Now pay what the gods require.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE [I. Old Panama, Agamemnon, and The Genial Picaroon] 13 [II. The Fighting Whale, and Chinamen in the Chicken Coop] 27 [III. Through a Tropical Quarantine] 46 [IV. A Forced March Across the Desert Of Atacama] 62 [V. Arequipa, the City of Churches] 76 [VI. Through the Inca Country] 88 [VII. Out of La Paz by Pack Train] 103 [VIII. The Back Trail Among the Aymarás] 118 [IX. Over the First Great Pass] 131 [X. The Toll Gate and Mapiri] 145 [XI. Waiting for the Leccos] 159 [XII. Off on the Long Drift] 172 [XIII. The Lecco Tribe] 184 [XIV. Drifting Down the Rio Mapiri] 200 [XV. Shooting the Ratama] 214 [XVI. Opening up the Jungle] 224 [XVII. Twenty-Three Days Against the Current] 238 [XVIII. By Pack Mule Through the Jungle] 252 [XIX. The Indian Uprising] 266 [XX. Ambushed by Ladrones] 280 [XXI. The Music of the Aymarás] 289 [XXII. Back Home] 299 [XXIII. Off Across the Continent in a Batalon] 309 [XXIV. Through the Rubber Country] 321 [XXV. A New Crew and Another Batalon] 337 [XXVI. The Falls of the Madeira and Home] 350
ILLUSTRATIONS
[Running the Rapids of the Ratama] Frontispiece PAGE [Announced that a person, a somebody, was awaiting me below] 13 [Pointed scornfully to the outside] 15 [Agamemnon] 18 [Those who refused to pay were thrown into the chicken coop] 35 [When the end lid was taken off the bodies of eight dead Chinamen were taken out] 37 [A deserted brigantine at anchor dipped slowly with the long Pacific swells] 42 [What the diplomat said was direct and voluble] 49 [A wide dusty canal which in the intervals between showers serves as a market] (facing page) 50 [Close resemblance to an army of drunken bugs] 52 [Every day our winches whirred and clattered off some dusty, sand-blown port] (facing page) 54 [Lima, a delightful city of contrasts] 58 [An Arequipa carrier] 78 [In Arequipa, the city of churches] (facing page) 80 [Hardly a day without its Saint’s fiesta] 83 [An Andean touring car] 85 [In Pizarro’s day it was probably the same—costume, craft, and barter] (facing page) 100 [Haggled with arrieros over pack mules] 104 [Prisoners along the trail up from La Paz] (facing page) 106 [Aymará driver of pack llamas] 111 [Members of a gang of prisoners] 112 [The guard for the road menders] 114 [Rodriguez and his Cholo helpers tightened the rawhide cinches and replaced the packs] 116 [Aymará herders played their weird flutes] 123 [A few streets were still plainly marked, though the village has been dead these many centuries] (facing page) 128 [Blizzards blowing from the Andean passes] 133 [Soldering the food in tin cans] 138 [Scattered in hysterical flight up and down the precipitous slope] 141 [Skirted the base of an unbroken cliff] 142 Toll gate in Mapiri 145 [An Andean mountaineer] 146 [There loomed the big mound of stones with a twig cross on top] (facing page) 148 [Slowly the rafts sank under the weight] 172 [The shrewish, leather-skinned Indian wife] 174 [There were, according to the Lecco standards, no “bad places” yet] 179 [Leccos lowering the callapo through shallows] 181 [Lecco of the twig raft] 182 [These Leccos are among the finest Indians] 184 [Napoleon, a Lecco chief] 188 [A Lecco type] 189 [We seemed to move with intolerable slowness] 203 [But it is those parts of the river that the Leccos fairly love] 209 [A rubber picker] 211 [On a rope a trolley worked back and forth from which was suspended a tiny platform] 258 [Never was there such a ride—not even in the Rapids of the Ratama] (facing page) 264 [The Tacana brides, adjusted for themselves comfortable niches in the cargo] 314 [At the tiller presided a huge Tacana] 316 [Never was such an exhibition in the history of firearms] 319 [But it was monkey that furnished them with the greatest delicacy] 323 [Often we pass a little shelter of palm leaves] 326 [Night camp on the Rio Beni on the way out] (facing page) 328 [It was only the shack of a lonely rubber picker] 330 [In the thin blue smoke, it at once turned a pale yellow] 332 [Justice is administered according to the standards of his submissive domain] 333 [The bolachas of rubber are threaded on long ropes] 348 [Dragging a batalon around the portage of the Madeira Falls] 351
ACROSS THE ANDES
CHAPTER I
OLD PANAMA, AGAMEMNON, AND THE GENIAL PICAROON
ANNOUNCED THAT A PERSON, A SOMEBODY, WAS AWAITING ME BELOW.
It was in Panama—the old Panama—and in front of the faded and blistered hotel that I met him again. A bare-footed, soft-voiced mozo had announced that a person, a somebody, was awaiting me below. Down in the broken-tiled lobby a soured, saffron clerk pointed scornfully to the outside. Silhouetted against the hot shimmer that boiled up from the street was a jaunty figure in a native, flapping muslin jacket, native rope-soled shoes, and dungaree breeches, carefully rolling a cigarette from a little bag of army Durham. It turned and, from beneath the frayed brim of a native hat, there beamed upon me the genial assurance of Bert, one time of the Fifth Army Corps, Santiago de Cuba, and occasionally of New York; and within my heart I rejoiced. Without, I made a signal that secured a bottle of green, bilious, luke-warm native beer and settled myself placidly for entertainment.