At this same altitude many susceptible persons begin to feel inconvenience from the rarefaction of the atmosphere, and from want of provision for the stomach, if they happen not to have their own alforjas, or saddle-bags, properly provided with necessaries for the journey. It is only in the puna and table-lands that meat is sure to be had, with, perhaps, potatoes and cancha or toasted maize; but, should the traveller ask for any thing else, he is told “Manam cancha”—there is none.
Between Culluai on one side, and Casacancha, an estancia with a mean hut or two, on the other side of the Cordillera, the distance is five leagues; and about a league or more from Culluai we begin to ascend by the Viuda, or Widow, a towering mountain that stands out as it were apart from the other great masses that at this point group together to form a portion of the great Western Cordillera: and it may be sometimes convenient to know, that on the right-hand side of the Viuda, as we ascend the road that winds round its flank, there is concealed in a recess close to the line of snow the Indian hamlet of Yantac.[28] Before the arriero attempts to ascend the Cordillera, he anoints, as we have seen him do, his cattle over the eyes and on the forehead with an unguent made of tallow, garlic, and wild marjoram, as a preventive against what he calls the veta; attributing the effects of atmospherical rarefaction to a subterraneous veta, or vein of a noxious ore or metal, which, he believes, diffuses in the air of the cold summits and heights its mephitic and poisonous particles.
The Cordillera crossed at noon, and in dry weather, is a grand sight. When we first crossed it the sun was out in full blaze; and, though the mountains of snow lay on every side of our way, we felt quite warm, but we observed that in the shade the cold was very chilling.
It was to us peculiarly exhilarating to gaze on so many snowy monuments reflected in all their sublimity from the green waters of the lakes beneath, thickly thronged with sportive ducks and cormorants. These reservoirs of rain and melted snow, which here and there challenge the traveller’s admiration, are like so many appropriate mirrors, successively disclosed to the eye among the concavities and basins that separate the majestic heads of the hoary Andes.
In a neighbouring and far grander part of the Cordillera, to which on another occasion we clambered by a narrow, rocky, and steep path, we were caught in a sudden fall of thick mist, which at once unrolled its folds, and threw over the broad light of a clear and frosty morning the dark obscurity of night. This transition was accompanied by no thunder or lightning, or sensible commotion of any kind; and after the darkness continued a few minutes, on looking upwards towards the firmament a scantling of rays began to shoot from among the clouds, and a certain though ill-defined body of light could be distinguished as the centre whence those rays seemed to emanate, when, in an instant after, the peak of a mountain—a crystallized pyramid of snow—glistened to view, and shone in the fullest blaze of brilliancy. With such celerity did the cloudy curtain drop and vanish on the face of the deep dark lake of Pomacocha, that the whole scene appeared but as a vision of enchantment.
But to return: we safely crossed the last rib of the Cordillera, and descended into the plain of Casacancha, where we did not stop, but pressed forward three leagues beyond this common halting-place to take up our night’s quarters at Palcomayo, another common stage or resting-place for travellers on this unprovided though much frequented thoroughfare.
But we had not left Casacancha far behind, when one of our fellow-travellers experienced the most distressing headache: his face became turgid, the temporal arteries throbbed with violence, the respiration was difficult, and it seemed to him as if the chest was too narrow for its contents. The other gentleman complained less; it was only a vexatious headache that disturbed him, but his eyes were blood-shot. The writer was still differently affected from either of his fellow-travellers. His headache was moderate; but his extremities soon became quite cold as the sun declined; the skin shrank, and then came on a sense of sickness and oppression about the stomach and heart, with a short, hurried, and panting respiration. His kind associates on this occasion forgot their own ailments in attending to his more urgent wants. They had him carefully wrapped in warm sheep-skins, which formed the usual bedding of the poor Indian family within, and renovated his strength by a cordial basin of hot tea. In this manner, and immersed at the time in the pungent smoke that filled the whole hut, the natural warmth of the extremities and surface was soon restored, so that he became comparatively easy, and passed a better night than either of his two obliging friends.
The servant intrusted with the cargo-mule dropped behind; and not being acquainted with the route, or able to keep sight of us, he went off the road, wandered into a neighbouring valley, Caraguacayan, and did not appear till morning. The gentlemen alluded to had, therefore, to shift for the night as less provided travellers usually do. Their alforjas (saddle-bags) served them as pillows, their pellons and saddle-cloths for beds, and their ponchos as their best covering. They thus lay cooped up on the floor of a dirty little hovel, too small to allow them to stretch their limbs without risk of burning their toes in the hot ashes around the fire-place. The sharp wind pierced through a hundred crevices of the rude wall, and was ill excluded from the low and narrow door-way by a tattered sheep-skin fitted with thongs into a hurdle-frame.
Restless, chirping guinea-pigs—constant inmates of every wretched hut,—persevered during the early part of the night in a bold attack on our bread magazines; pulling at our wallets, placed under our heads, and nibbling at their contents with a degree of boldness and fearlessness which we believe hunger only could inspire. These assailants had scarcely left us to repose in the silence of night, when the wakeful cock from a chink in the wall (originally occupied by an image or household saint) began his repeated crowing at unmeasured periods till well on towards grey morning, when all were in motion: the shepherd rounded his flock, guarded all night against the hostility of the fox and other enemies by the faithful dogs inseparable from the sheep; the muleteer shook himself in his poncho, and went to collect his mules; and the housewife left her sheep and llama-skin bed, and commenced her daily task of boiling the caldo, or soup, for breakfast, and smoking her guests from their uneasy couch.
With so many incitements to bestir ourselves, we were glad to turn out and breathe the fresh air, while things were getting ready for our departure on a fresh day’s journey, with only a headache left for our common annoyance.