Panama to Patagonia

by Charles M. Pepper

Scene in the Plaza at Oruro—Ancient Tombs at Caracollo—Primitive Methods of Tin-crushing

Oruro’s climate cannot be made a subject of local pride. It is raw and rainy, with snow in the morning which melts quickly under the sun. The mean average temperature as I gleaned from the local records is 43° Fahrenheit, but in the month of November the extremes are 68° and 34°. An ordinary year has 54 days of rain, 8 days of heavy snow, and 52 days of sleety winds. The mineral resources of the sub-Andine region, of which Oruro is the centre, compensate for its lack of genial temperature. The most important of the mines is the San José, which produces both tin and silver.

La Paz by the stage route is 160 miles from Oruro. When the railroad is completed, the distance will be shortened a little, though the same general course will be followed. I left Oruro one September morning in the diligencia. The transportation had been controlled by a pair of Scotchmen, and it was generally praised for the service, but they turned it over to local management and then there was nothing to praise. We had a dozen passengers, though only room for ten. They included a Peruvian gentleman and his Chilean wife; two Chilean rotos, or rough-and-ready workers who were going to La Paz to take jobs; a party of Italian pedestrians who walked in this manner; a German drummer; a native merchant, and myself. The route followed the pampa along the edge of the mountain range, and as there had been local snow-storms the regular line of white silhouettes glistening in the sunlight presented a most exquisite sight. But the road was very heavy, and our six mules had difficulty in pulling the stage from one mud hole to another.

At noon we were mired. It rained and hailed throughout the afternoon. One of the Italians, after a long parley with the driver and the Indian postilion, took a mule from the traces and started for the hamlet, which lay eight miles farther on, to see if means could not be found for transferring us.

About nine o’clock through the darkness we heard shouts, and found that a carreta, or two-wheeled cart, with four mules had been sent to our rescue. No promise was held out to us of reaching the village, but the stage was so uncomfortably crowded that some of us felt bound to make room for those who preferred to remain. We clambered out, and the outrider took us on his shoulders and waded through the mud till he was able to drop us into the cart. He had been picked up somewhere along the way. Without him we would have had to pass the hours till morning in the open carreta. The wind was biting, and though wrapped in heavy overcoats and blankets, we could not keep the chill from our marrow-bones.

The night was so black that nothing could be seen ahead except the moving silhouette of the Indian guide. I learned on this occasion of the endurance of this class of natives. Our postilion was barefoot, clad only in thin cotton trousers and some kind of shirt, yet he plunged through the ponds, waded the creeks, and marked out a course for the mules, urged by their hoarse, screeching driver, to follow. When they got mired, he was at their heads or at their heels, yelling at them in the Aymará tongue with the heartiness that a muleteer on the Western frontier will put into his coaxing of the same animals. After seeing him set the pace, I could readily understand how these men could travel all day on foot and keep the animals going at a good pace. Two or three times we thought we were hopelessly lost, but at last he brought us into the village of Caracollo and to the tambo, or inn. The breakfast had been waiting since eleven o’clock in the morning. We sat down to it at a quarter of an hour before midnight. After enjoying the repast we went to bed commiserating our companions who were huddled together in the stage somewhere back on the pampa.

The next morning I made a little study of native life as seen at Caracollo, chiefly in the plaza, which was more in the nature of a market-place. It was under water, but the Indian women were squatted about selling their wares with stoical indifference to personal comfort. The priest was fat, good-natured, and more intelligent than others of his class whom I met. He told us that the Indian tombs or tomb dwellings which we saw on the edge of the village were at least four centuries old and were still venerated by the natives. I strolled up the hillside to have a closer view of them, and found that they are now put to baser uses. The veneration of the natives apparently is shown by finding the shady side in order to take a snooze at mid-day. Half a score of the Indians were enjoying their siestas.

The tombs are oblong in form, from six to twelve feet high, and are hollow. Some are open at the top, but more are closed and have a kind of arched roof. All that I noticed opened or faced toward the east. Some have openings on each side. The straw and mortar seemed to be so fresh that it was hard to conceive of these monuments of the past being centuries old, but of the fact there is no question.

The stage managed to pull itself out of the mud and reach Caracollo at noon. We set off at once. At Villa Villa, a dreary spot, the eating-house had nothing ready for us because we were running off schedule time. Yet the Frenchman and his wife who kept it managed to provide us a mouthful. They were from Marseilles. “How did you get away off here?” I incautiously asked him. He shrugged his shoulders.