When the people of Tarma have put the seed into the ground, they usually occupy an entire month in mutual visiting and festivity: and they say of their neighbours of Jauja (eight leagues to the south of them), whose rejoicing is at harvest-home, that they distrust Providence, while they themselves piously rejoice and rest their hope in the Giver of their harvest; hence, they infer the wheat crops of the Jaujinos (whose granaries are in favourable years the most plentifully stored in all Peru) are often blighted and frosted, while the Tarmenian barley always flourishes. We would not quarrel with these contented people for the moral of this anecdote to the prejudice of their neighbours; but we wish they would themselves make better use of their advantages, and prepare good barley-bread, of which they know not the use, instead of depending upon others for their flour and wheat,—for never did we eat such bad bread, made of putrid flour, as we did in Tarma. Perhaps the immediately preceding visitation of an armed force might have been the occasion of so bad a bread-market. But we can recommend their quails, too soon fatigued to escape by flight, and therefore taken by dogs and unarmed Indians; and their pine apples, and coffee from the near Montaña and hacienda of Vitoc, are both very good, the latter excellent.
The centre land of Peru abounds in streams and mountain torrents, subject at certain periods to sudden and tumultuous swells from the bursting of heavy thunder-clouds and continued pouring rain, or pelting hail and thick nocturnal snow-falls, which quickly melt before the shining sun, and fill the rivers to inundation. The consequence of this is, that though the weather may soon after become so fair and showerless as to invite the traveller to proceed on his journey, yet every now and then he may have deep rivers or foaming ravines to cross, where bridges of some sort become indispensable.
When the indigenous race in former times had to pass any river on their route, their engineers supplied, as best they could, the wants of science by that natural sagacity which belongs to their living posterity. When their particular course allowed, they placed their simple bridge near the origin of the stream, or outlet of the lake whence it happened to flow; as we see at the lakes of Lauricocha and Pomacocha. As the waters of the lake can never rise many feet above the usual level, the purpose of a more scientific bridge is served by the Indian method of laying down large stones at short intervals from bank to bank; and, as these stones rise high above the surface of the water, they serve as pillars or supporters, over which are laid transversely large flags, that form an even and safe path for the passage of men and cattle. At the places mentioned, the single stones, too wide apart for stepping-stones, are still to be seen firm in their places; though the transverse flags, probably removed by human hands, are no longer found; at least, at Pomacocha not a vestige of them remains.
A more ingenious bridge of ancient invention, and still used in Peru, is the swing or soga bridge. It is made by ropes twined from the pliable bejuco, twigs of willow, or any other flexible and vegetable filaments; and these are well secured at the ends on the opposite banks of the water: on these, bundles of maguey leaves, broom, or other long-branched and yielding shrubs, are laid crosswise, and bound very closely and firmly by tough ligaments or slips of the maguey leaf (“cabuia”), which answer as well as the best cordage. In this way the bridge is made of sufficient breadth for foot-passengers; and a hand-rope runs along each side of it, by which the traveller can steady himself while walking across. A specimen of this sort is the soga bridge of modern Huanuco. At Oroya also, over the river Jauja, is a very strong one of this kind for cargo-mules to cross upon. The ropes, or rather cables, extending from bank to bank, are made of bullock’s hide; and the cross-bars, bound down with thongs, are of squared pieces of wood, and broad enough to allow the animals to pass with confidence. As this bridge is kept up at unusual expense, and situated on the post-road to the interior, we paid toll at it for passing our saddle-beasts. The rope or swing-bridge is very convenient where the river is too broad to be spanned by any trees to be found in the neighbourhood; but where the stream is not much too wide to be crossed by long trees and beams, of which the temperate altitudes afford appropriate materials in the wood known by the name of perijil or roble, the natives manage to form a strong and pretty durable bridge, by constructing a large and massy stone breast-work on each side the water. In these bulwarks they fix strong timbers, which are made to project over the stream as far as may be required, while the larger portion of the same timbers is covered by a heavy weight of stones and earth: a tree of ordinary length is found sufficient to overlay the centre of the water; as, thus placed, it rests its ends on the projecting timbers already well secured in the midst of the masonry at the opposite banks. These, the most common of all Peruvian bridges, are constructed and kept in repair by order of the prefect of each department, who issues the same to sub-prefects or governors of provinces; and these again send out the entire community of adjacent villages to work under the direction of their respective alcaldes and regidores.
There yet remains a very curious and portable bridge to be mentioned, now falling into disuse, but of which a specimen may be yet seen at Viroy, on the river Huacar, in the department of Junin: this antique relic is named “Guaro.” It is constructed by extending a single strong lazo from one side of the stream to the other, which is well secured to the trunk of a tree, or any such fixture, on the opposite banks: from this a leathern bag, not unlike in appearance to a canvass draw-bucket used aboard ship, is suspended, so as to run easily on the lazo; the passenger sits in the bag, and slides himself quietly across. Bridges of this description are said to have been exceedingly useful to the Montonera, or irregular patriot troops, during the late war that ended in the separation of Peru from Spain.
Another contrivance for passing lakes and rivers in the Andes is the “balsa,” a very small canoe made of rushes. Its surface is level; and when the paddler and only one passenger steady themselves upon it, the canoe is pressed down into the water to within about an inch or two of its surface,—so, at least, was the only one we had occasion to enter; as, upon a journey during the floods of the wet season, we swam our cattle, and crossed ourselves in a balsa of rushes over the river of San Juan, on the plains of Bombon, near Pasco.
The water-courses of the ancient Peruvians are traced along the chasms of rocks and sides of arid eminences in the vicinity of the coast, and in the dry intermediate glens. These aqueducts sometimes appear marvellously constructed among the most rugged crags, and in some points are raised to an astonishing elevation. They are reared from very slender foundations here and there among the now receding, now approaching, shelves of the rocks and cliffs. These piles of irregular mason-work are fabricated with small and thin stones, or light flags, leaning upon every favourable projection along the steep against the front of which the fabric rises; and all the works thus constructed are so solidly and closely united, that after the lapse of ages, and in the land of earthquakes too, they are still in numberless instances nearly perfect.
One of the most striking of these aqueducts is about eight leagues from Lima, on the low road to Alcacota by Caballeros, on a high rocky acclivity, along the base of which runs the road, close by the winding of the river Chillon or Carabaillo, which descends from the Cordillera, by Obrajillo. It is also very usual in the temperate valleys, where the hills are flanked with soil, and clothed in vegetation, to meet here and there the ruins of small villages with files of successively rising platforms on the hollow side of a hill. These tiers of artificial flats, or gardens, are generally only a few yards in breadth; but in length greater or less, in proportion to the dimensions of the semi-circular sweep of the recess capable of cultivation.
In rearing up and constructing these gardens the one above the other, like the pews in the gallery of a church or boxes in a theatre, the ancient Indian must have begun his work by erecting a stone wall on the lower part of the slope, or more even ground, that formed the base of the series; and, as it was in process of rising to the desired height, the earth must have been scraped down from the side of the acclivity, to fill up the space thus partitioned off into a level bank or platform: then, behind this first level was raised another stony partition, and more earth again scraped down; and so on successively, till the uppermost and last tier of these little and tasteful gardens was completed.[24]