Yet another reason for my taking this pass and climbing the extra 1,000ft. was that, not far from the top at 16,200ft. by the aneroid, a little way off to the right in a hollow, lies a small lake where tradition says, and the Indians firmly believe, that some of the great Inca treasure was thrown when Pizarro had Atahualpa murdered.
We passed this small lake at about 11 a.m. I had been told that about two years previously a Company had proposed to drain this lake, which could easily be done with the labour of Aymara Indians and the necessary provisions. The head of the Company offered the Government a deposit of £20,000 as a guarantee that they meant business, which the Government was to return after they had let out the water, whether there was anything there or not; whatever they discovered at the bottom was to be divided between themselves and the Government. The authorities thought the proposition a very good one, but the reason it was never
SOME NATIVE TYPES SEEN IN THE INTERIOR OF BOLIVIA
undertaken before was that they feared a rising of the vast Indian population would take place; indeed, it might have caused a general rising of the Indians throughout America, from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego, and the biggest massacre the world has ever seen, and this was why they refused consent. Evidently, many people think there is truth in the legend that some of the lost Inca treasure is still in existence. It is also a well authenticated fact that some few years ago an American Company had the idea of looking for the immense Inca chain, formed of links of gold, of 1 kilo each, which was to have been part of Atahualpa’s ransom. It is believed by many that the chain was cast into the Lake Titicaca, near the sacred Island of Tia Guanaco. They eventually came to the conclusion that the water was far too deep, and no proposition was ever made. Up to now this chain and nearly all the treasure of the Inca still remains hidden.
On the top of the pass is a cairn of stones, placed there by the Indians to mark the spot. On the way up we passed, at different places, a lonely grave of stones and a wooden cross, showing where some poor chap had passed away. Nearly all the morning the weather was a constant succession of bitterly cold wind and hail, and then a spell of hot sunshine. Often I found it too steep in places for my mule to carry me, and then I removed my thick poncho and walked. I noticed that during the constant blizzards my Aymaras, to prevent frostbite, put on their vicuña face protectors, which just left holes for eyes, nostrils and mouth. I always made my man put on his, and I did the same.
On the top and for a thousand feet before getting there, nothing was to be seen but snow. There was no vegetation of any sort, and not a single bush or bird. About half an hour after leaving the shepherds’ hut in the morning, I shot a female condor eagle with my large Winchester rifle, but, although it was a fine, large specimen, I was forced to leave it behind, because there was really no room on the cargo mules to carry it. I wanted to wait an hour or more to skin it, but the Indians said the delay of nearly two hours might be dangerous at this height and at this season of the year, and we might yet be caught in a blinding snowstorm and get benighted; if we had been returning now, and going downhill to the shepherds’ hut, they said they would have been able to carry it down between them. It was a great pity.
We got to Tiquiripaga at 3.30 p.m. My Aymaras took us to the house, or rather the hut, of the head man, who kindly gave me a hut and the use of a shed for cooking, for 1/-a day. This man was about 60, tall and active, and was always very civil to me. He had two wives much younger than himself, one of them not at all bad looking; they were both very good to me, and could not have treated me better all the time that I was there with them. The day after I arrived, the old man told me I had better return to Sorata with the mules, as it was a long way and the roads were very rough, and down in the forest it was so hot that none of his tribe was ever able to live there. In fact, he said that when they went down to exchange challonas and salt and flour for cocoa, coca and tobacco, it was always arranged between the parties that at certain times of the year the forest Indians would march up to a meeting place in a clearing in the forest near the River Tipuani, some two days’ march from Gritada, the first hut on the river bank, and there do the exchanging, the mountain men returning to their homes on the Ylliapo Range, and the forest Indians down again to the Tipuani, Beni and other tributaries of the Amazon.
The old man also stated that the path from now on was in places so narrow that nothing larger than a very small mule or llama could travel, and then only in single file. So that I should have to continue on foot for the rest of the journey down, besides which the Indians of Challana would allow nobody to enter their country unless the Cacique ordered them to do so, and nobody had ever been able to enter without his permission. When I told him that Villarde’s sister, Mrs. Villavicencia, had sent in a messenger a fortnight ago, he at once said he could hire me some llamas, and he would go with us himself as far as this side of the Toro River; on the other side, we should find a few families of Indians living in the forest, and a coffee estate owned by a man I met at Sorata, also a man who owned two small mules, which I would very likely be able to hire with Indian carriers to continue the journey as far as the Tipuani River. The proprietor of this coffee estate, a man called Solis, had already given me a letter to his manager, a half-bred Indian. The old Indian arranged to go with me, with one of his wives, and two of his sons, and got me 15 llamas for 7 bols a llama, about 14/-a head, each animal to carry 35lbs., and we arranged never to start before 9 a.m. each day, and to camp every afternoon between 3 and 4 p.m., resting the animals for half an hour at midday. He said the reason he could not allow his llamas to go further down was that it would be too hot for the beasts, and, besides, it was the rainy season in the forest and they would not be able to cross the Toro River; I myself would have to be pulled over on a maroma or wire cable, which is placed there by the Government for the benefit of passengers to and from the Tipuani. He told me if that arrangement would suit me he could start in ten days’ time, not sooner, as his animals had only just returned from La Paz, where they had been with cargo; meanwhile I could have this stone hut for myself, and another smaller one for my man Miguel, and a kitchen for 1/-a day; he would let me have as many fowls as I wanted for 1/-each, guinea-pigs at 1/-, eggs at 1/-a dozen, and sheep at 4/-, the skin to be returned to him; I also used to give him the inside excepting the kidneys; eschalots for 3d. a bunch of twenty, and all the potatoes I wanted at 6d. a measure, which is equal to a big basketful.