From Capillitas, a station about seven leagues from Llollia onwards, the country is much rougher, and the road takes up a very picturesque quebrada, the strata of some of the rocks standing up perpendicular. Here one of the mules that had a very light burden, consisting of bedding only, managed to kick off her cargo, and set to work with teeth and hoofs to tear up as much as she could of it, succeeding in ruining a bag and sundry other articles before we could rescue them from her.
Towards four in the afternoon came on the usual storm of hail, rain, and wind, accompanied by vivid flashes of lightning, some of which were most unpleasantly near us. To know what a hail-storm really means, one must cross the Andes, for some of these afternoon storms were the heaviest I have ever met with either at sea or land. In fact, so large were the hailstones in many instances, that I congratulated myself on being the lucky possessor of two hats, one of which, a large-brimmed thick vicuña felt, I could put on over a soft wide-awake, and then, tying a large scarf over all, so as to cover up my ears and the back of my neck, I could ride out any storm. I recollect many occasions on which the stones came down with such force, being driven by the high wind, that we were fain to turn our backs to the fury of the squall, otherwise I really think the mules would have been stunned had we forced them to receive the hail on their faces.
During the evening the air seemed to be most highly charged with electricity, and after nightfall the flashes of lightning were intensely vivid, the contrast causing the night to look blacker than usual. Whilst riding slowly along I was for some time puzzled by noticing two luminous points moving backwards and forwards right in front of me, and seemingly accompanying me with great regularity. Reaching out my hand towards these lights, I was astonished to find that they were on the two points of my mules’ ears, which, as they wagged to and fro in mule fashion, gleamed like the points of damp lucifer matches. Upon directing my companions’ and the mozos’ attention to the other animals, we found a similar condition to exist with each one, although it was more distinct in some cases than in others. Every one has heard that sparks can be produced from a cat’s back, when the fur is rubbed the wrong way, but I never heard that mules or other animals had the same power of evolving electricity; but probably the wet state of the hair on their ears, and the highly charged condition of the atmosphere, accounted for the phenomenon.
We did not get to El Cruzero, which consists of a few wretched hovels and a small church at the side of a brook, until nearly nine at night, some of us being drenched to the skin, and every one complaining bitterly of the cold. Here we had considerable difficulty in inducing the Indians to open their doors to us and provide us with a shelter for the night. We knocked for some time, at the door of the only hovel in which we could see a glimmer of light through the cracks of the door, and were at length gruffly told to go on our way to the next village, three and a half leagues distant. This we did not approve of, and so we tried the stratagem of shouting to the Indians, that we were part of General Quevedo’s advance-guard, and that if we were not admitted in a friendly manner we should return on the morrow with the general, who would visit them with heavy punishment. The name of Quevedo seemed to be a power to conjure by, for after the Indians had jabbered together excitedly, the door opened and a couple appeared, who with a lantern, and many apologies for delay, showed us to an adjoining hovel, which was about large enough to swing a cat round in, as the saying goes. However, we got our baggage inside, and arranged to sleep on top of it, as there was no room for setting up our cots. We tried to light a fire in the doorway, to warm our benumbed bodies and cook a supper, but the smoke filled the hovel, so that we were obliged to put out the fire and content ourselves with biscuits, sardines, and a night-cap of cingani. There was no good corral available, so we had to put the mules in the yard of the church close by, the mozos sleeping in the gateway to take care they did not escape during the night. This was thought to be great sacrilege by the Indians, but necessity knows no law, and Quevedo’s name had again to help us through the difficulty.
On the following day we determined to give the mules a short journey only, as far as Curahuara de Carangas, the village to which the Indians had on the preceding night recommended us to go. Fortunately the day was fine, so, having dried our ponchos and rugs as well as we could, and making an early breakfast, we settled up for the barley supplied us, and gave the Indians a couple of dollars for sweeping up the litter made by the animals in the church-yard, thus quite reconciling them to the sacrilege they charged us with last night.
The road from Cruzero onwards is good riding, being mostly sandy, over an undulating pampa. On the way I noticed a very peculiar formation of strata. A plain was completely walled in on either side by upheavals of, in some places, rock, in others earth; the dip on either side corresponding exactly, and being pitched at about an angle of 60° with the horizon.
These inclined walls varied in height in different places, in some having been worn away to the surface of the plain, in others rising, to perhaps fifty feet in height, but their almost parallel lines could be seen along the plain as far as the eye could reach. The thickness of these inverted strata might have been about twenty feet, whilst the width of the land between them was probably about half a mile. The effect on the landscape was very striking, and it is exceedingly difficult to set up any theory that may give a reasonable suggestion as to the forces of nature which caused this immense rift in what was once a level portion of the earth’s crust.
We arrived at Curahuara de Carangas about mid-day, and put up at one of the principal houses. The pueblo is small, forming one square, or “plaza” only, with a church on one of the sides. This church is said to be upwards of 200 years old, and is a very primitive building of adobe bricks and rush-covered roof, with a tower separated from the main building, as is frequently the case with old churches throughout South America. The town is not at quite such a high elevation as Potosí, being only about 12,900 feet above sea-level; but, as it is built on a slope rising from a vast plain, the climate is frightfully bleak.
The population is probably not more than 800 or 1000 souls, all told, but nevertheless the cura, or parish priest, seems to make a fine living out of them; at least, so we thought when we found him bargaining with a couple of travelling jewellers, who arrived on the same day as ourselves. The cura, who was a stout hearty man of some fifty years of age, was, though a priest, the head of a family, consisting of a buxom Quichuana and half a dozen sons and daughters. When we called he had just suited his morganatic wife and daughters with rings all round, and was debating whether he had sufficient cash or chefalonia and plata piña with which to purchase a very large diamond ring, which the “joyeros,” or jewellers, were tempting him to purchase as an episcopal jewel. The diamond was of rather a yellowish colour, about the size of a small sugar almond. The price asked was 6000 pesos, but doubtless the sellers would willingly have taken about fifteen hundred; but the priest could not raise a sufficient amount just at the moment, as his faithful flock were not in very good spirits, owing to the slackness in mining operations and the rumours of revolution.
These travelling jewellers are frequently met with in Bolivia, and, as they carry a very considerable stock of their wares, they never travel alone, but always in couples at least. They generally have one or two large diamonds on sale, and sometimes make a very good bargain with a rich priest or a successful miner. In payment they are open to take any other valuables, for they are keen hands at a bargain, being generally of the Israelitish persuasion; and a quantity of “chefalonia,” or old silver plate, such as candlesticks, cups or basons, or a few pounds’ weight of “plata piña” (pure silver in the moulds, as turned out from the smelting works at the mines), are always as acceptable to them as hard dollars. These joyeros come from either Lima or Valparaiso, and it is said that whenever they sell a gros lot, such as a valuable diamond, they always leave the town and neighbourhood as quickly as possible, for fear the purchaser should repent of his bargain; and it is the best policy, whenever a traveller is asked an opinion of a large diamond or other jewel, to give a favourable one, for so many false jewels have been sold in Bolivia that the susceptible feelings of the owner of a rare and precious stone may be easily offended.