"Yes, I grant that you have had all those advantages, Maria, but it is not everybody who makes the best of them. I can safely say that since we started we have never sat down to a bad breakfast or dinner. Now, for a bit, we are going to lead a different sort of life. We shall be on beaten tracks. We shall meet lots of people. It is strange to think that, except for those peasant muleteers we met at the foot of the pass by the Tinta volcano, we have not seen a soul except the savages—who have souls, I suppose—since we left Paucartambo more than six months ago; and yet somehow we do not seem to have missed them. I wonder what we shall find when we get up to Cerro, and who will be president then."
"I wonder what they are doing in Europe!" Bertie said. "We have heard no later news than what we had when we went on board a ship sixteen months ago. There may have been great wars all over Europe."
"I don't think there is much chance of that, Bertie. India was the only place where there was any fighting going on, and it seemed as if, since Napoleon was crushed, Europe would become permanently pacific. Still, I do hope that when we are at Lima we shall get hold of a pile of English newspapers. The consul is sure to have them."
"I don't suppose we shall want to stay there many days, Harry, for we shall be eager to start the search for the enchanted castle Dias has told us of. We saw quite enough of Lima during the ten days that we were there."
"Is the pass a bad one up to Cerro, Dias?"
"There are some very bad points, señor. It never was a good one, but as nothing has been done to the roads for at least a hundred years, it must have got into a very bad state. I have been down it twice with travellers, the second time ten years ago, and it was bad enough then. It is likely to be worse now."
"Well, as the road is used so little, Dias," Harry said, "there is no fear of brigands."
"I hope not, señor; but there may be some, though they would not be there in the hope of plundering travellers. But desperate men are always to be found in the mountains—men who have committed murders and fled from justice. They are able to live on what they can shoot, and of course they can get fish in the streams, and when they are tired of that can come down here, where they will find plenty of turkeys, and pheasants, and other game, besides the maize, and fruits, and other things in the old plantations. Sometimes they will take a little plunder from the small villages. Anyhow, they do not fare altogether badly. Therefore one can never feel certain that one is safe from them, even when travelling over tracks where travellers seldom pass. Still, we may very well hope that we shall not have the bad luck to fall in with them."
"I hope so, Dias. We did not come out here to fight. So far we have been very fortunate, and have not had to fire a shot, except at those wretched savages."
The next day's journey took them far up into the hills, and they camped that night at the upper end of a deep ravine. It had been a hard day's work, for at several points the mules had to be unloaded and taken up singly, and the loads then carried up. Fortunately, the packs were now very light, and were carried or hauled up without much difficulty.