Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon/Volume 1/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
Departure from Cerro Pasco — Mint at Quinua — San Rafael – Ambo – Quicacan — Huanuco — Cerro de Carpis — Chinchao valley — Huallaga river.
MINT AT QUINUA. 115
By cajoling, and threats of appeal to the military, (a small military force is stationed here as a police,) we got our drunken vagabonds to “load up” and set off by half-past 1 p.m. One of them gave us the slip at the outskirts of the town. The other wished to look him up, or at least to get the key of a tambo where two spare mules belonging to them were locked up; but we would not hear of it, and driving the loaded mules on, he was fain to follow. The deserter joined us at our stopping-place for the night, but on finding the condition of things he had to return to the Cerro for his missing beasts.
Almost immediately on leaving the Cerro, and ascending the hills that encircled it on the north, we came in sight of the Eastern Andes, which is here a Cordillera, for it has many abrupt and snow-clad peaks. Close at hand, on the left, was a spot of marshy ground, which had some interest for us, as we were not to quit the waters while we saw trickling in tiny streams from it, until, swelled by many others they pour themselves into the Atlantic by a mouth one hundred and eighty miles broad. This is the source of the Huallaga, one of the heal tributaries of the Amazon.
Seven miles in a N. N. E. direction, and passing many haciendas for the grinding of ore, brought us to the village of Quinua, where a mint was established several years ago, but is now abandoned. The machinery for coining is much better than any I have seen in South America. It was made by a Boston man, named Hacket, who also made nearly all the machinery for the sugar-mills near Huanuco. There are gold mines in this neighborhood, but I think they are not worked. This village is just at the point where, leaving the sterility of the Cerro, we fall in with bushes and flowers.
Four miles further we stopped for the night at a hacienda called Chiquirin, which appears once to have been flourishing, but which is now nearly abandoned, being only tenanted by an old man to take care of the house. The bridge, which crossed, the stream in front of the house, had had arched gate-ways at each end; and a respectable- looking church occupied one side of the patio. A field or two of barley is all the cultivation now about it. Indeed, there seemed little room for
116 SAN RAFAEL.
more, for the hills on each side now began to close in and present the appearance of mountains; and I have no doubt that, though still going down hill, we have begun to cross the second range of the Andes. We could get no supper at this place. I was tired enough to care little about it. Had Ijurra been with us he would probably have found something; but he was absent, having dropped the compass on the road and ridden back to look for it. The height of Chiquirin, by boiling point, is eleven thousand five hundred and forty-two feet above the level of the sea.
July 14. — We had a pleasant ride down the valley, which opens a little and gives room for some cultivation. There were pinks and hollyhocks in the little gardens adjoining the cottages; also, cabbages, lettuce, and onions. We stopped to breakfast at Caxarmarquilla, a village of some eight or ten houses. The cura received me hospitably, and gave me some breakfast. He told me there were one hundred and fifty souls in the Doctrina. I should judge there were about thirty in the village. The rock of this district is red sandstone and conglomerate. At six miles further we passed a hacienda where there were roses in bloom, and the flowering pea, with wheat on the hill-side, and a grist-mill; also, alfalfa and maize. Immediately afterwards, a valley from the southward and eastward joined the one I was travelling in, bringing its stream of water to swell the Huallaga.
Gypsum crops out of the hills on the road-side, making the roads white. Houses here are whitewashed with it. A mile further is the village of Huariaca, a long, straggling place of one, and in some places two streets. It contains about seven or eight hundred inhabitants. I thought I saw more white people and more industry in this place than is common in the small Sierra towns. We met continually mules laden with tobacco, coca, and fruit, going from Huanuco and the Montaña beyond it to the Cerro. We stopped, at half past five, at San Rafael, an Indian town of some two hundred and fifty souls, with a white lieutenant governor, and put up at his house.
I had my bed made inside, instead of outside the house, which was a mistake, as I was “pigging in” with all the family; and, from want of air, and villainous smell, expected to catch tabardillo before morning. The thermometer was at 62° at 7 p.m., and I imagine did not fall lower than 50° during the night; so that I could very well have slept outside, and advise all travellers to do so, providing themselves with warm bed-clothing. Here I was joined by Ijurra, whom I was very glad to see, and the delinquent arriero, with his two mules. The height of San Rafael, by boiling point, is eight thousand five hundred and Fifty-one feet above the level of the sea.
THE ROAD. 117
July 15. — We got alfalfa for our mules, but it is now getting very scarce. The valley, after leaving San Rafael, is very narrow, and the road rises and falls along the bare flanks of the mountains. The character of the rock is a dark schist; the growth, willows—palma christi—maguey [1], (a species of cactus, with a very long, broad, yet sharp-pointed leaf,) which throws out from the centre of a clump of leaves, a light stalk of three or four inches diameter at the base, and frequently thirty feet in height. This flowers towards the top, and bears a sort of nut-like fruit. The stem is much used for roofing houses, and the broad, thick leaves serve for thatch.
We shot at condors hovering over a dead mule, and saw a small hawk of variegated and pretty plumage, which we had before seen near Oroya. About ten miles from San Rafael we were crossing the highest part of the chain. An opening in the mountains to the right gave us a view of some splendid snow-clad peaks. After an hour’s ride over a precipitous and broken path, rendered dangerous in some places by the sliding of the earth and soft rock from above upon it, we commenced a very sharp descent, which brought us, in fifteen minutes, to fruit-trees and a patch of sugar-cane on the banks of the stream. The sudden transition from rugged mountain peaks, where there was no cultivation, to a tropical vegetation, was marvellous. A few miles further on we crossed the boundary-line between the provinces of Pasco and Huanuco. The transition is agreeable, and I was glad to exchange the mining for the agricultural country. At half-past four, we arrived at the town of Ambo, a village of one thousand inhabitants, situated at the junction of the rivers Huacar and Huallaga. The former stream comes down a ravine to the westward; each is about thirty-five yards broad, and uniting, they pour their waters by the town with great velocity. The rock of this region is mostly an argillaceous schist, though just above Ambo the road was bordered by a perpendicular hill of beautiful red sand-stone. The strata all along this route are nearly north and south in their directions, and have an inclination upwards towards the north of from forty to seventy degrees.
Two miles from Ambo, on the right or opposite bank of the river, is another very pretty little village, almost hidden in the luxuriant vegetation about it. The whole valley now becomes very beautiful. From the road on which we were travelling to the river’s brink, (a breadth of quarter of a mile,) the land (which is a rich river bottom) is laid off into alternate fields of sugar-cane and alfalfa. The blended green and yellow of this growth, divided by willows, interspersed with fruit trees, and broken into wavy lines by the serpentine course of the river, presented
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a gay and cheerful appearance, which, contrasting with the forbidding aspect of the rocks we had just left, filled us with pleasurable emotions, and indicated that we had exchanged a semi-barbarous for a civilized society. The only drawback with me was excessive fatigue. When Ijurra rode back to Cerro Pasco for the compass, he happened to be mounted on my mule. This gave her extra work; and the ride of today was a long one, so that the little beast by this time could barely put one foot before the other.
There is scarcely anything more fatiguing than to ride a tired horse; and when I arrived (at five) at the hospitable gates of the hacienda of Quicacan, and with difficulty lifted myself out of the saddle, it was with the deep sigh which always accompanies relief from pain, and which was much more pleasurable than the sight of waving fields and babbling brooks.
The owner of the hacienda — an English gentleman, named Dyer, to whom I brought letters from Cerro Pasco — received me and my large party exactly as if it were a matter of course, and as if I had quite as much right to enter his house as I had to enter an inn. The patio was filled with horses, belonging to a large party from Huanuco bound to Lima, and every seat in the ample portico seemed filled. I was somewhat surprised at the size and appointments of the establishment. It looked like a little village of itself, with its offices and workshops. The dwelling — a large, substantial, though low building, with a corridor in front supported on massive arches, and having the spaces between the pillars enclosed with iron wire to serve for cages for numerous rare and pretty birds — occupied one side of the enclosed square; store-rooms occupied another; the sugar-house, another; and a chapel, the fourth. A bronze fountain, with an ample basin, decorated the centre. I was strongly reminded of the large farm-houses in some parts of Virginia: the same number of servants bustling about in each other’s way; the children of the master and the servant all mixed up together; the same in the hospitable welcome to all comers; the same careless profusion. When I saw the servants dragging out mattresses and bed-clothing from some obscure room, and going with them to different parts of the house to make pallets for the visitors who intended to spend the night, I seemed carried back to my boyish days, and almost fancied that I was at a country wedding in Virginia. We dined at six in another spacious corridor, enclosed with glass, and looking out upon a garden rich with grape-vines and flowers.
After dinner, the party broke up into groups for cards or conversation, which continued until ten o’clock brought tea and bed-time.
I conversed with an intelligent and manly Frenchman named Escudero.
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His account of the seeking and gathering of Peruvian bark was exceedingly interesting; and I should judge that it is an occupation which involves much fatigue and exposure.
He spoke very highly of the mechanical abilities of my countryman, Miguel Hacket, and gave me a letter to deliver to him wherever I might find him.
I also had some talk with quite a pretty young woman, who had come from Quito by the way of the Pastaza, Marañon, and Huallaga rivers. She said she was scared at the malos pasos, or rapids of the river, and never could relish monkey soup; but what gave her most uneasiness was the polite attention of the Huambisas Indians. She declared that this was frightful, and swore a good round oath, (that might have satisfied Hotspur in a lady,) Caramba! but they were mad for a white wife. Report here says that she prefers Yankee to Indian, and is about to bestow her hand upon a long countryman of ours, the head blacksmith, named Blake.
July 16. — Dyer had put me into a wide “four-poster.” None but a traveller in these parts can imagine the intense pleasure with which I took off my clothes and stretched my weary limbs between linen sheets, and laid my head upon a pillow with a frilled case to it. I could scarcely sleep for the enjoyment of the luxury. Rest, too, has renewed my beast; and the little black, which I thought last night was entirely done up, is this morning as lively as a filly.
The sugar-mill of Quicacan is composed of an overshot wheel, turned by a race brought from the river far above, and giving motion to three heavy brass cylinders that crush the cane between them. The juice falls into a receptacle below, and is led off by a trough to the boilers, which are arranged in order over the furnaces like a common kitchen range. After a certain amount of boiling, it is poured by means of ladles into wooden moulds, greased and laid on the ground in rows. This makes the chancaca, so much used throughout Peru. It supplies the place, in this country, to the lower classes, which the wares of candy shops do in our own. Two of the moulds are put together and enveloped in the leaf of the cane. They make a pound, and are sold at the hacienda for six and a quarter cents.
Cutting the cane, bringing it in, stripping it and cutting off the tops, supplying the mill, boiling the sugar, and making the chancaca, employ about twenty men and four mules. With this force one hundred dollars’ worth of chancaca may be made in a day; but Mr. Dyer says that he is not now making more than twenty or thirty dollars, and not paying his expenses. He attributes this to the fact that his fields are wearing out and require replanting. He thinks that cane should be
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replanted every ten or fifteen years. It is fit for cutting in two years and four months after planting. This is a very extensive establishment; and Mr. Dyer, besides his cane-fields, which are on the river-side, cultivates a farm for raising wheat, maize, peas, beans, and potatoes, on the hills above.
We left Quicacan at noon, in company with Mr. Dyer and my French friend. Stopped at another hacienda, about a mile and a half from this, belonging to a gentleman named Ingunza, and at another a little lower down, called Andabamba, belonging to Señor San Miguel, to whom I brought letters from Lima. All these, with another on the same road, belonged to a Colonel Lucar, of Huanuco, who gave them to these gentlemen, his sons-in-law. Quicacan was the family mansion, and had been longest under cultivation. At half-past four we arrived at Huanuco, and, presenting a letter to Colonel Lucar, from his son-in-law Dyer, we were kindly received, and lodgings appointed us in his spacious and commodious house.
July 17. — Huanuco is one of the most ancient cities in Peru. It is prettily situated on the left bank of the Huanuco, or Huallaga river, which is here about forty yards wide,
and at this time (the dry season) about two feet deep in the channel. It however, every two or three hundred yards, runs over rocks or a gravelly bed, which makes it entirely in navigable, even for canoes, though when the river is up I believe articles are transported on it from hacienda to hacienda in small scows. A smaller stream, called the Higueros, empties into it just above the city.
The houses are built of adobe, with tile roofs, and almost all have large gardens attached to them — so that the city covers a good deal of ground without having many houses. The gardens are filled with vegetables and fruit-trees, and make delightful places of recreation during the warmer parts of the day.
The population numbers from four to five thousand. They seem to be a simple and primitive people; and, like all who have little to do, are much attached to religious ceremonies — there being no less than fifteen churches in the city, some of them quite large and handsome. The people are civil and respectful, and, save a curious stare now and then at my spectacles and red beard, are by no means offensive in their curiosity, as Smyth represents them to have been some seventeen years ago.
The trade of the place is with Cerro Pasco on the one hand, and the villages of the Huallaga on the other. It sends chancaca, tobacco, fruit, and vegetables to the Cerro, and receives foreign goods (mostly English)
THE CHIRIMOYA. 121
in return. A shop-keeper gave me the price of some of the articles in his store: Broad striped cassimere, such as gentlemen’s trousers are made of, five and a half dollars the yard; very common silk handkerchiefs, one dollar; common silk hat, five dollars; blue cloth drillings, twenty-five cents the yard; baize, eighty-seven and a half cents; narrow ribbon, one dollar and twenty-five cents the piece; cotton handkerchiefs, two dollars and twenty-five cents the dozen; tolerable Scotch carpeting, one dollar and a half the vara, of thirty-three English inches; bayeta castilla, (a kind of serge or woolen cloth, with a long shag upon it, and of rich colors,) one dollar and seventy-five cents the vara. In the market, beef and mutton from the province of Huamalies sell at six and a quarter cents the pound; Indian corn, twenty-five cents the olla, of twenty-five pounds; potatoes, seventy-five cents for the costal of fifty pounds; salt, from the coast at Huacho, six and a quarter cents the pound; sugar, generally from the coast, twenty-five cents the pound, (this in an eminently sugar country;) coffee, twelve and a half cents. Very little meat is raised. I saw a small quantity of pork, with plenty of tallow candles; and rotten potatoes for the consumption of the Indians. Bread is good, but is generally made, in the best houses, of American flour from Lima. Vegetables and fruit are abundant and cheap. This is, par excellence, the country of the celebrated chirimoya. I have seen this fruit in Huanuco quite twice as large as it is generally seen in Lima, and of most delicious flavor. They have a custom here to cover the finest specimens with gold leaf, and place them as a decoration on the altar of some patron Saint on his festival. The church afterwards sells them; and I have seen several on Colonel Lucar’s table.
This gentleman is, probably, the richest and most influential man in Huanuco. He seems to have been the father of husbandry in these parts, and is the very type of the old landed proprietor of Virginia, who has lived always upon his estates, and attended personally to their cultivation. Seated at the head of his table, with his hat on to keep the draught from his head — and which he would insist upon removing unless I would wear mine — his chair surrounded by two or three little negro children, whom he fed with bits from his plate; and attending with patience and kindness to the clamorous wants of a pair of splendid peacocks, a couple of small parrots of brilliant and variegated plumage, and a beautiful and delicate monkey — I thought I had rarely seen a more perfect pattern of the patriarch. His kindly and affectionate manner to his domestics, (all slaves,) and to his little grandchildren, a pair of sprightly boys, who came in the evening from the college, was also very pleasing. There are thirty servants attached to the house, large
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and small; and the family is reduced to the colonel and his lady, (at present absent,) and the boys.
The climate of Huanuco is very equable and very salubrious. There are no cases of affection of the chest which commence here; on the contrary, people with diseases caused by the inclemency of the weather about Cerro Pasco, come to Huanuco to be cured. Dysentery and tabardillo [Typhus] are the commonest diseases; and I see many people (particularly women) with goitre. I saw a woman who had one that seemed to arise under each ear and encircle the throat like an inflated life-preserver. The affection is said to be owing to the impurity of the water, which is not fit to drink unless filtered. The lower class of people do not attend to this, and thus the disease is more general with them than with the higher classes. It is disagreeable to walk out in the middle of the day, on account of a strong northerly wind which sets in at this season about noon, and lasts till dark, raising clouds of dust. The mornings and evenings are very pleasant, though the sun is hot for an hour or two before the breeze sets in. The
height of Huanuco above the level of the sea is, by boiling point, five thousand nine hundred and forty-six feet.
There is a college with about twenty-two internal, and eighty day scholars. Its income, derived from lands formerly belonging to convents, is seven thousand and five hundred dollars yearly. It has a fine set of chemical and other philosophical apparatus, with one thousand specimens of European minerals. These things were purchased in Europe, at a cost of five thousand dollars; and the country owes them to the zeal for learning, and exertions of Don Mariano Eduardo de Rivero, formerly prefect of the department, director-general of the mines, and now consul-general to the Netherlands, where he is said to be preparing a voluminous work on the antiquities of Peru. As I shall, probably, not have occasion to refer to him again, I must in this place express my sense of gratitude for the information I have received from his most valuable publication, The Memorial of Natural Sciences, and of National and Foreign Industry, edited by himself and Don Nicolas Pierola, the modest and learned director of the museum at Lima. The Department of Junin owes much to its former prefect. He has founded schools, improved roads, built cemeteries, and, in short, whatever good thing I noticed on my route might generally be traced back to Rivero.
July 18. — I called on the sub-prefect of the province, and delivered an official letter from the prefect of the department, whom I had visited at Cerro Pasco. This gentleman’s name is Maldonado. He received me courteously and promised me any assistance I might stand in need
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of. He seemed to be at bitter feud with all my friends; and they represented him as a high-handed personage. We met at Quicacan a colonel who was going to Lima, escorted by a number of his friends, to complain to the government of his having been illegally imprisoned by the sub-prefect. I believe the cause was an alleged libel, or libelous publication against the sub-prefect; and if it was of the nature of some of the publications daily seen in the Lima papers, he deserved imprisonment, or worse punishment, for they are generally the foulest and most scurrilous things, which no decent paper in the United States would publish, and which would certainly bring upon the writer a fine or the horse-whip.
People in Huanuco are fully alive to the importance of opening the navigation of the Huallaga to their city. They speak of it as a thing that would be of incalculable advantage to them; and their leaders and influential men have often urged them to be up and doing. But, although they cannot be stirred up to the undertaking themselves, they are jealous of the attempt by any other route. I had a visit this evening from my Cerro Pasco acquaintance, the Intendente of Pozuzu. The old gentleman discoursed long and earnestly about his route from the Cerro to Pozuzu, and thence to Mayro. When he went away, Colonel Lucar asked me what I called that science in my country that put people to sleep; and when I told him that it was animal magnetism [hypnosis], he said that that old man was a capital magnetizer, for he had been to sleep an hour. I think there was some jealousy in this.
Rice, tobacco, and straw hats, in small quantities, are now brought on the backs of Indians from the towns on the Huallaga to Huanuco.
Colonel Lucar showed me his cuarto de habios, or room where he keeps all his horse furniture. He has at least a dozen saddles of various patterns, with bridles, pillons, horse- cloths, holsters, and everything complete. Most of the bridles and stirrups are heavily plated with silver. People take great care of their horses in this country, and are generally good horsemen. There are one or two carriages and gigs in Huanuco, made in England.
I sold my mules to the Colonel for half that I had given for them, with the condition that we should ride them as far as practicable, and send them back by the arriero. The old gentleman agreed to it, though rather reluctantly. He said that some fifteen years ago, a countryman of mine, and calling himself an officer of the navy also, had sold him his mules for pistols and fowling-pieces, on the same terms; but when he arrived at the end of his journey, he sold the mules again, and went off with the proceeds. The Colonel could not give me the name of this
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honest individual. I afterwards ascertained that he was not an American, but a German.
July 22. — Much to my annoyance our servant Mauricio deserted this morning. Ijurra accuses me of having spoiled him by indulgence; and I, on the other hand, think that he had disgusted him by tyranny. I imagine he went back to Lima with Castillo, a young man who had been governor of the district of Tarapoto on the Huallaga, and who was going to Lima with stuffed birds’ skins to sell. This was an intelligent young man, who gave me information about the Montaña. He said I would be amply protected in my contemplated voyage up the Ucayali with twenty-five Chasutinos, (Indians of Chasuta,) for they were a brave and hardy people; but that the Cocamas and Cocamillas, from about the mouth of the river, were great cowards, and would desert me on the first appearance of the savages — that they had so treated him. I rather suspect that the reason for Don Mauricio’s shabby behavior was, that we were getting into his own country, and that he had private reasons for desiring to avoid a visit home. He had asked me at Tarma to let him go with Gibbon.
Our arriero made his appearance at noon, instead of early in the morning, as he had promised; but we are now getting used to this. We did not ride our own mules, as they were sick and not in condition to travel, and the arriero supplied us with others. I got a horse, but did not derive much benefit from the exchange. Our course lay down the valley N. E., crossing the river soon after leaving the town by a rude bridge floored with the leaves of the maguey. We found the road good, but rocky, principally with the debris of quartz. Gold is occasionally found, but in small quantities, in the mountains bordering this valley. At six miles from Huanuco we passed the village of Sta. Maria del Valle, of three hundred inhabitants. We stopped and took some fruit and pisco with the curate, to whom also I had a letter from Lima.
Every traveller in this country should provide himself with letters of introduction. People, it is true, will receive him without them, but do not use that cordial and welcome manner which is so agreeable.
The cura had some fifty or sixty new and well-bound books on shelves, and seemed a man superior to the generality of his class. He said that Valle was a poor place, producing only sugar-cane, which the inhabitants put to no other use than to make huarapo to drink; and that, if it were not for the neighborhood of Huanuco, he thought that he should starve. Huarapo is the fermented juice of the cane, and is a very pleasant drink of a hot day.
We saw a few sheep and goats after leaving the village. The trees
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were principally willow and fruit-trees, with here and there a cotton tree, bearing indifferent staple. The mountains on the left, or Huanuco side, send down spurs towards the river, between which are pretty little valleys, not deep and narrow, but spread out like a fan. In each one of these there is situated a small village or a hacienda, presenting, with its fields of cane and alfalfa, and, higher up, wheat, a very pretty appearance. It is not so on the right bank. The small streams that flow into the river from this side come down rugged ravines, with sides of soft rock and white earth, and are generally very muddy. We stopped two miles beyond Valle at a hacienda called Chullqui, and slept in an Indian hut with several other people, one a sick woman with a child two days old. Height of Chullqui, by B. P.[boiling point], five thousand six hundred and twenty-six feet above the level of the sea.
July 23. — Course still N. E. along the banks of the Huallaga. Trees principally small acacias. At six miles from Chullqui we crossed the river, turned to the north, and ascended a ravine (down which flowed a small stream) to the village of Acomayo. The river continues its course to the northward and eastward and sweeps around the base of the hills, which form (going up) the right-hand side of the Quebrada, up which we were travelling. The road which we had left, continuing along the banks of the river, leads to Panao, Muña, and Pozuzu; Smyth’s route to the Pachitea.
Acomayo is a very pleasantly-situated village, of about three hundred inhabitants. When the authorities are asked concerning the population of any place they always give the number of families. This place has seventy casados, or couples of married people; and I judge, from experience, that five to each family is a fair allowance. The water here is very good, which was an agreeable change from the Huanuco water; and the fruits, oranges, figs, guavas, and chirimoyas, are of good quality. I noticed, also, a tree bearing a large, bell-shaped flower, called floripondia. This is an old acquaintance of mine; it gives out a delicious fragrance at night, which, accompanied, as I have known it, by soft air, rich moon-light, and gentle company, makes bare existence a happiness.
About three miles up the Quebrada we turned to the northeast, and commenced the ascent of the Cerro de Carpis. This is one of a range of mountains running to the southward and eastward, forming the left-hand side of the valley of Acomayo, (looking down the stream,) and dividing the Sierra from the Montaña. The ascent is six miles long, and very tedious. I had no water to ascertain its height by the boiling-point apparatus, but judge, from the great descent to Cashi, (a
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distance of four miles, and so steep that we preferred to walk and lead our beasts,) that the pass is full eight thousand feet above the level of the sea; Cashi being six thousand five hundred and forty feet.
There is said to be a superb view of the Montañia from the summit of this hill, but the clouds (almost within reach of the hand) boiling up from the great deep below effectually cut it off, and we could see nothing. When we had got some distance down, and obtained a view through an opening in the thick growth of the mountain-side, we looked down upon the most rugged country I have ever seen. There seemed to be no order or regularity in the hills, which were thickly covered with forest; but the whole had the appearance of the surface of a vast boiling caldron suddenly stricken motionless. Just at the summit, and where the road turns to descend, hundreds of little wooden crosses were placed in the niches of the rock — votive offerings of the pious arrieros, either of gratitude for dangers passed, or for protection against dangers to come, in the ascent or descent of the mountain.
We walked down the descent, leading the beasts. The road was very rocky and muddy, and the mountain-side was clad with small trees and thick undergrowth. There were many creepers and Parasitical plants, some of them very graceful and pretty. We stopped, at six, at a tambo called Cashi, built on a plat, about half-way down the mountain. We found our place of rest very agreeable; night clear, calm, and cold.
July 24. — An hour’s travel brought us to the bottom of the hill, where we encountered the Chinchao valley coming down from the right. We crossed the stream that flowed through it, and travelled down the valley on its right bank, the road rising and falling on the sides of the hills. The character of the rock is a dark slate-stone, with occasional beds of gypsum. At seven miles from the tambo we passed the village of Chinchao, containing twelve houses and a church, with cotton, coffee, orange, and plantain trees scattered about the village. A pretty shrub, bearing a gay, red flower, in appearance like our crape myrtle, bordered the road-side. It is called San Juan, because it blooms about St. John’s day, the 24th of June, like the Amancaes at Lima. The cultivation of the coca [2]commences here.
I brought a letter from the sub-prefect at Huanuco, for the governor of Chinchao, but he was absent at his chacra, and not to be found. We then asked for the lieutenant governor; but though there seemed, from the general account, to be such a person, we could not find out exactly who he was or where he lived. The arriero said he lived a little lower down; but at every house at which he called in our descent the reply still was mas abajo, (yet lower.) At last we seemed to have
AN AGREEABLE ENCOUNTER. 127
treed him, and even the man’s wife was produced; but after a little conversation it appeared that our friend was still mas abajo. I was tired and hungry enough to wish he was — where he could not get any lower, for we had depended upon our letter for a breakfast. We continued our weary route, and at the next house (the best-looking we had seen) encountered a white woman, rather shrewish-looking, indeed, but still a woman, synonym everywhere for kindness. Ijurra civilly inquired if we could get a few eggs. I think our appearance, particularly the guns slung behind the saddles, bred mistrust, for we met with the invariable lie, no hay, (haven’t got any.) I couldn’t be baffled in this way: so, taking off my hat, and making my best bow, and, in my most insinuating tones, I said that we had something to eat in our saddlebags, and would be very much obliged if La Señora would permit us to alight and take our breakfast there. She softened down at once, and said that if we had any tea she could give us some nice fresh milk to mix with it. We had no tea, but declared, with many thanks, that the milk would be very acceptable. Whereupon, it was put on to boil; and, moreover, a dozen fresh eggs, and boiled to perfection, were also produced. I enjoyed the breakfast very much, and was pluming myself on the effect of my fine address, when (alas for my vanity!) the lady, after looking at my companion for some time, said to him, Aren’t you un tal (a certain) Ijurra? He said, yes. Then we are old playlmates, said she. Don’t you recollect our play-ground, your old uncle’s garden in Huanuco, and the apples you used to steal out of it to give me in Mercedes Prado?
Here was the solution to the enigma of our reception. Strange to say, the name awoke pleasant recollections in me also, and set before me the features of the gay and beautiful young girl, whose quick repartee and merry laugh added so much to the charm of Valparaiso society.
The house of our hostess was very like a capsized ship, with the cut-water and upper part of the bows sawn off to make an entrance. It had a regular breast-hook made of saplings twisted together over the door, a kelson [keel of a ship] reaching from this to a very perfect stern frame, and, had the ribs been curved instead of straight, the likeness would have been exact. It was about fifty feet long, and made an airy and commodious residence. I was surprised to find that we were in the upper story of it, for we had entered from the ground without steps; but I afterwards discovered that we had entered from an esplanade cut in the side of the hill, levelled for the purpose of drying coca leaves, and that the lower story was at the bottom of the hill, the entrance facing the other way.
128 CHIHUANGALA.
We went on our way rejoicing. The arriero had gone on ahead; and when we arrived at a chacra, called Atajo, at half-past four, we found that he had unloaded the mules. I was quite angry at his stopping so soon, and ordered him to load up again; but finding that he went to work to do it, I let him off, cautioning him against unloading without orders. The means of living are getting very scarce. We could get nothing to eat, and had to draw upon our charqui. The people of the hut seem contented with a chupe made of lard, with ullucas and young onions. Nights still cool; Ther., at 7 p.m., 61°; elevation of Atajo, three thousand nine hundred and ten feet.
July 25. — The road from this place leaves the banks of the stream and ascends the hills on the right by a very steep and tedious ascent. The rocks of the road are a mica slate, and at the top of the hills a dark schist, white on the outside from exposure to the atmosphere.
After arriving at the summit, we turned N. E. by N., and passed the haciendas called Mesa pata (the top of the table) and Casapi, which seemed abandoned. The road hence is a very rough descent, and a mere path through the bushes; the earth white, like lime, with gypsum cropping out occasionally. Near night we stopped at Chihuangala, the last hacienda of the valley, and beyond which there is no mule-road. The arrieros left us to seek pasturage. This is our last dealing with this gentry. I was glad to dismount, for I was tired of riding; but in spite of the abuse that is generally heaped upon the arrieros, I think I have had little difficulty to complain of. They seem to be tolerably honest and faithful, (when once on the road), and, with judicious treatment, one can get along with them very comfortably. It rained heavily all the latter part of the night.
July 26 — At this place we were to await the Indians from Tingo Maria, (a village at the head of canoe navigation on the Huallaga,) to carry our luggage on. Ijurra had written from Huanuco to the governor of Tingo Maria requesting him to send them to us at Chihuangala, sending the letter by one of Castillo’s company who was returning, We had hard commons here, our charqui beginning to decay. No eggs; no potatoes; nothing, in fact, but yuccas and bananas. There were turkeys, chickens, and a pig, running about the chacra; but no entreaty, nor any reasonable offer of money, could induce the people to sell us one. I offered the patrona a dollar and a half for a half-grown turkey; but she said she must wait till her husband came in from his work, so that she might consult him. When he came, after long debate, it was decided that they would sell me a chicken for breakfast tomorrow. I tried hard to find out why they were so reluctant to sell,
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for they do not eat them themselves; but did not succeed. I believe it to be something like the miser-feeling of parting with property, the not being used to money, and also a dislike to kill what they have reared and seen grow up under their own eye.
Our patrona had six or seven children: one an infant, which, when she puts to sleep, she enwraps closely in a woolen cloth, and swathes tightly, over arms and all, with a broad thick band, so that it is perfectly stiff, and looks like a log of wood, or a roll of cloth. I asked why she did this, but could only get the reply that it was the custom here. The young women of the country have very good features, and appear lively and good-tempered. Two daughters of the patrona came in on a visit today. I suppose they are out at work (probably as house servants) in some neighboring hacienda. They were dressed in red calicoes, always open in the back, and with the invariable shawl; and one of them had ruffles of cotton lace around the bottom of the sleeves, which did not reach to the elbow. The girls were nearly as dark as Indians, but I presume they had a mixture of white blood.
July 28. — I walked, in company with Ijurra, about three miles to visit a Señor Martins, at his hacienda of Cucheros. We found this gentleman a clever and intelligent Portuguese, who had passed many years in this country. He knew Smyth, and had helped him along on this route. His wife is Doña Juana del Rio, a very lady-like person, in spite of her common country costume. It was quite surprising to see a Limeña, and one who had evidently lived in the first circles of that city, in this wild country, and in this rude, though comfortable house. The floor was earth, and I saw no chairs. The lady sat in a hammock, and the men either on the mud benches around the sides of the room, or on a coarse wooden one along-side of a coarse table. Part of the house was curtained off into small bed-rooms. There was evident plenty, and great comparative comfort about the house; also, a fine lot of handsome, intelligent-looking children. Señor Martins told me that this Quebrada produced seven hundred caryas of coca yearly.
A carga is two hundred and sixty pounds. The value in Huanuco is generally three dollars the arroba. This would make the value of the crop twenty-one thousand eight hundred and forty dollars. The hire of the seven hundred mules required to carry it to Huanuco is two thousand eight hundred dollars, which reduces the value to about nineteen thousand dollars. There are not many haciendas, but a number of small farms; the owners of which sell their coca on the spot for two dollars the arroba. I asked Martins the reason why I had seen several of the haciendas abandoned, particularly his own large one of Casapi. He said there were two causes; one
130 MR. NATION.
being a large ant that ate the coca-leaves, and which, when once established in a plantation, was difficult to get rid of; and another was the scarcity of labor — that it was barely to be had in the Quebrada; that he had six laborers on his hacienda; and that he was at least two thousand dollars in advance to them. This money, of course, had been advanced to them in the shape of supplies, and I suppose these laborers are now as effectually slaves as if they were so by law.
Nothing is sold from this valley but coca. Only sufficient coffee and surgar-cane are planted for the use of the inhabitants. Señor Martins gave us some very good caçacha, or rum made from the cane, and some tolerable pine-apples and plantains. A little cotton is cultivated, and a coarse cloth is woven by hand from it. Every old woman goes about her household avocations with a bunch of cotton in her hand, and a spindle hanging below. I was surprised not to see any wild animals, though I am told that there are deer, hares, tiger-cats, and animals of the mink kind, that occasionally run off with the poultry. There are not so many birds as I expected; those I have seen are generally of a gay and rich plumage. Insect life is very abundant, and nearly all sting or bite. The climate is very pleasant, though the sun is hot in mid-day. The diseases, which occur rarely, are cutaneous affections, tabardillo, and sometimes small-pox.
We met, at Cocheros, an English botanist, named Nation, upon whose track we have been ever since leaving Lima. He was the gardener of Souza Ferreyra, the Brazilian chargé in Lima, and I believe was collecting plants for him; poor fellow! he had had a hard time of it. He lost his mule not long after leaving Lima, and walked from Surco to Morocochis where some kind persons supplied him with another. He has also had tertiana whenever he has gone into the Montaña. He was alone, and spoke no Spanish, but he had combated obstacles and difficulties with a spirit and perseverance deserving all praise. I was sorry for his mishaps, but could not help laughing at him a little when I observed that the bats had nearly eaten his mule up. The poor beast was covered with blood all over, and had nearly lost an eye from their bites. Mr. Nation has sent a great many specimens to Lima, and says that the flora of this country is rich, and almost identical with that of Brazil.
On our return from Cocheros we stopped at the house of a man who had the day before promised to sell us a fowl; with the usual want of good faith of these people, he now refused. Ijurra took the gun from my hand, and, before I was aware what he was about to do, shot a turkey. The man and his wife made a great outcry over it, and he was hurrying off, with furious gestures and menacing language, to report the matter to his patron, when a few kind words, the helping myself to a
THE HUALLAGA RIVER. 131
chew of coca out of his huallqui, or leathern bag, in which it is carried, and the offer of a dollar and a half, which before he had indignantly spurned, changed his mood, and he smiled and expressed himself satisfied, now that the thing was done and it could not be helped. I had been often told by travellers that this was frequently necessary to get something to eat, but had always set my mind resolutely against any such injustice and oppression; and I expressed my opinion of the matter to Ijurra, and requested that the like should not occur again. The elevation of Chihuangala is three thousand four hundred and twenty one feet above the level of the sea.
July 30. — At 10 a.m., when we had begun to despair of the coming of our Indians, and Ijurra was about to start alone for Tingo Maria, for the purpose of fetching them, they came shouting into the chacra, thirteen in number. They were young, slight, but muscular-looking fellows, all life and energy; and wanted to shoulder the trunks and be off at once. We, however, gave them some charqui, and set them to breakfast, At noon we started, and descended the valley of Chinchao in a N. N. E. direction; the path steep and obstructed with bushes.
At about six miles from Chihuangala we arrived at the junction of the Chinchao river with the Huallaga, in a heavy shower of rain, with thunder and lightning. By leaving the Huallaga at Acomayo, below Huanuco, crossing a range of mountains at the Cerro de Carpis, striking the head of the valley of Chinchao, and descending it, we had cut off a great bend of the river, and now struck it again at the junction of the Chinclo. It is here some sixty yards wide, and the Chinchao thirty, both much obstructed with shoals and banks of gravel. The peons waded the Huallaga above the junction, and brought up a canoe from the hacienda of Chinchayvitoc, a few hundred yards below, and on the opposite side. We passed in the canoe, which the Indians managed very well. It was a great treat, after the tedious walk we had had, to feel the free, rapid motion of the boat as it glided down the stream. The stream seemed to run at the rate of five or six miles the hour; but, by keeping close in shore, two Indians could paddle the light canoe against it very well.
Chinchayvitoc is a hacienda established by a Bolivian gentleman named Villamil, for the collection of Peruvian bark. He brought some Bolivians with him to search for the bark; but it is not to be found in this country of good quality, and the scheme seems a failure. There is a mayordomo and a family of Indians living at the hacienda, but nothing is doing. Our peons cooked our dinner of cheese and rice, and made us a good cup of coffee. These are lively, good-tempered fellows,
132 THE ROAD.
and, properly treated, make good and serviceable travelling companions. Let them but be faithfully paid, a kind word now and then spoken to them, and their cargoes rather under than over the regular weight, (eighty-seven and a half pounds,) and they will serve faithfully and honestly, and go singing and chattering through the woods like so many monkeys. Above all, let them stop when they wish, and don’t attempt to hurry them.
We had Mr. Nation in company. He had collected some valuable plants, and showed me one which he said was a present for an Emperor, and that its very name would make my journal famous. I of course did not ask it of him; but was very glad to be able to repay to him, in some slight measure, the many kindnesses I have received from his countrymen, by giving him a part of my bed-clothes, and making him comfortable for the night, which he seemed to be much in need of, for he was wet and sick; and to sleep on the ground in that condition must be very dangerous. There is much moisture in the atmosphere; and I find it almost impossible to keep the guns in serviceable order.
We met at this place some Indians carrying tobacco from Tocache and Saposoa (towns of the Huallaga) to Huanuco. Enterprising men have frequently tried to establish a trade along this river, carrying down cotton goods, knives, hatchets, beads, &c., and getting return cargoes of tobacco, rice, straw hats, rare birds, and animals; but the difficulties of the route seem to have baffled enterprise. About two and a half years ago Vicente Cevallos made a large venture. He carried down thirty-five trunks or packages of goods, and the people of the river still talk of his articles of luxury; but in passing one of the malos pasos, or rapids of the river, his boat capsized, and he lost everything.
The Indians here had blue limestone, which they were burning to mix with their coca.
July 31. — I bathed in the river before starting. This is wrong in so humid an atmosphere. I became chilled, and did not get over it for some hours. A native traveller in these parts will not even wash his face and hands before the sun is well up. Soon after starting we crossed a small stream, and ascended a hill that overlooks the falls of Cayumba, beyond which canoes cannot ascend. I did not see the falls, but am told that there is no cascade of height, but rather a considerably inclined plain, much obstructed by drift. Smyth says: From hence, (the cave of Cayumba, below the falls,) we had a very picturesque view of both the Huallaga and Cayumba — the former rushing between two high perpendicular rocks, and the latter rolling down a steep ravine. They
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unite with great violence at a point where there is a small island covered with trees, and roll past the cave in an impetuous torrent.
The ascent of the hill was very tedious, and I should complain of the fatigue but for shame’s sake; for there were Indians along, young and rather small men, who were carrying a burden of nearly one hundred pounds on their back. Their manner of carrying cargoes is to have a sort of cotton satchel, of open work, with a broad stout strap to it. The end of the trunk or package, which is placed on end, is put into the bag, and the Indian, sitting down with his back to it, passes the strap over his forehead, and then, with a lift from another, rises to his feet, and, bending forward, brings the weight upon the muscles of his neck and back. A bit of blanket, or old cotton cloth, protects the skin of the back from chafe. The traveller in these parts should be as lightly clad and carry as little weight as possible, for the path is very steep and muddy. I had been thoughtless enough to wear my heavy Sierra clothes, and to load myself with a gun of a greater weight, I believe, than a standard musket — and so had occasion to envy Ijurra his light rig of nankeen trousers and cotton shirt, long but light staff, and twilled cotton Jeffersons. The descent of this hill, which is nearly as tedious as the ascent, brought us to the banks of the river opposite the mal-paso of Palma. This is the first rapid I have seen, and it looked formidable enough. The river, obstructed in its rapid course, breaks into waves, which dash with thundering violence against the rocks, and rush between them in sluices of dazzling velocity. Cargoes must always be landed at this place, and carried around. The canoe, thus lightened, under skilful and practical management, may shoot the rapid; but this should not be attempted where it can be avoided. By prudence, these males pasos (the dread of travellers) are stripped of all danger; but the Indians sometimes get drunk and insist upon the attempt; and thus these places have become the graves of many. Since my return home I have a letter from Castillo, the young man I met in Huanuco, enclosing others which were sent to him at Tarapota from Lima to be forwarded to me. He begged me to excuse the condition in which I should receive these letters, for they had been shipwrecked in their transit. Three persons, said he, were drowned, but the letters fortunately escaped.
Nearly all the malos pasos are at the mouth of a tributary. These, in the floods, bring down quantities of drift, with heavy boulders, which, thrown crosswise into the stream, lodge and form the obstructions. Little labor would be required to clear away the rocks, and make the river passable for canoes at least, if not for light-draught steamboats.
134 THE CAVE.
The trees of the forest are large, tall, and without branches for a great distance up. Ijurra pointed out one to me, of smooth bark, about four feet diameter near the ground, and which ran up sixty or seventy feet without a branch. He said that it was so hard that it resisted all attacks of the axe; and, to get it down, it was necessary to remove the earth and set fire to the roots; and that, suffered to lie in the water for a long time, it turned to stone of so hard a character, that, like flint, it would strike fire from steel.
Unfortunately for the accuracy of the statement, we next day saw gigantic trees of this species that had been felled with an axe. The wood is, however, very hard and heavy — too much so for any practical use here. The tree is called capirona. It has a smooth bark, which it is continually changing. The old bark is a very pretty light red; the new, a pea-green.
At half-past 4 p.m., we arrived at the Cave, a place where a huge rock, projecting from the hill-side, made a shelter which would cover and protect from dew or rain about a dozen persons. The Indian who carried my bag of bedding wished to make my bed there; but I decided that it was too damp, and made him spread it out on the shingle by the river brink. The largest part of the cargo had not arrived, and I feared that we were without drink or cigars, which would have been a great depriation to us after the fatigue of the day. The rice and cheese were on hand; and, to our great delight, Ijurra found in his saddle-bags a bottle of cherry-brandy that Mr. Jump had insisted upoil our taking from Cerro Pasco, and which I had forgotten. A tin-pan of hot boiled rice flavored with cheese, a teacup of the brandy, and half a dozen paper cigars, made us very comfortable; and, lulled by the rustling of the leaves and the roar of the river, we slept in spite of the ants and other insects that left the mark of their bites upon our carcasses. I saw here, for the first time, the luciernago, or fire-fly of this country. It is, unlike ours, a species of beetle, carrying two white lights in its eyes, (or, rather, in the places where the eyes of insects generally are,) and a red light between the scales of the belly — so that it reminded me something of the ocean steamers. It has the power of softening the light of the eyes until it becomes very faint; but upon irritating it, by passing the finger over the eyes, the light becomes very bright and sparkling. They are sometimes carried to Lima, (enclosed in an apartment cut into a sugarcane,) where the ladies, at balls or theatres, put them in their hair for ornament.
August 1. — We started, without breakfast, at a quarter to seven, thinking that we were near Tingo Maria. But it was ten miles distant, and I was weary enough ere we arrived. My principal source of
JUANA DEL RIO. 135
annoyance was the having inadvertently asked how far we were off from our destination. I would advise no traveller to do this; he is sure to be disappointed; and when he is told (as he will certainly be) that he is near, the miles appear doubly long. The Indians take no account of time or distance. They stop when they get tired, and arrive when God pleases. They live on plantains — roasted, boiled, and fried; and in the way of food, a yucca is their greatest good. Talking with a young Indian, who had a light load and kept up with me very well, I was struck with the comparative value of things. A Londoner, who has been absent for some time from his favorite city, and subjected to some privations on that account, could not have spoken of the elegances and comforts of London with more enthusiasm than my companion spoke of Pueblo Viejo, a settlement of half a dozen Indians, which we were approaching. There are plantains, said he; there are yuccas; there is everything — (Hay platanos, hay yuccas, hay todo) — and I really expected to be surprised and pleased when I arrived at Pueblo Viejo. The town, in fact, consisted of a single hut, with a plantain grove, a small patch of yuccas, and another of sugar-cane. In several places near by, people were felling the trees and forming chacras. The road lay sometimes across and sometimes along these huge trees; and I envied the bare feet and firm step of my companion — feeling that my tired legs and muddy boots might, at any moment, play me a slippery trick, and cost me a broken leg or sprained ankle.
At eleven, we arrived at Juana del Rio, a settlement of five or six houses, on the right bank of the river, named after the lady of Señor Martins, whom we met at Cucheros.
The houses were all shut up, and nobody seemed to be at home. Here we crossed the river, (one hundred yards broad, and smooth and deep,) and walked down the left bank about half a mile to the pueblo or San Antonio del Tingo Maria. Tingo is the Indian term for the junction of two rivers, the Monzon emptying into the Huallaga just above this. The governor, an intelligent and modest young man, a former friend of Ijurra, welcomed us cordially, and gave us a capital breakfast of chicken broth.