PUBLIC BATHS.
In the dry and equable climate of Huanuco, bathing is not so necessary either to cool or to refresh the body as it is found to be in more humid and warm situations; for there is a bracing property in the dry air, which carries off the natural perspiration almost as rapidly as it is produced, and prevents that languor and discomfort experienced in a sultry atmosphere, where one perspires more than the air readily absorbs.
The inhabitants of this interesting province, and especially of the town of Huanuco, feel so little desire for the cold bath, that it is proverbial among them, that they only bathe in the river, or the canals of their delightful orchards, once in every year,—that is, on the day of San Juan, the 24th of June, the same on which the inhabitants of Lima celebrate their annual festival of Amencaes.
In the jurisdiction of Junin, however, natural warm and hot springs are exceedingly common, as well on the mountain plains, (which are in many places, as at Hualliay, covered with a saline incrustation,) as in the warmer valleys; and of these none are more resorted to, by invalids and convalescents, than the ferruginous and tepid waters of the well-known baths of Cono, near Huariaca, and the still more celebrated sulphurous waters of Villo, in the district of Yanahuanca. Here there are two streams, of which the one is cold and the other hot; and being received into a reservoir in due proportions, baths may be always provided easily and cheaply, of any degree of temperature desired.
To make the medicinal waters of Villo—situated in a mild climate about one day’s journey from Cerro Pasco on the one hand, and the city of Huanuco on the other,—as available as possible to the public, the patriotic prefect has recently taken measures to fit up convenient baths at this place. The well-known efficacy of the sulphurous waters in numberless instances of impaired health, the benignity of the climate in which nature has placed them, and the vicinity of this favoured spot to Cerro Pasco, have been the chief inducements to undertake this public work; which must prove of the utmost importance to the neighbourhood at large, and especially to miners and residents in the rigorous climate of Cerro, where health is more easily lost than regained, and where good medical attendance is rarely found.