But to return to our priest: it is to be hoped that, in contributing as much as he did to supply the temporal wants of the hardy attendants at his confessional, he did not irretrievably overlook their Christian and spiritual necessities. From the combined results of his various undertakings, he cherished a glowing expectation of realizing a fortune; but, as we never heard of his success, we think it allowable to suppose that, like other speculators, he must have experienced some severe reverse or serious disappointment, as is quite usual in that country.
When morning arrived, we had our good chupe,—a common and standard dish of the Sierra, consisting of potatoes sliced down and boiled in water or milk, with an addition of eggs, cheese, and, when very nice, butter; but, on many occasions, especially in Huamalies, the traveller only gets yaco-chupe, or water chupe, consisting merely of potatoes sliced and boiled in water, with the addition of a little salt, and a leaflet of wild mint, if at hand, as a useful antidote against flatulency and uneasiness at stomach.
After we had finished breakfast, and found our cattle in readiness, we were sorry to part with our agreeable acquaintance, whose presence and influence furnished us with better fare and accommodation than we usually experienced on our Sierra journeys. This remarkable person was a native of Quito; and whatever may be thought of his enterprise and commercial spirit, like all Quiteños we were acquainted with in Peru, he was distinguished for his native talent and ingenuity.
Our way now lay among the ruins of ancient buildings and small towns, with here and there, along the higher ridges, some detached and more stately-looking architectural remains. These relics of the olden times offer far finer samples of masonry than the dry stone and thatched houses of any modern Indian village. The old line of communication between Quito and Cuzco, where we met our Quitenian friend on the preceding day, is a wonderful monument of rude art and industry. This imperial road of the Incas is still perfect in many parts, where the stones appear well fitted and laid in good order, the pavement rising above the level of the plain, and being of a spacious breadth.[22]
We entered one of the houses in “Pueblo Viejo,” or ruins of an old town so called, by the way-side, not far from the celebrated ruins of the ancient city Leon de Huanuco, deemed by the natives as only second to Cuzco—the capital of the empire of the Incas—in the wonders of its masonry. We found the walls of this house, except where defaced by the mischievous hands of man, quite entire, and one angle of the building had yet retained the roof. The windows were small, but the outer door of good size. The walls were as perpendicular as plumb and line in our days could make them, though two stories high. These walls were built with small stones, mostly flags; and between them a thin layer of mud or clay cement. There were, within, stone partitions rising to the level of the outward walls, making the compartments of the house so confined that the roof was easily laid on by long and broad flags projecting from the sides, on which they were steadied by a top-weight, and, meeting at the centre, were so adjusted as to render the closing of the roof perfect. The same appeared to have been the manner in which the floor of the second story had been laid. At the roof, the flags were observed to shoot forwards to some extent outside the wall, doubtless with a view to preserve a perfect equilibrium,—as we have frequently seen on the smaller houses of ancient Indian architecture, which abound near the village of Ambo on the heights of Andaguaylla. The lofty and weather-worn peaks of this estate go to form the ridge of the eastern Cordillera, where the path from these summits descends towards the pueblo of Yuramarca on the verge of the Montaña, known in regal times as the asylum of the fugitive criminal.
This hacienda, partaking of the climate of the torrid and frigid zones, and consisting of successive table-lands and steep hills, has frigid summits and ever-blooming dales. Its lakes of Rumichaca, so named because their waters escape under a natural bridge of rock; its Indian moats and fortifications on the heights of Rucrun, and the ruins of which we have just made mention; its woods of alder and perejil; its bamboo thickets, numerous dingles, and silvery waterfalls; its rapacious puma; its herds of deer; its narrow pathways and slippery pastures, from whence the grazing ox so often rolls to the fathomless ravine,—are still present to our mind in one group, with the lovely conjunction of the cultivated vales of Huacar and Huaylas, and the watery cross formed by the confluence of their respective streams, where the river of Huanuco commences its gently winding course. All these crowd into our retrospect, as they are viewed by the imagination in one splendid landscape from the commanding eminences of this fine estate, in contrast with all the boundless mountain-scenery stretching to the west.
Of the houses of the Gentiles, as the natives usually call the antiquated buildings we would wish to describe, (and in the hiding-nooks of which treasure is sometimes found,) the roof is rounded or finished off by stones and clay or earth, so as to throw over the heavy rains that at certain seasons of the year fall in these places. This species of building, as it needed no timber, was naturally recommended in frigid woodless plains and almost inaccessible hill-tops, such as abound in the Sierra or mountain-land of Peru; but in situations like Andaguaylla, where wood surrounds the old Indian houses, they could only adhere to this form of building, on account of their higher perfection in masonry than carpentry, which required the use of tools and art that they evidently did not possess.
In the temperate climate of Tarma, situated in the centre of the Andes in an east-north-east direction from Lima, where the houses are generally tiled, and the better sorts of them neatly floored with gypsum or stucco-plaster, the older houses are still seen covered in with mud or red brick-clay, underlaid and supported with strong timbers and a coat of cane or wattling. The most antiquated of these roofs are made with a very slight declivity, with outlets like a ship’s scuttle-holes at the most pending angles, so as to give free exit to the rain when it falls heavily. The wall of this description of house they raise a foot or two higher than the roof, so as to give the latter the appearance of a little inclined plane and enclosure; and they leave triangular holes, like those of a dove-house, in this little parapet; within which, when the rains have passed away, and the crops are housed, the peasants stow peas, beans, and maize, until, by direct exposure to a bright sun, these articles are so dried up as to be unhusked without trouble or loss.[23] Tarma is the favourite place of resort of sickly persons from different parts, especially Lima, and the rigorous climate at the mineral works of Yauli, whence the rheumatic miners, after their own hot springs fail to cure them, flock to the Estrada, or to the ball and tertulia of the blooming Tarmenians. All its peaceful inhabitants are agriculturists; and mostly all the resident families emigrate during harvest-time to little farms in the vicinity of this pretty Cerrano town, which is considered one of the most agreeable and civilized in all the Sierra, and wherein the better classes, even as in the provincial towns on the coast, desire to adopt the manners of the capital as their standard. Near Tarma is a beautiful cascade, and many peach and apple orchards, with lanes lined with poplars, and perfumed with wild mint and many sweet and fragrant flowers in the wet season, when its hills are verdant, its air pure, and its people joyful. The population of the town and suburbs is estimated at eight thousand; yet with all the sickness to which, notwithstanding the general salubrity of its climate, so large a population as that of Tarma must be subjected, this retreat of convalescents from the coast and mineral districts is without a medical adviser of any consideration, except when chance throws among them one of the faculty of Lima, himself a confirmed invalid, or only in a state of recovery from consumption or spitting of blood.