. There unexpected pleasures awaited me. It was the end of 
December; summer had commenced in the Cordillera. On all sides the beautiful 
Liliacese opened their painted blossoms. Youth is vain and presumptuous ; I thought at 
the time that the Flora of the Entre-Sierra had coquettishly displayed her sweetest 
treasures to captivate my fancy : at every step a vegetable marvel drew from me a cry 




A BED-CHAMBER IN THE CORDILLERA. 



of enthusiasm; the muleteers, not comprehending my phytological ecstasy, at first 
thought me a little cracked, but I explained the matter to them; and as my passion 
for the flowers of their country flattered their national amour-propre, one emulated 
another in collecting them for me, and bringing them in armfuls. Between Andajes and 
Urcos I thus accumulated some beautiful specimens. I found all the known species, 
and added a few new ones to the catalogue of the learned. This magnificent herbal, 
which should have insured my immortality, was eaten by one of our mules between 

IHuaro and Oropesa. I nearly went out of my mind ; but consoled myself with the reflec- 
tion, that as nature, symbolized by the phoenix, springs rejuvenescent from her ashes, the 
plants I had lost would grow again the next year. Then eight years passed away. Every 
year when spring gave place to summer, wherever I might find myself, a sudden restless- 
ness, a desire for change, possessed me. I wished that I were a bird, that I might take 



150 



PERU. 



wing and alight in the midst of these cerros, to collect again my harvest of fragrance. 
The thing was always impossible. 

Some of my readers, puzzled by this prelude, may perhaps conceive the idea of 
unrolling the map of America, or of searching in the reports of official travellers, to 
seek for some information about this Quebrada of Cuzco. Let me hasten to inform 




ALSTRCEMERIAS OP THE QUEBRADA OP OUZOO. 



them that maps and reports are alike silent upon the subject — a regretable omission 
which it is easy, however, to repaii*. 

The Quebrada of Cuzco, commonly called by the Indians the Atunquebrada (the 
Grand Quebrada), is a winding gorge formed by the approximation of a double chain 
of cerros which take their rise between Acopia and Andajes, trending from south- 
south-east to north-north-west, over an area of about forty-five miles in length, by 
a breadth varying from 50 to 500 yards. Broken here and there by a village, a 
lake, or a curve of the river, this gorge recommences further on, so that it resembles 
the divided parts of a serpent's body that are said to rejoin each other. In the 
neighbourhood of Oropesa it suddenly expands in breadth, and its two parallel chains, 
after having described a gentle curve in the north-west and south-east, approach 
again some twelve miles further on, thus forming a circular rampart in the plain, at 
the bottom of which is seated the city of Cuzco. Such is pretty nearly the orographic 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 



163 



tracing of this gorge, which, during its long course, often varies its aspect and very 
frequently changes its name. 

Added to its remarkable configuration, the Quebrada of Cuzco enjoys a temperature 
relatively mild, since in the summer it rises as high as from 64° to 68° Fahrenheit. At 
this period the melting of the snows in the Cordillera gives rise to small rivers which run 
through the gorge, watering and fertilizing it for a month or two. All these streams 
flow noiselessly into the Huilcamayo, a thousand trickling rivulets furrow the flanks 
of the cerros, reanimating a thousand charming species of vegetation, while the larvae 
and chrysalises which have slept for a year in their obscure cocoons are transformed. 




VILLAGE OF ANDAJE8 IN THE QUEBKADA OF CUZCO. 




by the heat and humidity combined, into beautiful insects and butterflies radiant 
with colour. The freshness of the soil and the porousness of the rock give to the 
grasses, mosses, and lichens which cover them a moist and velvety lustre. All nature 
is rejuvenescent during this delicious season. Sparrows, blackbirds, turtle-doves 
profit by it to contract their transitory nuptials ; they pursue each other on the wing, 
entice each other with eye and beak, declare their affection by means of chirrupings, 
whistlings, and cooings, and end by building their nests in the branches. 

The reader may comprehend from this sketch in chalks of the Quebrada of Cuzco 
that its memory was dear to me. I had hurried forward, in fact, to behold again 
one by one the places where I had so often halted Avith the muleteers of Azangaro — 
here to climb the flank of a hill and collect a charming flower; there to kindle a 
fire of dried sticks and prepare the potatoes for our repast; further on, to pitch our 
camp, unsaddle the mules, and set up my tent. I say tent merely for the sound 
of the thing, to round up my sentence — this tent, as the reader knows, being nothing 
more than a pile of packages. 

To return : more than an hour had passed since our entrance into the Quebrada, 
and not only had I failed to discover any of the remembered sites, but I had sought 
in vain for certain plants with which I was familiar, and which I knew should have 
grown in such and such places. Already we were approaching the village of Andajes, 



80 



154 



PERU. 



and a few blackened shrubs with straggling branches, and destitute of foliage, withered 
grasses, yellow mosses, and the soil cracked by drought, were all the details I could recall. 
Naturally I thought that after eight years' absence my memory had served me badly, 
and that we had not yet reached the fertile part of the Quebrada. I contented myself 




THE CHINQANA OR CAVE OF QQUEROHUASI. 



with this idea till we reached Andajes, where we pulled up to buy some coarse bread 
and morcillas — local puddings made of a mixture of lard and sheep's blood, with 
underground-nuts,^ pimento, balsam, and cinnamon. 

Andajes is a village of forty hearths, which recommends itself to the attention 
of statisticians by its school, open to young men, and its pulperia — a liquor, candle, 
and grocery store — where we bought our provisions. Andajes has, besides, its legend 

^ Pistaches-de-terre, called mani by the inhabitants ; the Arachis hypogaea of botanists ; called also the earth-pea 
and underground-nut. They are in pods, which, as they enlarge, bury themselves under the surface of the soil. — Tr. 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 



155 



and its dungeon, like one of Mrs. Kadcliffe's castles. In front of the village, on 
the right bank of the Huilcamayo, and on the flank of the cerro Qquerohuasi, there 
is a ckingana, a deep and winding conduit, where the inhabitants of the country 
believe that at the period of the Conquest the Indians concealed immense treasures 
to preserve them from the Spaniards. Allured by this tradition, many have searched 
for these treasures, without succeeding in discovering them. The last of the adventurers 
— a colonist from Cadiz, named Vidagura — penetrated to the end of the chingana, 
which, it is said, was very narrow. While he was busy examining the walls of the 
conduit, an enormous stone fell from the roof and closed the opening, so that the 
poor fellow was caught as in a trap. 




QUAERr OF THE PERIOD OF THE IN0A8. 



About three-quarters of a mile north-north-west of Andajes, on the left bank 
of the Huilcamayo, and in the neighbourhood of the little lagune of Santa Lucia, 
the Quebrada of Cuzco slopes away suddenly, and exposes to view in the midst of 
the cerros a pile of enormous stones perfectly rectangular and worked to remarkably 
perfect edges. The mountain is riddled with the square excavations from which these 
blocks have been taken; in the prodigious mass of which an imaginative traveller 
might easily picture to himself the stones of some unknown Nineveh, or the ruins of 
a Memphis of which no one had ever dreamed. Massive portals, enormous propylsea, 
lofty columns, gaping mouths of caverns, black orifices of underground passages, nothing 
is wanting to convert it into a city of the good old time like that of Ollanta-Tanipu. 
It is only necessary that an arch geological memoir should be rashly addressed by 
some traveller to the third class of the French Institute. Let us. however, hasten 
to prevent any mistake, by explaining that our supposed city is nothing but a quarry 
of the time of the Gentilidad, and our ruins nothing more than the stones in the 
extraction of which from the cerros the revolted people had been condemned to 



156 PERU. 

work by the Incas, as were the Athenian captives of old at the Latomiae of 
Syracuse. 

The ancient quarry was soon left behind us. While trotting along and taking 
a bite now at my loaf and now at my pistachio -pudding, I examined attentively the 
landscape, questioning every spot of ground, every stone, every shrub in the march 
past, if they were not those I had known in the old days. As this research kept 
me continually raising, lowering, or turning my head. Nor Medina, surprised by my 
manner, asked if I had lost anything. 

" I have lost all trace of my recollections," I replied. From the peculiar way 
in which the man looked at me, I concluded that if he had heard, he had not under- 
stood what I had said. To render it more intelligible, I added, " I am looking for 
some plants which I cannot find." 

" Vaya pues!" said he, laughing heartily. "Why, there are plants enough, if 
monsieur will take the trouble to look at them." Then he pointed to clumps of 
shrivelled leaves, yellow peduncles, and withered stalks, which pretended to grow 
at the side of the road and on the slopes. "That," said he, "is the liuaranhuay, 
the roots of which serve the Indians of the heights for firing; that is the puquincha, 
with the flowers of which the women dye their Uicllas and their petticoats yellow. 
Here is the parsehuayta, from which they obtain a violet colour; and there the ayrampu, 
which gives them a pink. That plant at the foot of the rock is a niarjil, which cures 
fever ; and that other further on is the pilli, which is good for a cough. Here is the 
amanca'es, which the Spaniards call the "Lily of the Incas ;"^ and the queratica, called 
by them the " Saliva of Our Lady." See here, too, the calahuala, the huallma, and 
the huanchaca, to say nothing of the chichipa, good for flavouring soups and broths, 
and the sacharapacay , which is a capital medicine for bile." 

I dismounted to examine more closely the vegetable mummies which my guide 
called plants. In a few minutes I was able to recognize the family, the genera, and 
the species to which each of them had belonged; I say had, because these shapeless 
blossoms and discoloured petals no more resembled the brilliant flowers which I had 
admired than a corpse eaten by worms resembles the woman who has taken one's 
heart suddenly captive. 

The sight of this vegetable charnel-house, where so many delicate, charming, per- 
fumed beauties had rotted pell-mell, had sobered my usually buoyant humour. Gloomy 
visions passed and repassed before my mind's eye. After a moment's silence my 
guide remarked in a loud tone, that I seemed sad; "What is monsieur dreaming of?" 
he asked. 

" I am dreaming," I replied, " of the brevity of existence and the nothingness of 
all things. Eight years ago, come St. Sylvester, I passed this spot for the first time. 
I was young, ardent, and enthusiastic; all nature seemed to smile upon me. The 
streams ran, the birds sang, the flowers bloomed as if to salute me on my journey. 

' The botanists who have succeeded to Ruiz aud Pavon, and the horticulturists who have simply followed their 
example, have given the name of " Lily of the Incas" to several varieties of Alstrcemeria, originally from Peru 
and Chili. They are wrong, however. The only Liliaceee which the Peruvians call "Lily of the Incas," is, as we have 
before explained, the Narcissus amaneaes. 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 



157 



Now in these same scenes she regards me with sullen looks. The streams have dwindled 
to a drop of water, the birds have talcen flight, and the flowers with all their beautiful 
tints look like tinder. ... gioventu, primavera della vita!" 

These philosophical reflections were such as one should politely hear and leave 
unanswered; but Nor Medina thought proper to reply — 

"From all that monsieur has said, I only understand one thing: that he was 
journeying here in the summer time, when it is not surprising there should have 
been water, and birds, and flowers; while now that we are passing here in July, 





QUIQUIJANA, THE "MOST FAITHFUL" CITY. 

that is to say in winter, it ought not to astonish him that there is nothing of the 
kind." 

I looked at my guide out of the corner of my eye. " After all," I said to myself, 
"this devil of a man has sense enough, and even exactness of observation: only, 
where are the reason and exactitude lodged?" From that hour Nor Medina grew 
considerably in my esteem. I did not, however, let him perceive that I set more 
value upon him, as this would have given him a too advantageous idea of himself, 
and by-and-by perhaps had caused him to sin by encouraging pride. 

Sufficiently refreshed by the lunch we ate on the way, we passed through without 
stopping at the town of Quiquijana, called in the Peruvian charts the "Most Faithful." 
This Hispano- American fashion of honouring cities by prefixing some sounding epithet 



168 PERU. 

to their names would not be in such bad taste were it not abused. If a village, 
for example, shows so much sympathy for some candidate to the presidency as to 
aid his pretensions by the secret gift of a thousand piastres, the place is sure to 
be recompensed with some such title as the Faithful, the Heroic, or the Well-deserving. 
The political existence of the successful candidate may be as short-lived as the roses ; 
the village he has ennobled keeps the crown of the causeway nevertheless. This 
is the evil side of the custom. When in matters of caprice, of fashion, or of transient 
prepossession, the cause ceases, the effect ought to cease also^ — ask the fair sex of 
Peru if it be not so — and be it remembered, the nomination of a president never 
was anything but an affair of fashion. 

Quiquijana, the "Most Faithful," is nothing but a jumble of houses, a little 
pretentious, a little the effect of accident. The roofs of ftve or six of them have 
bright red tiles; the others are modestly thatched. The landscape in which these 
houses are framed is picturesque enough, with its round-backed mountains and its 
fine contrasts of shade and light. Here and there are cultivated patches, orchards 
surrounded with walls higher than the apples, cherries, and quinces — the only fruit- 
trees found in the country — which enliven while they complete the physiognomy of 
the picture. The Huilcamayo^ flows through the town and divides it into two parts, 
which are connected by a stone bridge built only a few years ago. 

A detail which I had not noticed before, but with which I was struck on passing 
through Quiquijana on this occasion, is the breadth of the river-bed. Just now 
it was dry, and was more plentifully strewn with stones than the sky with stars. Of 
the proud river itself, so irrepressibly boisterous in the summer, there remained only 
a rippling stream, which ran noiselessly under the central arch of the bridge, laving 
with its crystalline water the pebbles of black porphyry. I pulled up to examine 
the matter more leisurely; the impression it made, and which returns at this moment, 
was one of astonishment bordering on incredulity. I asked myself how so small a 
river could swell into so vast a space and roll in its course such stones as I there saw. 
The ways of God are inscrutable ! 

The country situated to the north of Quiquijana is fertile and well cultivated. 
Lucerne, or Spanish trefoil, grows in the low bottoms; maize and wheat flourish on 
the slopes; potatoes occupy the plateaux; barley and the Chenopodium Quinoa grow in 
higher regions still. The whole landscape as far as Urcos, twelve miles distant, has 
the creditable and patriarchal look of a well-to-do farmer; there is nothing angular 
or violent in its contours, nothing sharp or decided in its blending shades. It is dull, 
calm, and satisfactory. 

The road we were following is marked by soft undulations, stretches of sand 
alternating with pretty bits of fresh-looking sward and clumps of grasses which, in 

* After leaving Quiquijana the Huiloamayo takes the name of the Rio de Quiquijana, which it retains as far 
as Urcos, where it assumes the name of that village. The last French traveller who passed through this country before 
the author's visit, made a mistake in calling this portion of the river the Urubamba, even at a distance of eighty miles 
from that town. It is awkward enough that the rivers of Peru should assume the names of the towns by which they 
flow, without receiving them so long in advance. But, in fact, before taking the name of the river of Urubamba, 
the Iliiilciimayo, after leaving Quiquijana, bears in succession six different names. 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 



159 



the eyes of the ants, may be virgin forests. The temperature, becoming milder as 
we advance, seems to invite the traveller to dismount, throw aside hat, coat, and shoes, 
and walk barefoot, smoking a cigar, on the tender grass of the roadside. Agreeably 
occupied by all that surrounds him he is insensible to fatigue, and forgets the length 
of the road he is traversing. Before he is aware of it, he finds himself at Urcos. 

Urcos is the chief place in the province of Quispicanchi. It is a large village, built 
on an eminence, the houses of which leave much to be desired both in regard to their 
architectural appearance and their cleanliness. It is nevertheless distinguished for 
two remarkable possessions — its lagune and its valley. Its lagune, called the Mokina, 
spreads its waters at the bottom of the eminence on which the village is situated. 





THE VILLAGE OP UROOS AND THE MOHINA LAGUNE. 



The communication between it and the village is by a zigzag path traced out rather 
than excavated in the wall of the rock, — which on this side is perpendicular, and about 
900 feet high. 

The Mohina, half surrounded by high mountains, is about three miles in circuit. 
Its water is at once brackish and bitter. Its depth varies from 90 to 130 feet. 
Kushes, reeds, and here and there a few stunted shrubs, impart a look of verdure 
to its borders. A few water-fowl, consisting of red-teal, grebes, and huananas — large 
ducks with brown plumage — disport themselves on its surface. In the daytime, when 
the sky is serene, and the sleeping lagune wears a golden sheen in the sun's light, the 
effect is ravishing. At night, when all is calm, and the silver light of the moon is 
broken by dark shadows cast from the neighbouring mountains, it is more ravishing 
still. 

There is a tradition, which the European traveller to whom it is recited never fails 
to interpolate in his narrative, that this lake contains the chain of gold which the 
twelfth Inca, Huayna Capac, caused to be made when the hair of his eldest son Inti- 



160 



PERU. 



Cusi Huallpa {alias Huascar) was first cut. This specimen of goldsmith's work, which 
one might suppose to be a simple neck-chain, was, on the contrary, of the size of a 
ship's cable, and 800 yards long. It served to encircle the great square of Cuzco 
during the f^tes of the equinox, Raymi and Cittua. On the arrival of the Spaniards, 
the Indians, it is reported, threw their colossal bit of jewelry into the lake to save it 
from the cupidity of the conquerors. They, however, heard of this artifice, and sent a 
detachment of pioneers to recover the treasure by emptying the lake. Canals were 
dug below the level of its bed. Forty Spaniards and two hundred Indians laboured at 
the work for three months. But Avhether it was that the lake was inexhaustible, or 
that the story of the chain was fabulous, the conquerors had only their labour for 
their pains. The traces which still remain of their canals have suggested to certain 
savans of the country, anxious to show their sagacity, that the Mohina was an artificial 
lake made by the Incas, and that its waters had been brought from a distance.^ 

The so-called valley of Urcos is a space of about 8000 square yards, surrounded 
with mountains, and rendered comparatively fertile by the mildness of the temperature 
and the neighbourhood of the river. Besides vegetable crops {leguvies), they harvest 
maize and wheat. Apples, pears, and strawberries ripen, but do not become sweet, 
nor acquire any relish or smell. The people of the country, who are vegetarians and 
not hard to please, cheerfully accommodate themselves to the circumstances, but 
Europeans and inhabitants of the south cannot help making an ugly grimace when they 
bite these fruits. 

To the taxidermist, the valley of Urcos has nothing to offer in the shape of birds, 
except the carrion -vulture {Sarcoramphus urubu), a subject little interesting, and 
unsavoury besides; a Conirostre, with black and white plumage, called by the Indians 
choclopococho,^ which only makes its appearance when the wheat is ripe, and disappears 
when the harvest is gathered in; a species of tarin (the Citrinella) ; a crested sparrow; 
three varieties of turtle-doves ; a blackbird with orange-coloured feet {chihuanco) ; and 
the swallow with a white rump that we have seen flying in the neighbourhood of 
Arequipa. 

To the entomologist who is strong enough to lift or displace the great stones which 
are scattered over the country, the environs of Urcos off"er a few millepedes (a species 
of centipede, of which the Julus is the type) ; some crustacean isopods (woodlice) ; some 
Mygales (mining-spiders) ; a few beetles of the Carahidoe and Cicindelidce families 
(sparklers); to say nothing of those hexapodal Apterce of the parasitic and sucking 
genera which, under the name of fleas, &c., lay their eggs indiff'erently in the thatch 
of the houses and the bodies of the indigenes. 

If from the earth and the air we pass to the liquid element, as fine writers say, we 
shall not find in the waters of the Huilcamayo-Quiquijana more than two fishes, of 
the family of the Siluridce, the bagre and the suchi, whose length does not exceed 

' Such an explanation might have been admissible in a part of Peru where water was wanting to irrigate the lands. 
But the Huilcamayo flowed below the village of Urcos in the time of the Incas as in our days, and the immediate neigh- 
bourhood of that river rendered useless the creation of an artificial lake. 

* Literally, the precursor of the maize, or who announces the maturity of the maize : from aara-choclo (spike of maize), 
and poco-chanqui (one who announces). 



I 



six inches. Sometimes an otter, with a skin as black as jet, timidly shows his nose 
between the rocks on either side of the river, but so rarely that the inhabitants of the 
country, partly on that account and partly from their mania for ennobling everything, 
have surnamed the animal the river-lion (mapu-puma). The flesh of this lion, according 
to tradition, is as delicate as that of the fishes on which it feeds. I say tradition, 
because out of more than a hundred individuals whom I have questioned about the 
mayu-puma, not one had tasted its flesh, but had heard his father speak of it, who 
probably got the information from his grandfather. 

From the village of Urcos we descended towards that of Huaro by a gentle slope. 
The road is broad and conveniently smooth. On the right and left extend cultivated 
fields, interrupted now and then by great barren spaces. Cerros of a reddish hue, with 
bare summits and a clothing of verdure at their base, form the framework of this 
picture, which the people of the country qualify as vistoso — beautiful to behold. 

Huaro is situated a little more than a mile (two kilos.) from Urcos, and on the 
left of the road. It is a fair-sized but dull village, far from well built. The moun- 
tains, very lofty here, and disposed in a semicircle, throw a grayish shadow over the 
locality, so that its gardens and orchards have the soft and undecided hues of an 
aqua-tint drawing, and consequently look rather strange. Besides this voluptuous 
half-light, which is peculiar to it, Huaro possesses a square plaza, a few houses built 
of stone, and many more mud ranches. Its church, comparatively a large one, is 
remarkable for the weather- cock on one of its towers. Its material is a yellow copper; 
its spindle is triumphantly planted on a ball, which sparkles brilliantly in the sun, 
thanks to the weekly furbishing to which it is subjected by the bell-ringer. The organ 
of Huaro is renowned for its power and the number of its stops. It is even asserted 
by amateurs of the country, that it excels the organ of Yauri in the province of Canas.' 
I can give no opinion on the subject myself, not having heard either of them. They 
are rarely played, as there are but few organists in the country. 

Huaro possesses two manufactories of bayetas and bayetons, coarse cloths, similar 
to the woollen stuff" which French manufacturers technically call tibaude. Nothing 
more poverty-stricken can be imagined than the sheds where these tissues are made 
by work-people of both sexes; nor anything more primitive than their looms. The 
first consist of four ruinous-looking walls and a roof of thatch, where the industrious 
Arachne sets an example to artizans by weaving her nets to catch flies; the second are 
nothing more than crossed sticks tied together by simple threads. 

The province of Quispicanchi, where learning is somewhat honoured, contains no 
fewer than seven schools; among wliich that of Huaro is the most celebrated. One 
might even with some reason call it the university of Quispicanchi, because it is the 
only school in that province where the scholars are taught, in addition to the fables of 
Yriarte and the Spanish grammar, to decline the substantives homo, mulier, and cornu,- 
in the rudiments. 

Beyond Huaro, the Quebrada of Cuzco becomes broader and broader. We 

' It is to tlie Jesuits tliat the greater number of the cities of Peru, and some villages in the Sierra, are indebted for 
tlm remarkable organs we find in their churches. 

^•r,L. I. 21 



162 PERU. 

travelled over a road, or rather a smooth and broad footpath, which Nature, the only 
road-maker in Peru, had kept in her best possible order, notwithstanding the frequency 
of the heavy rains and the displacements of earth which they occasioned. About nine 
miles of road separate Huaro from Andahuaylillas, a village which has nothing re- 
markable to show in the summer, except the pools of water and the marshes left by 
the rains of winter. This village, where the sub-prefect of Quispicanchi has his 
residence, instead of living, as he ought to do, at Urcos, the chief place of his province, 
is called a city in the official calendars. To those who feel astonished at the substitution 
of such a title, we must explain that it would be derogatory to the dignity of a sub- 
prefect to live in a village. From consideration for the rank of this functionary, 
therefore, the statisticians of the country have raised to the rank of a city the village in 
which he has chosen to reside, not from any love of the picturesque, but to look after a 
farm which he possesses there. 

Andahuaylillas, situated at the base of the cerros on ground gently sloping to the 
south-east, enjoys at all times a sufficiently agreeable temperature. Maize, wheat, 
and green crops grow very well, and fruit-trees make a great show of flowers. As 
to the quality of their fruit, it is like that of all the orchards between Quiquijana 
and Cuzco ; that is to say, the best of it is worthless. In vain the arborists of 
the country, enraged to see their produce so depreciated by strangers, prune, and 
dig, and remove the insects from the trees, with the view of obtaining better results. 
The Sun-god, to punish these indigenes for their apostasy, refuses to sweeten their 
apples and pears, and scarcely consents to give them a touch of colour. Such is, at 
least we believe so, the only way of accounting for the acidity of the fruits in the 
Quebrada of Cuzco. 

The same statisticians who, out of consideration for a sub-prefect, have given the 
name of a city to the village of Andahuaylillas, have given the name of a valley to 
the arable lands which surround it. That valley, to preserve its fine-sounding title, 
changes its name three miles further on; and instead of the valley of Andahuaylillas, 
which it was, becomes the valley of Lucre. The traveller who, on the faith of a 
Peruvian calendar, should look for a valley among these patches of clover and corn, 
would be surprised to find nothing even approaching that character. The place is 
simply a farm-stead, around which are grouped, in beautiful disorder, pens for cattle 
and hovels for peasants. Here they grow with success maize, wheat, and green crops ; 
and here they weave their bayeta and their bayeton, to the great disgust of Huaro, with 
whose industry, in so near a neighbourhood, it interferes a little. We regret very 
much that we have nothing more, and especially that we have nothing better, to say of 
the place. 

To the valley of Lucre, which is adorned, without being improved in a sanitary 
sense, by a muddy little lake, succeeds on the right of the great road the village of 
Oropesa. Oropesa, dear to Ceres, is renowned sixty miles round for its cornfields, and 
its little loaves made with lard, with which, from time immemorial, it has every morning 
supplied the market of Cuzco. It is the Odessa of the Quebrada. The wheat of 
Oropesa is at once of superior quality and of a good yield. 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 



163 



Besides its reputation for wheat, Oropesa enjoys a title of honour. It figures in 
the Peruvian maps as "the Heroic." This title was given to it after an engagement 
which took place on the neighbouring heights some five-and-twenty years ago. Muse 
of the Epopee, divine Clio, aid me to relate this feat of arms! — Two generals of the 
country contended for the presidential chair, each supported by a battalion of from 
five to six hundred men. The opposing forces, after having been in search of each 
other for a month, met one morning, ensign, colours, and music at their head, on the 
heights of Oropesa. The shock was terrible and the struggle fearful. "Flesh of wolf, 




'THE HEBOIO TOWN." 




tooth of dog," says Father Mathieu. Not only did the soldiers of the two camps tear 
each other with rage, but the rabonas, savage vivandieres, whom every foot -soldier 
has to follow him in the character of sweetheart, cook, and beast of burden, clawed 
at each other's hair, biting and scratching until their petticoats were reduced to a 
bundle of rags. In the heat of the engagement, and while the victory was in suspense, 
each of the pretenders, seized with a sudden panic, judging the battle to be lost and 
his cause hopeiless, turned bridle and fled from the field, the one north, the other south, 
without any other escort than a faithful aide-de-camp with a remount. 

While these warriors devoured space in their headlong flight, victory declared for 
one of the two armies, whose chief was instantly pursued by some of his officers to 
announce that he had gained the battle. The conqueror refused to believe the tidings, 
fearing to be taken in some snare; at length, however, he was sufiiciently convinced to 
turn back, and seeing no signs of his competitor on the field, but the soldiers of the 
two armies peaceably playing at dice together, he yielded to the evidence of his senses. 
To perpetuate the memory of this feat of arms, the village of Oropesa received the title 
of the "Heroic Town," which it continues to bear at the present time. If I do not 
write in so many letters the names of the pretenders, as I have a perfect right to do. 



ll!4 PERU. 

since they belong to liistoiy and are in every Peruvian's month, it is because these 
pretenders have sufficiently expiated, in the obscurity of their present position, the 
pride of their ancient triumphs. They have both, like Cincinnatus, returned to the 
plough, — both cultivate, in a humble way, a few potatoes and beans. Let us respect 
their humility and their incognito. 

When the traveller has seen at Oropesa its cornfields, its stunted misshapen 
trees, and its tiled and thatched houses; when he has looked up, on the right of the 
village, a ruin of fine pink-coloured sandstone, which dates from the time of the first 




^ 



A SOLDIKK OP THE 8IKHBA AND HIS KABONA OR VIVANDIEBE. 

Incas — a ruin which modern savants are obstinately bent on taking for the gate of an 
edifice, but which is nothing more than the arch of an aqueduct, — he may continue his 
journey. Oropesa is the frontier line which separates the province of Quispicanchi from 
that of Cuzco. After walking a few steps northward, we are in the province which 
the people in the time of the Incas held to be sacred. We tread on the classic ground 
of Inti-Churi, whom in everyday language we call the Sun. 

As the Quebrada widened more and more — a certain sign that we were approaching 
Cuzco — Nor Medina became more and more chatty and communicative. His gaiety, 
for a long time restrained by the various incidents of the journey, the break-neck 
ground, the storms, the disagreeable lodgings, the annoyance of having to obey when he 
wished to command, and the uncertainty of knowing whether the mules which he had 
lent me would arrive safe and sound, set free by his deliverance from these apprehen- 
sions, asserted itself in a deluge of words, intermixed with bursts of laughter and merry 
conceits. I made a study of the man while hstening to his chatter. Apart fi^om his 
ticklish sensibility, and his insane idea that he was travelling for his own pleasure, and 
not for mine — a notion which I had always done my best to combat — there Avas 
no more honest or worthy creature than Nor Medina, and I never so thoroughly 



ALU PI A TO CUZCO. 105 

appreciated his virtues and his faults than at the moment when 1 was about to pai t 
from him for ever. Since our departure from Oropesa his conversation had been quite 
poetical, referring to the pleasures of returning home, the joy of seeing again a beloved 
wife, of embracing the dear children, of shaking hands with friends, and of enjoying 
their company for an hour or two in the cabarets. Having neither wife nor children, 
possessing no friend in the country, and doubting the cabarets, both on account of the 
liquor they supply and the vermin that swarm in them, the little pleasures which 
Nor Medina passed before my eyes like the painted slides of a magic lantern, had 
but little interest for me, and I let him run on at his pleasure without hazarding a 
remark. Judging the matter pretty correctly, he turned the conversation on myself, 
telling me of the tertulias (evening-parties), the balls, banquets, and cavalcades which 
awaited me at Cuzco. When he had done enumerating the pleasures that the old 
City of the Sun had to offer to the visitor, I informed him that I did not calculate on 
I'emaining any longer at Cuzco than might be necessary to make some purchases 
and do up a few packages, but should at once leave, with a guide, for one of the three 
valleys of Lares, Occobamba, or Santa Ana, I did not yet know which; and that from 
thence I should push on into the interior of the country. 

"Where then is monsieur going?" he asked, with an astonished air. 

"Always forward!" 

"One might go a long journey that way," he said, "only monsieur does not know 
that beyond the Cordillera he will find heathen — Chunchos we call them — and these 
savages will pierce him with ari'ows like St. Sebastian." 

"Nonsense," I said; "I will win their hearts in the manner of Orpheus, and the 
bows and arrows will fall from their hands." 

" Valgame Dios! and monsieur will do that?" 

"I will do a little music. We know the savage is sensible to harmony, and to 
develop that sensibility to my profit, I will take care to buy at Cuzco, in the market of 
Baratillo, an accordion and a Jews'-harp." 

Nor Medina looked at me, du haul en has, with a singular air. Then, shaking his 
head : — 

"Oh senor, senor," he said, in a grave and almost solemn tone, "it is not right to jest 
upon such a subject. I know well enough that the people of your nation make a joke of 
everything ; but believe what a poor man says to you, who has not had the opportunity 
like you to read books. There are things that one ought to respect, under the penalty 
of provoking the wrath of God upon our heads." 

As he ended speaking, the worthy arriero passed from the left hand to the right 
the bridle of his mule, and making him wheel about, placed himself at a respectful 
distance from me, as was his custom when I said anything to shock his preconceived 
opinions, to avoid contact with me; in this way I followed his example in the line of 
honest and childlike simplicity by affecting unconsciousness of the fact. Besides, as 
our journey was drawing near its end, and our mutual relations would soon necessarily 
cease, a whim more or less was of no consequence. Wliile I made these reflections we 
arrived at San Jeronimo. 



166 



PERU. 



San Jeronimo is a villaj^e of no importance. That which distinguishes it from 
most of the villages of the Sierra, is that, in place of presenting like them the figure 
of a parallellogram or a trapezium, the houses are arranged in a double line on each 
side of the Cuzco road. The air, the light, the openness which it enjoys, the fields 
of wheat, of maize, of beans, of lucerne, and of potatoes which surround it, render it, 
if not an absolutely pleasant abode, at least a tranquil, decent, and healthy one. As for 
specialities, the village contains nothing more remarkable than a third-class pulperia — a 
liquor and grocery store — five or six chicha or beer houses, and the blackened forge of 
a farrier, of which one might see the anvil as we pass by, but would never hear the 




BAN JEllOXIMO, A VILLAGE IN THE QUEBRADA OF OOZOO. 



hammer. Add to this, the disreputable looking paunch-bellied little boys, of the colour 
of bistre, playing about the doors, the starved-looking dogs lying about the road which 
take to biting either man or beast that disturbs their siesta, the fowls scratching 
among the bushes, the pigeons cooing upon the roofs, — and you will have an exact 
photograph of San Jeronimo. 

Three or four miles of road separate San Jeronimo from San Sebastian, a village 
of the same family as the last. It is situated on the right of the main road, and 
presents to the eye a close and compact looking collection of grayish walls and red 
roofs. The Huatanay, a river which serves as the sewer of Cuzco, passes by San 
Sebastian and rolls the tribute of its stinking waters into the Huilcamayo-Quiquijana, 
between Huaro and Urcos. San Sebastian recommends itself to attention by its lofty 
church, it has two square towers crowned with cupolas, which appear all the higher 
from contrast with the lowness of the houses, for, as the reader knows, we speak of a 
giant among pigmies, or an oak among mushrooms. All the inhabitants of the locality, 
resembling those of the provinces Vascongadas, are hidalgos before birth, and accounted 
such when born. They all bear the primitive blazonry of the lucas, namely, the 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 



167 



Egyptian pylone (gate of a temple) in an azure field surmounted hy a cuiitur (condor) 
with expanded wings. If these prerogatives astonish any of my readers, let me inform 
them that the Indians — Cholos, Mdtis, and mixed breeds — who inhabit San Sebastian 
are all scions of the Quispe, Mamani, and Condori, three illustrious families, and the only 
ones in the country who have descended in a direct line from the Sun, by the emperor 
Manco-Capac and the empress Mama OccUo Huaco. As a conscientious narrator 
I must add that these historic families are a little fallen from their ancient splendour. 
In these days it is not rare .to see a Quispd walking barefoot for want of shoes, and 
driving before him a flock of sheep; a Mamani selling cabbages, carrots, and other 




SAN SEBASTIA^f. 



vegetables in the market of Cuzco; and a Condori giving his services as a water-carrier 
or a groom for the small sum of five francs a month. Such scenes are afflicting to 
remember! Happily for the unfortunate nobles whose origin and ancient grandeur we 
have here recalled, they are all, in some degree, philosophers. They console themselves 
by reflecting that Apollo-Phojbus, their divine ancestor, kept the flocks of Admetus ; 
that a king of Babylon was reduced to eat grass, and a tyrant of Syracuse taught 
children to read. These illustrious examples of decadence enable them to put a 
good face on their precarious position. Besides, a liberal use of brandy, chicha, and 
coca assists to banish from their thoughts every painful idea relative to the past. 

After leaving San Sebastian, the cerros which bound the horizon draw together, 
and form, as it were, a circular wall. Cuzco, which we are not yet able to descry, is 
situated at their base. In our progress northward we discover, like a landmark on the 
talus at the left of the road, a tree, whose rugged and creviced trunk, exposed roots, 
and meagre foliage, bear witness to extreme old age. It is of it that one might say, 
Durando, secula vincit; for the tree in question, if one may beheve a local tradition, 
was planted by the Inca Capac Yupanqui, and dates from the middle of the thirteenth 



168 



PERU 



century. This patriarchal vegetable belongs to the family of the Cappavidacccy. The 
people of the country call it the Chachacumayoc, "Tree of Farewells." Every one vv^ho 
leaves Cuzco is supposed to come in company w^ith his relations, friends, and acquaint- 
ances to sit imder the shadow of this tree to exchange adieus. They take care to 
provide themselves with eatables and drinkables, and to bring a guitar. They leave 
the city in good order. At the entrance of the plain, from which the Chachacumayoc 




I 



/^,N^M^ 






"FAKEWELI.-TBEE" between SAN SEBASTIAN AND CUZCO. 



becomes visible, they stop, form a circle, and all drink a glass of brandy to the health 
of the symbolic tree. They do the same when they stand beneath its shadow. This 
fashion of drinking altogether in a circle, is called doing the wheel {hacer-la-rueda). 
After these two wheels, a tribute paid to old customs, they sit down hap-hazard, the 
provisions are taken out of the wallets, the decanters, jugs, and leathern bottles ranged 
in line of battle, and the action begins at once at every point. For half a day they 
eat, they drink, they laugh, they sing, they dance; and when the parting moment 
arrives they weep, and sob, and lament round the traveller, who for his part weeps, 
and sobs, and laments with them. In fine, they fill up a last cup, that of the despedida, 
or final adieu, and after having tenderly embraced their friend and called down upon 
his head the blessings of Heaven, they leave him, stupified with grief and perfectly 
drunk, to go where duty calls him. The band of relations, friends, and acquaintances 




ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 1G9 

tlien take, untowardly, the road to Cuzco, to continue, for tlieir own sakes, the festival 
commenced under the Farewell-tree for the sake of the traveller. 

At the moment when Ave passed the Chachacumayoc, two Indians of the humbler 
class, a man and a woman, were in the act of exchanging tender adieus. Neither of 
them were drinking, but both appeared to have drunk more than usual. Our ill-timed 
appearance interrupted their tete-d-tSte; the man, however, put a good face on the 
matter, and smiled as he raised his hat. The woman turned her back upon us, and 
looked down as if she were examining her petticoat. 

Ten minutes afterwards we came— I say we, out of politeness and respect for the age 
of my guide, for the man uncivilly kept himself aloof and pretended not to regard 
anything I did — we came, I say, on the right of the road and on the Hank of the cerros, 
to the convent of La Recoleta,^ whose architectural mass, in the form of a long square, 
looked proudly down on the plain. Happy memories crowded on me at the sight 
of this edifice. How often, after my botanical excursions in the environs, I had rested 
in the shadow of its galleries, and amused myself by criticizing the attempts in poly- 
chrome Avhicli covered their walls under the title of frescoes! The prior, a fine old 
man of the colour of mahogany, whom I frequently encountered in my visits, and who 
each time had seen me smiling on his pictures, had conceived a friendship for me 
under the mistaken idea that my smile was the effect of admiration. Instead of 
undeceiving him in this respect, I chose rather to countenance his mistake, an innocent 
bit of deceit, to which I was indebted at various times for a bit of something dainty 
to eat, a glass of liquor to drink, and a cigarette to smoke. As the good father had 
then counted seventeen lustrums (eighty-five years), he has probably jloum joyous toivards 
the eternal abodes — sedes ceternas Icetus advolavit, as says the epitaph of Father Juan de 
Matta, his predecessor, engraved upon a marble slab in the chapel. I can only show 
my gratitude by a vain regret and a pious tear to his memory; but God I hope will 
repay the worthy prior in my name and in another world for the cakes and sweets 
I have eaten at his expense in this. 

The friendship of the prior caused me to be treated with consideration by the 
monks. The deans of the chapter were pleased to question me about the manners 
and customs of France, which seemed to them as fabulous an empire as that of Cathay 
or the Grand Khan of Tartary once did to us. The gate-keeper, seated under the 
entrance porch, where from evening to morning he occupied himself in knitting 
stockings while keeping an eye on the wicket, never failed, on seeing me at a distance, 
to open the gate in advance, and plant himself on the threshold to wait my arrival. 
After the customary compliments he would beg a few cigarettes of me, and while I 
took a turn in the cloister he would carefully put to cool in a pail of water the plants 
I had collected. Sometimes on leaving I gratified him with a silver real to buy tobacco 
and brandy, two things for which he had a singular affection. Then he exhausted 
his eloquence in pouring eulogiums upon me, and, along with the warmest benedictions, 

^ This is the most modern of the convents of Cuzco. It was built in 1599 at the cost of a rich and charitable 
Spaniard, named Torribio de Bustaniente, and his first prior was the reverend father Francisco de Valesco, a native of the 
mountains of Burgos in Spain, as his epitaph, written in the Latin of the country, informs us. 

VOL. I. 82 



170 PERU. 

gave me the pompoua title of "Excellence." When, however, it happened that I had 
forgotten my purse or had no money, he forgot to bless me, and saluted me coldly 
and briefly as plain "SeTim:" 

As to the younger monks, I had so often surprised ihem in the neighbouring 
cabarets with a jug of chicha at their lips, or their gown tucked in their girdle and 
their hat doubled up ready to dance the forbidden mmacuecas when the reverend 
fathers were taking a siesta, that they only smiled when they saw me, as at an old 
acquaintance. Regarding me as an amiable moralist, disposed, as much by nature as 
by conviction, to excuse human failings, they were not afraid of my knowing their 
Uttle secrets. Honest fellows! Seeing them, at an age so inexperienced, such lovers 
of the bottle and the dance, how often I have said to myself, " What capital monks 
these little friars will one day make!" 

The memories called up by the sight of the convent of La Eecoleta sunk into 
oblivion again as its walls disappeared from view betwixt the hills. We were now 
passing a spot famous in the annals of the country for the revels of which it has 
been for a long time past, and still is, the scene. It is a green and almost circular 
space, with here and there a few small houses, a farm, or an orchard. At the further 
extremity, in a bluish distance, this space opens to a gorge formed by the cerros, 
whose rounded backs, rising one behind another, resemble an immense ladder which 
reaches from the earth to the heavens. The inhabitants call it the Corridor-du-Ciel, 
no doubt by way of antiphrasis, for if this pretended ladder leads anywhere it is to 
hell. A site which nature seems to have formed for the idyllic intercourse of some 
local Tityrus and Melibceus, has been transformed by man into a sort of tilting ground 
or bacchic arena, to which both sexes of Cuzco resort, bottle in hand, and defy each 
other to drink the hardest and dance the best to the sweet sounds of the guitar. 
It would need the inspiration of a Homer to record the assaults of arms which during 
two centuries the citizens of Cuzco have delivered in this place, and the number of the 
dead, the dying, and the wounded that have been left on the battle-field. 

After passing the Corridor-du-Ciel, we came to a wild and barren-looking spot on 
the right of the road, called the " Devil's Pulpit " {Chaire-da-Diable). The property of 
his Satanic majesty consists of a mass of rock standing alone in the foreground of two 
cerros which are united at their base, and in the smooth and almost perpendicular 
sides of which there are square openings from which the Indians in the time of the 
Incas had quarried stones. These black-looking holes at an elevation of some thirty 
feet from the soil, and without a road or path of any kind leading to them, look 
like empty eye-balls with which the mountain glares on the passers-by. 

A short distance from the sites just described, two curiosities of a different kind 
attract attention at the same time. On the right is a quarry of porphyritic sandstone, 
from which the same Indians who made the before-mentioned excavations had taken 
those enormous blocks, which are still regarded with astonishment. Only, after 
extracting the stone, instead of leaving a gaping orifice encumbered with fragments, 
as our quarrymen are accustomed to do, the Quichuas had cut out a beautiful 
monolithic chamber some thirty feet square, with a ceiling panelled in relief, and 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 171 

three divans along the three sides, upon which one might recline to take a siesta, or 
sit down to await the end of a shower. 

On closely examining this work of the pagans, as the fools of the country stupidly 
call every monument which dates anterior to the Spanish conquest, one hardly knows 
whether to admire more the metallic hardness of the material or the perfection of 
the work. These walls, this ceiling, these seats, so hard that it would be difficult to 
scratch them with the point of a knife, look as if they had been wrought and polished 
by a quarryman who was at the same time a skilled mason. I doubt if a modern 
cabinetmaker would be able to polish more perfectly an article of furniture in rosewood 
or mahogany. 

On the other side of the road, as if to parody this monolithic chamber, there stands 
in the midst of a copse of alerces and capulis (the alders and cherry-trees of the 
country), a thatched hut, with mud-built walls. The sign of salvation is placed on its 
summit, and two nucclios [Salvia splendens peruviana), with seagreen leaves and brilliant 
purple flowers, entwine their branches over its arched entrance. This hut is the beaterio 
or beguinage of the Recoleta. It is the last isolated point in the environs of Cuzco. 
Beyond it the farms, the chacharas, and the orchards increase in number, and occur 
closer together, until their surrounding walls unite to form a narrow and winding street, 
called the Faubourg of Recoleta. The bed of a torrent, nearly always dry, and strewn 
with stones, runs tlirongh this sordid quarter, in which are some twenty beer- shops to 
satisfy the craving of the Hispano-Peruvian people for drink. 

Here and there, where we had to ascend and redescend heaps of alluvial debris, 
the edifices of Cuzco came into view. Pleased with the anticipation of the substantial 
repast which awaited me, and the good old Spanish bed, painted white, sprinkled with 
red tulips, in which I should stretch myself after leaving the table, I mused^ — what other 
resource has the traveller on the back of a mule except to muse? — on the poetical 
exaggeration in which official travellers indulge when approaching Cuzco. Some of the 
highflown apostrophes of these gentlemen were naturally recalled to mind by the sight 
of the places which had inspired them, — 

"Hail, classic land of the Incas, cradle of an ever-expanding civilization!" is the 
exclamation of one. 

"Behold, then, this capital of a powerful empire, conquered by Pizarro, whose 
advanced civilization and incredible wealth have struck the world with admiration!" 
exclaims another. 

I know not if this enthusiasm of the traveller, which I merely remark upon as a 
physiological characteristic, was shared in by our mules, but as we approached the holy 
city they got quite excited, and dashed forward with almost supernatural vigour. Like 
Mercury, they seemed to be furnished with wings in every limb. No difficulty of the 
road embarrassed them. Holes, wheel-ruts, blocks of stone, up-hill or down-hill, were 
all the same to them. To see how they got over the ground, their ears bent, their 
nostrils expanded, their legs stretched to the utmost, one could hardly have believed 
they had come a hundred miles across the Andes. Going at this rate we soon reached 
the Cueva-ho7ida (deep grotto), the continuation of a stony ravine by which the springs 



172 PERU. 

of the Sapi roll their waters into the plain. From this relatively high point the 
edifices and roofs of Cuzco came into full view. Alas for enthusiasm ! A heavy and 
compact mass of stones and tiles ; little or no details ; confused contours ; local colour, 
reddish; light, dull and diffused; positively this is all that the old city of Manco-Capac, 
revised, corrected, and augmented, but little embellished, by Francisco Pizarro, presents 
to the eye of the artist. 

In the measure that we leave Cueva-honda behind us, the panorama of the city 
becomes, if not more bright and cheerful, at least more clearly defined. Domes and 
steeples detach themselves from the mass of house-tops, while white-washed walls 
contrast here and there with the dirty-red ground of the cerros and ancient buildings. 
Soon we come to a point where the so-called Faubourg of Recoleta is intersected, on 
the right by the escarpment of San Bias, one of the eight faubourgs of Cuzco,^ and on 
the left by a narrow passage bounded by walls of cyclopean structure. This passage 
is the Calle del Triiinfo. The mules, more excited still on scenting the fodder and the 
stable that awaited them, lower their heads and gallop still faster. In three minutes, 
without the least preparation for the sudden change, the traveller finds himself landed 
in the great square of Cuzco in front of the cathedral. 

As we were emerging from the gloom which always overshadows this street of 
" Triumph," whose long unlovely walls seemed to absorb the light. Nor Medina, who 
had proceeded a little in advance of me, pulled up his mule to ask at what tampu of 
the city I meant to lodge. 

"I will lodge alone," I replied. 

"Where alone, if monsieur pleases?" 

"Galerie du Vieux-Linge, 17." 

We crossed the great square diagonally, and dismounted at the house I had 
indicated. Nor Medina fastened the mules to one of the columns of trachytic sand- 
stone which border the three sides of the Plaza called respectively the galeries du Pain, 
des Confitures, and du Vieux-Linge. After having unsaddled my mule and brought me 
the equipment,^ he waited, hat in hand, to be paid. As I added to the price agreed 
upon a few reals for llapa (drink-money), this generosity, which he had not expected, 
dispersed the cloud from his brow and touched his heart. 

"If I might venture to speak to monsieur!" he said, after having counted the 
money and put it into a ratskin-purse Avhich he carried suspended from his neck like a 
relic. 

" At your pleasure. Nor Medina." 

" Well, monsieur, I would have you reflect again before doing what you have told 
me; it is not only an imprudence but a sin. The Chunchos are miscreants and 
heretics, and the holy religion of Jesus Christ forbids us to have any intercourse with 
them." 

' According to the statisticians of the country, we ought to say ten, because they considei* the villages of San 
Sebastian and San Jeronimo suburbs of Cuzco, although they are separated from the city by a plain of about seven miles 
square. 

' In a journey on the coast, or in the Sierra, where it is the regular custom to use hired mules, the harness is 
always supplied by the traveller and never by the muleteer who lets out the beast. 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 173 

"Is that all you have to say to mel" 

"That is all, monsieur." 

"Well, good day, mon ami, and God see you safe home again. My compliments to 
your Avife when you get back to Arequipa." 

The arri^ro retired, shrugging his shoulders; and I have nothing more to say of him. 

After a hearty meal, I took possession of my bed, and slept till the next day. 
There is a saying that night brings counsel. On awaking in the morning I was able 
to judge of the value of this proverb. Before going to sleep I had debated with 
myself what valley I should select for the beginning of my enterprise, but had come 
to no decision. On awaking, though I could not explain to myself the secret working 
of my mind, I found, in fact, that my choice was made, and that it had fallen upon 
the valley of Occobamba, which geographers have neglected to mark in their maps, 
but which nature has placed between the two valleys of Lares and Santa Ana. 

During the forty-eight hours that I stayed at Cuzco, I spent the day in purchasing 
various articles intended to conciliate the savages I might find en route. In the 
evening, in place of accepting the invitation to a cacharpari, or farewell-festival, I shut 
myself up alone, leaving my acquaintances astonished and even a little indignant at 
my disregard of local customs. But it was my duty to give the reader some account 
of the unknown city to which I have brought him en croupe, and from whence we shall 
very soon depart together. Instead, then, of passing these two nights in drinking 
brandy with the men and fooling with the women, as each would have had me to do, and 
as etiquette would have required, I employed them in penning the following notes. If 
the reader can find nothing in them to praise, he ought at least to know how willingly 
I sacrificed, for his sake, the pleasures of all kinds which a cacharpari at Cuzco 
promised. 

The city of Cuzco was founded in the middle of the eleventh century by Manco- 
Capac, the founder of the dynasty of the Incas. The advent of this legislator in the 
punas of Collao is enshrined in a mysterious legend, which the Spanish historiographers 
have amused themselves by reproducing in a variety of ways. We will dismiss from 
our notice what is marvellous in their recitals, and confine ourselves as nearly as 
possible to the unadorned truth. Instead of making Manco-Capac and his companion 
Mama Ocllo emerge like marine gods from the Lake of Titicaca, or of taking them 
like owls from a hole in the cerros of Paucartampu, we shall see in them merely the 
last remnant of those travelling colonists who, descending in ancient times from the 
Asiatic plateaux, their primitive cradle, spread themselves over every part of the 
ancient world. 

If it is next to impossible in the present state of our knowledge to fix the precise 
date of the first displacement of that migratory civilization, and the length of time 
which it halted in various places before reaching the American continent, we have 
at least as a witness of its origin, its point of departure, and the route which it must 
have followed, the type of its indigenous representatives. Their manners, their laws, 
their religious institutions, their system of chronology, their cosmogonies, and their 
architecture, are all extant. 



174 



PERU. 



It is probable that the first communications between Asia and America took 
place by Behring's Straits, these now distinct portions of the globe being then united 
by an isthmus. The deep indentations of the Asiatic continent, the gulfs and inland 
seas of its eastern part, the groups of islands Avhich have been separated violently 
from the continental mass, or elevated by the active force of volcanoes situated along 
the faults or crevasses with which the globe is furrowed, all presuppose a vast primi- 
tive area, of which the orographic configuration and the climatological constitution 
have undergone sensible modifications. The north -north -west part of Asia, without 
high mountains, battered on two sides by the Polar Sea and the great ocean, must 
have yielded to their double influence, unless, being fractured at the time of the 
general or partial elevation of the secondary chains of the eastern and western 
continents, it had been covered by the flowing down of the higher waters into a 
basin of lower level. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt there was originally 
a means of communication between Eastern Asia and the north of America, for it 
is from that side, and not by way of Iceland, Greenland, and the southern parts of 
the United States, as some have suggested, that one can hope to come upon traces 
of the first civilized settlements and the introduction of new ideas. 

The anthropological study of the American population, all whose varieties may 
be traced to two fixed and primordial types — the indigenous type, which we will 
without scruple call the Mongolo- American, and the Irano- Aryan type — ^naturally 
raises the following question: Is the American race autochthonous, or must we regard 
it as a race of emigrants from the Asiatic stock? Without prejudging this question, 
which we merely state incidentally, leaving to others the trouble of solving the problem, 
we would, at the same time, remark, that if the American race is really autochthonous, 
as held by Morton, Pritchard, Robertson, and Blumenbach, its singular analogy with 
the Mongol race is inexplicable ; whereas, if its presence on the new continent results 
from a displacement of the Asiatic hordes, its perfect resemblance to them, with which 
one has reason to be astonished, is naturally accounted for. 

Of the two aforesaid types, the indigenous or Mongolo-American, however we 
please to name it, is that which predominates in the two Americas, and characterizes 
the greater part of their population. Nevertheless one can only recognize in it the 
colonizing or swarming element. The civilizing element is represented by the Irano- 
Aryan race, the tjrpe of which still endures, if not in its original purity, yet so distinctly 
marked that it cannot be mistaken. This type is that of the first nations who 
established themselves in New Spain, from Avhence they passed into Canada, Louisiana, 
the Floridas, and Yucatan, and penetrated into the southern hemisphere by the plains 
of Popayan and Guiana. The sculptures of the Tlascaltecs, the Chichimecs and the 
Toltecs, and the hieroglyphic paintings of the Aztec manuscripts, have faithfully 
transmitted to us this type, which we still find among some of the nomad tribes of 
North America ; and in South America among the Aymaras, the Quichuas, and a great 
number of Antis and Chontaquiros, savage tribes which live upon the left bank 
of the Quillabamba-Santa-Ana, east of the Andes. 

Although at first sight it may seem surprising to discover, in the heart of America, 



I 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 177 

tlie types, the institutions, and the monuments of the ancient peoples of Asia, this will 
no longer appear extraordinary if we examine the various territories occupied by these 
peoples on the flanks of the great mountain chains commanding the surrounding 
countries, north, south, east, and west, and so allied to one another as to form a 
compact and homogeneous whole; those of Zend to the ancient free states of India — 
the counti'y of peoples without kings; these again to Brahmavarta and to Aryavarta — 
countries of Brahma and the Aryan nobles; these latter, touching on Madhya-Desa, from 
the centre of which territory and beyond it there spread the primitive non-Aryan 
population; — all these were able to communicate, by the provinces of Persia, with 
Chaldea and Egypt, by the provinces of Thibet with Transgangetic India (Burmah, 
Siam, &c.), and with the northern countries of Asia. It would be impossible to 
conceive of a geographical position more naturally adapted to facilitate the outflow of a 
teeming population. These plateaux of Iran, of Zend, and of Arya may be compared, 
as anthropological reservoirs, to lakes in alpine regions, the water of which may 
remain for a long time immovable, imtil a sudden flood caiises it to overflow its bed, 
when it drains away through a thousand channels. 

There is historical testimony to confirm the establishment of the Hindoos, at a very 
remote period, in countries situated to the east of their territory We discover them 
traversing with the north-east monsoon^ the Gulf of Oman, and establishing themselves 
in the southern part of Arabia and the island of Socotora, for the purpose of trading in 
gold with the Egyptians. We find no mention, on the contrary, of establishments 
founded by them in the countries of Northern Asia. It is true that nothing on this side 
attracted their attention or excited their commercial instincts. Ever since the migration, 
at an unknown period, contemporary perhaps with the earliest ages of the world, 
which conducted the Misraites (Children of the Sun) from the heart of Asia into the 
valley of the Nile, Egypt had remained in possession of the traditions and ideas of the 
race; she was the centre of intellectual culture, and the commercial entrepdt of the 
known world; her preponderance over the neighbouring countries was solidly estab- 
lished, and the eyes of all nations were attracted to her by the light she radiated. 
It is not then by any of the needs of civilization, or commerce, or even of territorial 
aggrandizement, that one can reasonably account for the displacement of the Aryan 
populations towards the northern parts of Asia. Neither had any religious schism, or 
any systematic persecution, of which history makes mention,^ moved them to abandon 
their primitive home. In the absence of all historic certainty which might throw some 
light upon the causes of that displacement, one may nevertheless reasonably imagine that 
the pressure exercised upon these populations by the first conquests of the Pharaohs of 
Thebes,^ earlier by nine centuries than those of Rameses the Great — conquests 
limited at first to the shores of the Indus, but which finally extended beyond those of 

1 In the Malayan tongue, mussim; that of the north-east is called the mussim of Malabar, that of the south-west the 
mussim of Aden. Arabian navigators called it the maussim, and the Greeks hippalos, 

2 The establishment of Buddhism in India can hardly have taken place more than six centuries before our era. As 
to the persecutions which it suffered from the Brahmins — persecutions which determined the priests of Buddha and their 
followers to emigrate towards the north of Asia — historians assign for their date the early years of the Christian era. 

' About 2200 years b.o. 

VHT. T »® 






178 PERU. 

the Ganges, and which were subsequently completed by the Greek invasion which 
brought the civilization of the Hellenes and that of the Hindoos face to face — we may 
reasonably suppose, I say, that these grave events which changed the face of the world, 
would exercise a powerful influence on the spirit of the Aryan populations, and 
determine with them those migrations which astonish us, and which we cannot other- 
wise explain. 

In abandoning their birth-place in the Asiatic plateaux, these populations carried 
with them the idea of a primitive worship, their cosmogonies, their cycles of regeneration, 
their manners, their arts, their industry, and their language. But the new regions which 
they traversed; the halts, ages in duration, which they made in divers places; their 
immediate contact with other peoples, and the mixture of races which must have ensued ; 
in fine, the influences of climates, and the places where they dwelt, upon their consti- 
tution, — all these demoralizing causes, if they did not efiace among them the pure ideal 
of the past, must have sensibly altered its form. Borrowing from those among whom 
they sojourned some formulae of language and of new ideas, they also left behind them 
something of their own. Hence the analogies and ditterences which we are constantly 
discovering in the language and the manners of the peoples descended from them. 

If the worship of Mizraim (the Sun) and that of fire were known from the 
beginning to the American nations, the same may be said of the system of cosmogony, 
divided into four great epochs, which represented the human race destroyed by some 
cataclysm and peopling the earth anew. This system, originally established in Egypt, 
India, and China, had probably been transmitted by the Asiatic peoples to the Olmecs, 
the Xicalanqui, the Zacatecs, the Tarascos, the Quitlatecs, and the Otomis, the first 
civilized nations which established themselves in New Spain. From them the same 
idea was diffused more lately among the Nahuas, the Cicimecs or Chichimecs, the 
Acolhuas, the Tlascaltecs, the Toltecs, and the Aztecs, the last group of the Indo- 
Mexican nations. These four chronological divisions, of which Gomara de los Rios, 
Fernando de Alva, Gama, and Clavigero have spoken in turn, and which they designate 
as the age of giants, the age of fire, the age of air, and the age of water, embrace, 
according to these authors, a period of 18,028 years,^ that is to say, 23,972 years^ less 
than the prehistoric period of Egypt according to her priests, and 6020 more than- the 
Persian ages of the Zend-avesta {Boun-Dehesch). 

This astrological fiction, translated into a system of cosmogony and imported into 
North America by the Asiatic immigrants, spread also into South America, among the 

' In Hesiod's Theogony, also, 18,028 years are assigned to the four ages of the world, which are related to four great 
revolutions of the elements. 

^ The Egyptian priests assigned to the prehistoric existence of their nation myriads of years, during which they 
were supposed to be governed by gods and demi-gods or heroes. The period of tlie gods was fixed by some at 42,000 
years, of which 12,000 were assigned to the reign of Vulcan (Phtah) and 30,000 to the Sun. To this first epoch succeeded 
the rule of the demi-gods, from which the Greeks derived their twelve chief gods. According to Herodotus the hiero- 
phantes of Thebes and Memphis calculated that Egypt had then existed 11,314 years. It is clearly impossible to establish 
a system on data so contradictory and so evidently fabulous. 

If, however, the early ages of Egypt present us with chronological problems which are almost insoluble, this is not 
the case with its historic period, which Manetho's "Dynasties" have been able to fix at 3893 years before the Christian era. 
This period comprises 113 generations, and 331 reigns from the time of Menes. 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 



179 



nations whose establishment there was long anterior to that of the Incas. Only, in 
place of being applied by them to four climacteric epochs of humanity, it served to 
designate four families of individuals. Thus the civilization of Tiahuanacu and of the 
Collahuina, Aymara, and Quichua populations, asserted to be contemporary with the 
deluge, had for its founder an unknown man who divided the world (Peru) into four 
parts, and charged four individuals with their government. The first of these 
personages was named Manco, the second Colla, the third Tocay, the fourth Pinalmay. 
A mythical legend of similar import existed among the Poque nation, who lived to the 
east of Cuzco, and among the nations of the north, the Mayus, the Caucus, and the 
Rimactampus. According to them, four men and four women, in the beginning of the 
world, came out of a cavern situated in the district of Paucartampu. The first of these 
men was Manco-Capac, the second Ayar-Cachi, the third Ayar-Uchu, the fourth 
Ayar-SaucM. From the agreement of the first name in the two legends, local traditions, 
and the historiographers of the Conquest, have transmitted to us the name of the first 
Inca; but as they have made no mention of the three others, we may fairly infer that 
all four names apply to four histoi'ical epochs, or serve to designate four dynasties, of 
which one only, that of the Incas, counted, according to Juan Astopilco and Torquemada, 
some threescore sovereigns anterior to the dynasty we know.^ 

Some of the learned have tried to refer the foundation of the empire of the Incas to 
the last displacement of the Toltecs, who had abandoned Mexico to pass into South 
America. Unhappily for the system of these savants, historians have traced the 
itinerary of the Toltecs since the year 544 of our era — some say 596 — according to 
which, coming from Tlapallan into the country of Anahuac, they inhabited suc- 
cessively, during a period of 124 years according to the one, or 145 years according 
to the other, the countries of Tollantzinco and Tulan. A dreadful pestilence, in which 
we recognize the small-pox, which has caused, and still causes, great destruction among 
the populations on both sides of the Andes, finally drove the Toltecs from the country 
of Anahuac. It is from this period (1051) that their migrations tend towards the south, 
but after this epoch, also, they disappear mysteriously from history. Whether it was 
that they perished, obscurely, of sickness, poverty, and hunger^ in the regions of 
Yucatan and Guatemala, where they had sought an asylum ; or whether, surprised in 
their march by the Aztecs, who, coming from Aztlan, opened themselves a road south- 
ward by way of Tlalixco, Tulan, Tzampanco, and Chapoltepec, they were completely 
lost in the superiority of the more powerful nation But at the period of these dis- 
placements (1051) the empire of the Incas was already constituted. 

A fact not less conclusive than the preceding, is the use of the hieroglyphic 
alphabet, Avhich was common not only to the Toltecs and Aztecs, but to all the 
peoples who preceded them in New Spain, while it was always unknown to the 
Incas. Certainly the Toltecs, in migrating south, had not failed to introduce their 

' It is this dynasty wliich, according to Garcilaso, Pedro de Cieja, Bias Valera, Zarate, and others, comprises thirteen 
sovereigns from Manco to Huascar inclusive, whose reigns, from a.d. 1042 to 1532, embrace a period of 490 years. 

^ The material difticulties of existence could not have been less in the case of these wandering peoples than they 
are now for most of the savage races of America, that is, the object of a constant pre-occupatiou, and the end of a 
thousand expedients. 



180 PERU. 

method of picture-writing {escritura pintada, as Gomara says), which their forefathers 
derived from the oriental peoples. 

The use of hieroglyphics among the Mexican nations appears to have been posterior 
to their estabhshment in New Spain. Before the introduction of symbolic characters 
these nations used the quipus, or skein of variously coloured wools, which we find 
again among the Canadian tribes, and the use of which in China ascends to very 
remote times. After the introduction among them of symbolic characters, the Mexican 
nations continued to use the quipus as a means of traditional numeration. More 
recently, after the extinction of these peoples, we find again in the southern continent, 
among the Puruays of Lican and the Incas of Cuzco, the same quipus, but not the 
hieroglyphic characters. Is it not then reasonable to believe that the Mexican nations 
having parted company at a very early period, either in consequence of the rivalry 
of caste or fi'om religious differences, or, what is more probable, from the insufficiency of 
resources in a territory that was too thickly populated;^ and one of the divided parts, 
continuing to dwell in New Spain, remained, if not in contact, at least in com- 
munication, with Asiatic civilization, and was able to feel foreign influences; whilst 
the other, passing into Soiith America, and wandering farther and farther from their 
ancestral homes, retained nothing of the past but fundamental ideas and rudimentary 
forms, or if at a later period some impression of new ideas which had regenerated 
the ancient world recurred to them, it was only as a vague and confused perception, 
like the echo of a noise but faintly heard in the distance. 

The more one studies the type, the manners, and monuments of the Mexican 
races, the more we are struck by their intimate connection with those of the Indo- 
Egyptian nations. The porti'ait which tradition has left us of the chiefs who led 
them in their migrations, or of the legislators who gave them laws, recalls at once 
the rot-enne-rdme type of the Egyptian race and the namou type of the Irano-Aryan 
race, according to the division into four parts of the world represented in the ancient 
Egyptian system. The Spanish historiographers of the Conquest, following their genius 
for amplification, have seen in these personages with yellow or brown skin and a long- 
beard, bearded men with a white skin. The first legislator of the Aztecs, Quezalcoalt, 
whom some have made grand-priest of Cholula, and others the god of the air, was 
one of these bearded whites. In South America, Bochica, the founder of the civilization 
of Cundinamarca, was likewise a white man with a long beard. The ancient Mexican 
sculptures of Tenochtitlan and Culhuacan, as well as those of Tiahuanacu in Higher 
Peru, represent bearded personages clothed in flowing garments whose appearance 
agrees with that of the oriental peoples. The carboniferous sandstone or the por- 
phyroid trachyte in which they are sculptured does not permit us to decide whether 
their skin is a brownish-red like that of the Egyptians, a yellow-brown like that of 
the Asiatics, or a white like that of the Tamou, the European or Indo-Germanic race 
of which the Spanish historiographers have made choice probably from regard for 

' The break-up of the great Mirahha nation, which occurred little more than half a century ago, had no other cause 
than the failure of the game aud fish in the territory, some ninety miles square, which they had occupied during the 
previous century in the basin of the Auiazon, between the Japura and the Eio Negro. 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 181 

themselves, but whom the ancient Egyptian system places below the Nahari, or negroes, 
whom it treats as the last, and least appreciable, of the series. 

After the historiographers come the commentators, who have seen in these white 
and bearded men ancient Erse or Irish who came by sea to North America. Their 
long and flowing robes, represented in Mexican sculpture, have been transformed 
into the albs and surplices of priests or missionaries,^ come to instruct the peoples 
of Virginia and Carolina in the faith. There can be no doubt that white men had 
visited at an early period the southern part of America, comprised between Virginia 
and Florida, since in the twelfth century we see the Normans already established in 
their settlements between Boston and New York. The Danish archaeologist Carl 
Rafn, in his Antiquitates Americance (1837), speaks of explorations attempted in North 
America since the tenth century of our era by the colonists of Iceland and Greenland. 
But whatever be the value of these various statements, and the date (1005) assigned 
to the discovery of North America by Leif Ericson, a discovery which some have 
endeavoured to make coincident with the appearance of the first Inca (1040-1042), 
there is nothing in the worship, the manners, the institutions, and the monuments 
of the Mexico-Peruvian nations which would suggest the idea of a civilizing influence 
exercised by the nations of the north of Europe, who were still plunged in the 
darkness of barbarism at a period when American civilization, which already counted 
many centuries of existence, still diflused its light. 

It would be irrational, then, to seek elsewhere than in Asiatic regions for the source 
of the great civilizing currents by which America was first fertilized; but at the same 
time it would be quite as unwise to assume that these currents have flowed over the 
new continent at one epoch only, and in equal volume. Everything conspires to prove, 
on the contrary, that American civilization has been arrested at various times by long 
periods of torpor and numbness, when, thrown back upon itself, it has remained 
stationary, until a new impulse was given to it by the mother country, whose most 
active representatives were then the Phoenician, Etruscan, and Arabian navigators. 
Had it been otherwise we should have found among all the descendants of the first 
Asiatic colonists the exact formulae of one and the same faith, the same manners, and 
the same architecture. But the fiict is, that if, among the nations of New Spain and 
those of the southern continent, we find the idea of worship fundamentally the same — 
appearing among some of them under an abstract figure, among others in the concrete 
form — if also the general traits in the category of morals are common to the two 
groups of nations, proving their community of origin and their common point of 
departure — there exists at the same time such decided differences as to separate the 
one from the other hierarchically, and to establish the supremacy of the former over 
the latter. That supremacy has no other cause than the division which took place 
at a very early peiiod, and which, as we have before observed, left the predominant 
race in communication with the ideas Avhich continued to flow in from the south of 

1 These Irish colonists, ou their return from Virginia and Carolina, established themselves in the south-east 
part of Iceland, at Papyli, and in the little island Papar, where, after they had left, the Normans found bells, croziers, 
books, and other things used in worship. Hence they -were supposed to have been called Papar, papce (fathers), 
clergy, in the work of Diouil, a monk who wrote in the ninth century, De Mcnaura Urbia Terrm. 



182 PERU. 

Asia; whilst the subject races, by their farther and farther removal from the point of 
influx, ceased to feel the influence, or felt it but feebly. 

We see, in fact, after the separation of the two groups of peoples on the plateaux 
of higher Mexico, the first constituting themselves the guardians and depositaries of 
the past tradition, the religious myths, and the cosmogonical ideas of India and 
Egypt. Their physique, their colour, their hair soft and tressed, their garments white 
or variegated with brilliant colours — all about them recalls the namou and rot-enne-rome 
races, and the double branch (Semitic and Japhetic) from which they sprang. The 
pontiff" chiefs who governed these peoples and ruled their worship, the king-legislators 
who gave them their laws, are men with long beards and flowing garments, who seem 
to continue in America the theocratic and warrior castes of the Orient. Ages have 
passed away since the departure of these peoples from the regions which gave them 
birth. Established on a new continent, they continue to receive from that old Asia 
— their alma mater — the germs of a progressive civilization. Hieroglyphic writing 
is naturalized amongst them. The use of the papyrus {maguey) is introduced. Their 
architecture, which had been confined to copying from memory the massive primitive 
structures of India and Upper Egypt, develops a new phase. While continuing, in 
their teinples, palaces, and monuments, the hieratic and unchangeable forms of the 
ancient edifices, that architecture, inspired anew by art, covers their walls with an 
elegant and complicated ornamentation, in which we recognize the delicate fancies of 
the Greek style of the Macedonian ejioch. The monuments of Teotihuacan in the 
state of Mexico, those of Culhuacan, of Guatusco, and of Papantla in the state of 
Chiapa, the temple of Chichen-Itza in Yucatan, have descended to us as magnificent 
specimens of American art at different epochs. 

Under the dynasty of the Aztec emperors American civilization attained its apogee. 
Ceremonies of worship, spectacular splendours, sumptuary laws, all seem to have 
renewed that insensate luxury of the Persian satrapies to which Hernando Cortez 
went to put an end, as Alexander the Great, nineteen centuries before him, had done 
in regard to the provinces of Media, Babylonia, and Persia. 

If from the first group of peoples we pass to the second, we shall see them after 
their separation from the primitive swarm, and their introduction to the southern 
continent, traversing the wooded regions of Venezuela and Guiana, leaving upon the 
rocks of Orinoco and of Cassiquiare, on the shores of the Rio Cauca, one might say, 
a sculptured attestation of their passage. Among these travelling hordes there were 
some who halted for several centuries on the plateaux of Bogota; others found their 
rest under the equator, and founded in the country of Lican the dynasty of the 
Conchocandos ; others again continued their course as far as to the Lake of Chucviytu, 
and covered the neighbourhood of Tiahuanacu with temples and monuments. Let us 
remark, incidentally, that in the measure that these peoples wandered away from the 
seat of intellectual culture in New Spain, the pure ideal of the past wore out, and 
became more and more obscured among them. Left to their own resources, having no 
communication with the rest of the world, deprived by their distance of all civilizing 
influences, they gradually fell into a state of relative decadence, so that while in the 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 



183 



northern hemisphere the architectnral art took from age to age a new flight, it dwindled 
in the southern hemisphere until it returned to the feebleness of infancy. 

To speak here only of the teocalli, that symbolic edifice which is allied at once to 
the pyramids of Ghizeh, the temple of Bel, and the pagoda of Chalembron, having the 
threefold utility of a tomb, an observatory, and an altar given to it by the first nations 
of Upper Mexico. This teocalli is already, in Canada and Florida, only a tumulus, 
more or less elevated, which covers the remains of the chief warriors of the tribe. 
Among the nations south of the equator it is transformed into a mound of earth, 




PUCARA OR FORTRESS OK THE PERIOD OF THE INCAS. 



rounded at the summit, an involuntary return towards the past, to which, however, 
we can assign no rational purpose. Such is the artificial hill of Tiahuanacu. 

After a lapse of time, of which we cannot give an exact idea, the teocalli reappears 
under the dynasty of the Incas. During the greater part of this period it is an isolated 
mamelon, of a conical or rounded figure, but the work of nature, and no longer of 
man, except in so far as he perfects it by forming two or three retreating stages, or 
steps, with broken stones piled one upon the other. The teocalli, thus disposed, 
supports a pucara (fortress) ; sometimes its layers of stone, plastered with mud instead 
of cement, are transformed into sustaining walls, intended to prevent the slipping down 
of the sands, in which case it bears the name of a chimpu or andaneria. 

What we have said of the teocallis of the southern continent is applicable to the 
architecture of its monuments, in which we may observe the same phases of decadence. 
Thus the edifices of Tiahuanacu in Upper Peru (which belong to an epoch contem- 
porary, as we think, with the civilization of the Muyscas of Cundinamarca, but anterior 
to that of the Puruays of Lican), so far as one can judge from the ruins of their walls, 
were massive structures with no pretensions to elegance, and no ornamentation save a 
few moulded figures {sculptures en creux), representing the Misraites kneeling before 



184 



PERU. 



their god, and a series of grotesque heads of coarser execution placed below them. As 
in the earliest efforts of Etruscan art, these works are of very primitive character, 
and border on caricature. Of two stone giants, formerly seated at the foot of the hill, 
and of which Pedro de Cie9a and Garcilaso have made mention, there remains nothing 
but the two heads almost defaced. As to the population of statues which surrounded 
them, and which perpetuated, according to the testimony of the same authors, the 
punishment inflicted by Pachacamac, the lord of the universe, on the natives of the 
locality, the earth has swallowed it up, and only a few images without arms or legs are 
disinterred at long intervals.^ 

The blocks employed in the construction of the edifices of Tiahuanacu generally 
exceed in size those of the Peruvian edifices attributed to the Incas, and in the style of 
their sculpture, as well as their great mass, constitute a distinct architectural epoch. 




ANDANEBIAS OB SUSTAINING WALLS. 



It is often asked, after reading the almost always hypciL-oIical descriptions of the 
historiographers of the Conquest, and the amplified narrations of modern travellers, how 
the nations of that part of the continent had been able, without tools or power-engines 
of any kind, to accomplish such labours. Let us say at once, that the edifices of 
South America, when one examines them at leisure and in detail, instead of seeing 
them casually and in their ensemble, as most travellers have done, have absolutely 
nothing to astonish the mind and confound reason, as some have taken the pains to 
write. What monument of these countries can ever be cited as a parallel to those of 
India, Persia, and Egypt? where shall we find, if we search from the isthmus of 
Panama to the twentieth degree of south latitude, an ancient edifice which can be 
compared with the temples of Elora, of Kaila9a, of Persepolis, of Karnac, or of 
Ipsamboul; and this not merely from an artistic or decorative point of view, but simply 

* "In the neighbourhood of the edifices of Tiahuanacu," says Garcilaso, "are found immense numbers of statues of 
men and women holding vessels in their hands and drinking from the same. Some are seated, others standing; the 
latter have a leg raised, and their garments tucked up as if crossing a stream ; the former are carrying their children in 
their swaddling-clothes, straitened out or lying down, and, in fact, in every variety of posture. The natives told the Inca 
(Mayta Capac) that these natives had been changed into statues as a punishment for their past crimes, and above all for 
having stoned a stranger who visited the country." 



ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 



18n 



as a work of labour and masonry? Let any one look up, in the pages of Herodotus, 
Diodorus, and Strabo, the number of men^ and the years occupied in building the 
great monumental edifices of Egypt, or the structures of Van and Babylon, and they 
will no longer be astonished that the nations of South America, much more numerous 
some ages ago than they are now, were able, favoured also by the immediate neigh- 
bourhood of the Andean chain and its ramifications, to accomplish the works attributed 
to them, the most considerable of which was the fortress of Sacsahuaman, commenced 







FBAOMENTS OP AYMARA SCULPTURE. 



r 



about the middle of the fifteenth century by the twelfth luca, Tupac Yupanqui, and 
finished by his son Huayna-Capac. 

The manner in which these indigenes extracted the blocks from the quarry has 
also puzzled the ethnographers and savants who have deprived them of the necessary 
tools. Notwithstanding the fact that no implement belonging to that age has been 
discovered — perhaps because the indigenes on the arrival of the conquerors secreted 
those which they possessed, fearing they should be compelled to use them for the 
benefit of their new masters, as they also disposed of a greater part of their wealth 
to prevent its falling into the hands of the Spaniards — it is certain they were acquainted 
with iron, which they called cquellay; lead, which in its native state they called titi, and 

' According to Herodotus, a hundred thousand men, who were relieved every three months, were employed in 
quarrying and conveying the stone for the Great Pyramid {Euterpe, cxxiv.)— Tb. 

VOL. I. 84 



186 



PERU. 



caca after it was melted; copper, which they called anti; and an alloy of two or more 
metals, to which they gave the name of champpi} 

As to their method of quarrying stone, it was that of the ancient Egyptians, as 
described by Herodotus. Like them the American workmen first traced upon the 
stone the shape of the block they reqiiired, then cut the outlines with a chisel,'-^ and 
drove into these grooves wedges of dry wood, which they afterwards wetted, and which, 
by their swelling, split the stone. In the neighbourhood of Cuzco, in the districts of 
Quiquijana and Ollantay-Tampu, we still find in the quarries these wedges made of the 





FIGURE OF A NAIAD. SPHINX CORREQUENQUE. 

8CDLPT0KBS OF THE PERIOD OF THE INCAS, FOUND BY THE AUTHOIt IN THE BACK-TABD OF A HOUSE IN THE CALLE DEL TRICnFO. 



{ 



wood of the huarango {Mimosa lutea) fixed in the joints of the stones, and become by 
lapse of time as soft and spongy as German tinder. As to the transport of these blocks, 
they were carried, according to their size, on the backs of the men, or with the help 
of their arms. Garcilaso, whose relationship with the Incas entitles him to be regarded 
sometimes as the best informed of the historiographers of the Conquest, as he is also 
the coolest liar^ among them all, whom we have read and re-read, and annotated in 

' Tin and glass were also known to these indigenes, they call the first yuractiti (white lead), and the second cquespi/. 
There is the less reason for doubt in this respect, because the Peruvians never gave the Quichua names to things brought 
among them by their Spanish conquerors, but contented themselves with the names which the latter gave them. Hence 
the large number of Castilian vocables which have corrupted the original purity of the Quichua idiom. 

^ The two sculptures found by me in the back-court of a house in the street of Triumph — one that of a sphinx 
Correquenqiie (vulture-gryphon), the other that of a naiad crowned with rushes, which served as a fountain, as proved 
by the leaden pipes placed in her mouth and her breasts and the greenish tint which the water has given to the stone — 
however coarse they may seem, must have been fashioned with a chisel and a mallet in some way, because we cannot 
reasonably admit that they were cut with blows of a flint, a process, says Garcilaso, employed by the workmen in the 
time of the Incas, who cut and polished with blows of hard flints called hihuanas the stones destined for their edifices, 
and, he adds, gnawed and crumbled rather than cut them. 

' The gasconnades, at once simple and audacious, scattered at random through the works of Garcila-so and hip 
competitor, Pedro de Ciega, would fill a considerable volume. We cite the following hap-hazard by way of specimens : — 

Speaking of the mattedlu {Hydrocotyle mvltiflord), which from the time of Garcilaso the Indians have eaten as a 



I 




ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 187 

the very localities which inspired him, and whom for that reason we cite with ex- 
treme reserve, makes mention, in his Comentarios Reales, of blocks weighing 20,000 
metrical quintals (1000 tons), which the Indians were compelled to leave on the road. 
These masses, which he designates by the name of piedras cansadas (fatigue-stones), 
may be actually seen in certain localities of the Sierra. Let us hasten to add for the 
edification of the public, abused by ingenuous and credulous travellers who, on the faith 
of Garcilaso, have measured with their astonished eyes these fatigue-stones, that they 
are nearly all what geologists call drift-blocks; but are occasionally composed of the 
granite rock itself cropping out in the form of polyhedral masses, some of them cubic 
or rectangular, and inclined to the north-west. 

After the historiographers and commentators come the archaeologists, who have taken 
the trouble to class the American monuments by epochs according to the nature of 
the material employed in their construction. According to these gentlemen the stone 
edifices are the most ancient; those of brick come next in point of time, and con- 
structions of earth and stone are the most modern. This scheme, however, is inad- 
missible, because we find on both continents and among the same nations the three 
kinds of material used simultaneously in constructions of the same epoch. Thus the 
edifices of Teotihuacan in the state of Mexico, attributed to the Olmecs, one of the 
most ancient nations established in New Spain, present in two teocallis, dedicated 
to Tonatiuh and Meztli, the sun and moon, the use of clay, of small stones, and of 
blocks of porphyritic sandstone serving to plate the exterior. The pyramid of Cholula 
in the state of Puebla, constructed by the Toltecs, is composed of layers of clay, 
earthen bricks dried in the sun (xamilli), and of blocks of stone. By the side of these 
structures we find other monuments both of a more remote and a more recent date 
built exclusively of stone. Such are those of Mitla, attributed to the Tzapotecs, and 
those of Culhuacan or Palenque. The exclusive use of stone, or of sun-dried bricks 
alternately with it, characterizes equally the constructions of Canada, Florida, and 
Yucatan. 

The same observation applies to South America, for example to the remains found 
in Cundinamarca, the seat of the civilization of the Muyscas, whose antiquity appears to 
be greater than that of the Aztecs, if we admit the period of 2000 years which these 

Siilad, and of which they made poultices for sore eyes, which they no longer do in our day, our historiogi-apher recites 
the marvellous cure which he operated with the above-named herb. A translation of his words would only weaken 
them : — " Yo se la puse a un muchacho que tenia un qjo para sallarle dd casco: estava inflamado como un pimiento, tin 
divisarse lo bianco ni prieto del ojo, sino hecho una came y lo tenia ya medio caido sobre el carillo, y la primera noche que 
le puse la yerva, se restituyo el ojo a su lugar, y la segunda quedo del todo sano y bueno. Despues aod, he visto d mo^o en 
Uspana, y me ha dicho que tie mas de aqud ojo que tuvo enfermo que del olro." The reflection which terminates this recital 
is a true touch of comedy. 

Again: "The first pomegranates that appeared in America in the seventeenth century were carried in triumph in 
the procession of the Host. They were as big as half a hogshead ; but the times are changed. In our day, and notwith- 
standing the indisputable though slow progress of cultivation and the application of huano, which was not used in the 
seventeenth century among the first Spanish colonists, the finest pomegranates grown in the western valleys of the Pacific 
do not exceed in dimensions the size of a large orange." 

As to Pedro de Ciega, he tells us he has seen {seen with his own eyes, or what he calls seen) among the peoples of the 
Sierra, but what people he forgets to name, on the stalls of the pork-butchers, cutlets, beefsteaks, and fillets of human 
flesh, regularly cut up and set out for sale, as well as pSt^s, puddings, and force-meat balls {morciilas y longanisas), 
made of the flesh, the blood, and the bowels of men. 



188 



PERU. 



peoples place between the advent of Bochica their legislator and the first dynasty 
of the Huancas, his successors. The materials employed in these constructions were 
successive layers of stone and clay mixed with chopped straw or small stones. Under 
the equator among the Puruays of Lican, whose subjugation was completed by the 
Incas about the end of the fifteenth century, the remains of their edifices are also 
found to be constructed of stone alternating with sun-dried bricks {tica, tapia, and 
adobe). Tiahuanacu, whose civilization appears to date from the same epoch as the 
establishment of the Muyscas in the neighbourhood of Bogota, presents, together with 
the remains of edifices constructed of porphyritic and carboniferous sandstone, some 




RUINS OF A FORTBE8S OF SUN-1)KIKD BBICKS (tAPIAS) IN THE DISTRICT OF OLLANTAY-TAMPU. 



debris of earthen walls. Such are the ruins of two edifices situated about three miles 
east-south-east from the actual village in the middle of a desert plain. 

After these monuments of divers countries and ages, come the constructions built 
by the Incas, and those the last of the series, since they do not mount higher than 
to the middle of the eleventh century. All these constructions are of stone; sun- 
dried bricks are employed only in four or five fortresses at diff'erent points in the 
Sierra, edifices of no architectural importance which the Incas erected on the boundary 
of the newly conquered territories, and the best preserved specimen of which exists 
upon the left bank of the Quillabamba, in the district of OUantay-Tampu. 

If, as these facts justify us in concluding, the nature of the materials and their 
supposed exclusive use in the monuments of the two Americas fail to furnish arguments 
of any value whatever in respect to the antiquity of these nations, they throw a clear 
light, on the other hand, upon their common origin, and at the same time bear testi- 
mony as to the countries from which they borrowed their architectural ideas, their 
various methods of construction, and even the use of the materials which they employed. 
We have seen that they derived from the ancient Egyptians their method of extracting 
blocks from the quarry, of working them on the spot, and of transporting them by 
manual labour. Their method of fixing the stones, without lime or cement, by continual 
rubbing and the addition of a little water to make them adhere more perfectly, is 
evidently borrowed from the orientals,^ as likewise is their idea of monolithic construc- 

* See Strabo — Chardiu — Niebuhr. 




ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 189 

tions. The use of dried bricks alternately with stones of all sizes is common to them 
and the Persians, the Medes, the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, and the Babylonians. 
The simultaneous use of these materials is observable in the ruins of Persepolis, 
Ecbatana, Nineveh, Borsippa, and Babylon. Even China is not excluded from the 
list of oriental nations which have furnished these ancient Americans with the idea 
of some one of their constructions. The revetment of certain teocallis, the disposition 
of the pucaras or fortresses, the chimpus and andanerias serving at once as sustaining 
walls and lines of demarkation or defence, often more than a thousand yards long, 
resemble the walls built by the peoples of the Mongol race which are every day being 
discovered in the eastern part of Asia. 

After this rapid coup-d'oeil of the presumable origin and the intellectual develop- 
ment of the American nations, we pass on to consider that last fraction of them, the 
dynasty of the Incas, which carried into Peru the worship and the traditions, then 
almost effaced, of the old Orient. 

Local tradition, when the clouds which obscure it are dispersed, represent Manco- 
Capac and his sister Mama Ocllo as having come from the hot valleys situated beyond 
the Cordillera, to the east of the Lake of Titicaca. These valleys, lying between Apolo- 
bamba and the sources of the Rio Beni, now belong to Bolivia, and are commonly 
designated by the name of the Yungas of La Paz. 

Carrying a rod of gold, the emblem of power,^ the new Horus, pastor of the peoples 
to come, crossed the punas of CoUao, followed by his companion, and after a march 
of 240 miles in a north-westerly direction, arrived on the heights of Huanacotd 
(now Huanacauri), where he discovered a vast circular quebrada surrounded by moun- 
tains, which he fixed upon for his residence. The city that he subsequently built 
in the centre of this quebrada bore the name of Ccozgco (now Cuzco), which signifies 
the point of attachment, or navel. 

In a short time the people of the environs rallied to his voice, and drawn by his 
eloquence and the charming life he pictured, which recalled perhaps the primitive state 
from which they had declined, accepted his laws, and exchanged the precai'ious life 
of the chase for that of agriculture. While Manco instructed the men to cultivate 
the ground and dig canals for irrigation. Mama Ocllo taught the women to spin the 
wool of the vicunas and alpacas, and weave the stuffs necessary for the clothing 
of the family, and initiated them into their duties as wives and mothers. The city 
was planned in the form of a parallelogram of no great extent; its greatest length 
was from north-east to south-west, and it had no wall. A stream descending from the 
Cordillera bounded the south side of the city, and at a later period divided it in two, 
when under the successive reigns of thirteen emperors the boundaries of tho primitive 
acropolis had extended northward to Huancaro and southward to Sapi. 

The inequality of the ground caused the city to be divided into two parts (fau- 
bourgs), the upper town called Hurin, now San Cristoval, the lower Hanan, now 
the quarter of the cathedral. After the erection of the Inca's palace in the upper 

' Some modern writers have spoken, but erroneously, of a wedge of gold. The Spanish texts agreeing as regards 
— uaa vara de do» pies de largo y un dedo de grueso — can have no e(iuivocal meaning. 



190 PERU. 

town and of the houses for the people, the first edifices built in the lower town were 
the temple of the Sun and the AccUhuaci, or palace of the Virgins consecrated to its 
worship. These two edifices, commenced by Manco, were not finished till fifty years 
after the foundation of the city, by his eldest son, Sinchiroca. For half a century the 
temple of the Sun was nothing but an inclosed space {chimpu). Its walls were con- 
structed of unwrought stones, and in the centre of the area was a square pillar roughly 
chipped into shape, like the hirmensul or Druidical stone of the Sun; at once the 
letter and the symbol, the altar and the image, of the divinity. 

After some years devoted to the organization of the rising city, Manco began 
a crusade among the surrounding populations east, west, north, and south. His 
enterprise, undertaken in the name of the Sun, whose eldest son and envoy he styled 
himself, had both a religious and a political object, that of spreading among the 
infidels the worship of Helios-Churi, and of augmenting at the same time the number 
of his subjects and his possessions. This apostolic mission, which continued many 
years, resulted in the subjugation of some score of peoples spread over an area extending 
to thirty miles round the capital, and to the annexation of their territory to the empire. 
Under Manco the limits of the empire were at Quiquijana on the south, Ollantay- 
Tampu on the north, Paucartampu on the east, and Limatampu on the west. 

After a reign of some fifty years Manco died, leaving his power in the hands of 
his eldest son, Sinchiroca. Already the empire was organized, the religion of the Sun 
was founded, its powers established, its exterior worship assured, and the policy of 
the rulers distinctly marked out. Manco had foreseen everything; his successors 
had only to continue his work. 

On mounting the throne Sinchiroca took for his Avife, according to the custom 
of the primitive races, his eldest sister Mama Cora.^ He finished the temple of the 
Sun and the palace of the Virgins, and, following the example of his father, undertook 
a series of pacific conquests, which aggrandized by twenty-one square miles the empire 
of the Incas. The exterior sign of power adopted by Manco was a roll or fillet of 
variously coloured wool, which was twisted five times round the head, its two ends 
falling upon the shoulder. Sinchiroca substituted for this ornament a fillet of nine 
variously coloured threads, like the former, but girdling the forehead like a crown. 
Like his father he had his ears lengthened some nine or ten inches, and a wooden 
ring about ten inches in circumference suspended to the lobe. This fashion, which all 
the Incas adhered to,^ proves clearly that the founder of their dynasty had long resided 
in eastern regions, among the long-eared nations from whom are probably sprung the 
Botocudos of Brazil, as well as the Orejones, the Ccotos, and the Anguteros of Peru. 

^ These unions in the families of the Incas had for their object the preservation of the purity of race. To increase 
their prestige in the eyes of their subjects, and give to their origin a divine source, they pretended that in the marriage 
of brother and sister, they followed the example of their father Churi (the Sun), who married his sister Quilla (the 
Moon). 

^ The sculptors of Huamanga and the painters of Cuzco of tlie eigliteenth century, as well as the artists who 
succeeded them, have not taken care, from their regard for the form and worship of bonito (the beautiful), to give to 
the statuettes and portraits of the Incas these extravagant ears, the attribute of their race. While pointing out this 
designed omission on their part, we have ourselves hastened to repair it, from respect for local colour, and witliout 
disquieting ourselves about the artistic efiect. 




AOOPIA TO CUZCO. 191 

After a peaceful reign of forty years, Sinchiroca died, or as his faithful followers 
say, went to rest from the fatigues of existence in the domains of his well-beloved 
father, the Sim. 

Loqui Yupanqui, the eldest son of Sinchiroca, succeeded to his power, and 
continued to extend the bounds of the empire. But it was no longer by that persuasive 
eloquence which Manco had recommended to his successors when confronting savage 
tribes that the new Inca recruited his subjects. The force of arms was tried, and 
during his reign the provinces of Collao were annexed to the empire, and fortresses 
of rammed clay built on the borders of the conquered territory. It is to Loqui 
Yupanqui that historians have attributed the erection of astronomical observatories in 
the higher and lower towns of Cuzco. These observatories were seen by the Spaniards, 
and were in existence about thirty years after the Conquest. If the idea of their 
erection is to be referred to a remote epoch, it is necessary to observe that they were 
no more like the Mexican teocallis than the pyramidal edifices of Chaldea and Egypt. 
They were simply quadrangular pillars of unequal height, arranged in two groups 
of eight pillars, four of which were large and four small. They were united together 
by chains of gold. One of these monolithic groups was situated in the east of the 
city, the other in the west. The position of the sun in relation to the pillars indicated 
to astronomers the epoch of the solstices and equinoxes. Some of the palaces had 
dwarf pillars of this kind placed in the middle of their courts to serve as gnomons. 
The March equinox was celebrated by grand processions round the bean and corn fields. 
That of September gave occasion to great rejoicings. The revolution of the earth 
round the sun, and of the moon round the earth, were known to these peoples. The 
first they called Huata, meaning the year, and the duration of a month (each month 
having its own particular name) they called Quilla, from the moon. 

Eclipses terrified them. On seeing the face of the moon grow dark, they 
imagined she was sick, and would fall down and annihilate them. To avert this 
catastrophe, they made a frightful uproar, beating drums, clashing cymbals, blowing 
trumpets, and thrashing their dogs to make them howl. As the moon has a par- 
ticular affection for dogs, and dogs, on their part, love the moon — in whose face 
they look with tenderness, and break out into a romantic howling on quiet moonlit 
nights — the moon, seeing her friends abused, and hearing their cries, experienced a 
lively emotion, which was supposed to hasten her cure. The days on which eclipses 
of the moon happened were regarded as "bad days," and called punchau. The 
morning which preceded them was called pacari, and the night which followed tuta. 

The lunar spots, which they were also acquainted with, as they were with the 
revolution of Venus, the Milky Way, and the Southern Cross,^ were attributed to 
an enchantment as old as the age of gold, when beasts had the gift of language. 
A fox, the legend went, seeing the moon so white, so round, so fascinating, and 
taking it for a cheese, sprang towards it with the idea of snapping it up, but the 
star of night, disagreeably impressed by the odour of the beast, seized him in her 

' Venus, on account of her radiancy, was called Coyllur Chascca, the star with the bristling hair (the French che- 
velure means streaming light as well as hair). The Milky Way they called CatachUlay, and the Southern Cross Crinita. 



192 PERU. ' 

arms, and was about to throw him into space, when a magic charm united the one to 
the other for ever. For other particulars of this astronomical system see Garcilaso, 
Pedro de Cie9a, and Acosta. 

It was during the reign of Loqui Yupanqui that poesy, literature, music, philo- 
sophy, and the sciences repre'sented by medicine as well as astronomy, as we shall 
immediately see, made their first timid essays. Poesy limited itself to the composi- 
tion of little poems of ten or a dozen strophes in eight-syllable lines of blank-verse, 
the compositions of the yaravicus (poets). These works, called yaravis,^ from the name 
of their composers, were at first songs of victory, odes, and dithyrambs in celebration 
of the triumphs of the Inca, his personal qualities, and his power. In course of time 
they assumed other forms, and told of love, of nature, and of flowers.^ The usual 
figures in this kind of poesy are borrowed from the most beautiful objects of creation. 
The star, the flower, the turtle-dove, and the butterfly play the first part in them, one 
might say the only part. If the style of these compositions is almost always florid, the 
form is poor, the idea puerile, the sentiment cold and artificial. Like its elder sister, 
the poetry of the Zend races, that of the yaravicus of Peru is characterized by a 
drowsy monotony, reminding one, though distantly, of the eternal loves of the Persian 
rose and bulbul. The only diff'erence to note between the Indo-Persian poets and 
their compeers of the American continent is the graceful freshness which characterizes 
the works of th