“A body of troops was sent in to the district to search for the runaways, but none were ever found. They had made off into the back territories, where they could not be followed.
“Now mates,” he added, “all that terrible loss of life was caused through drink. And now hear me boys, I swear, so help me God, I will never touch another drop of liquor as long as I live.”
“Hear, hear,” said several of the men, and whether it was the effect of the gruesome stories, or the tragedy, I don’t know, but the men of that gang, during the time I was with them, were certainly much more sober than they usually were.
Now about one mile to the south of our station, and on the middle ridge of the Cordilleras there is one of the most interesting relics, belonging to the Incas Indians, and I had not been in that district long before my friend the old chief told me the history of it, and also went with me when I went to see it. It was called, he said, the Ancient Council Chamber, and was used for that purpose in their glorious past, long years before the Spanish robbers came to Peru. The place is a level and circular patch about half a mile across, while the peaks around it are very steep. From the ground to about sixty feet up the side, all around, there are steps, or seats, cut out of the solid rock, like the gallery in a circus. Each seat is about twenty-four inches wide and eighteen inches high, all apparently having been cut by hand.
On the western side is a large seat cut into the shape of an arm-chair, this no doubt, being the seat of honour in that vast council chamber. Above the seats are the figures of birds, and beasts, cut into the solid rock. These are so gigantic that they can only be seen in all their beauty from the other side of the valley, and then it is both a beautiful and majestic sight, whilst overhead is the canopy of the blue sky. Looking at it, and thinking of the centuries that have passed since the days of Pizarro and his robber crew, it was not difficult, as the old chief sat beside me telling me their legends, to picture them in their pride and glory when Peru was a great nation, and to see once more that chamber filled with proud chiefs, met to do homage to their ruler, sitting so calm and stately in the great chair, as they passed before him to their seats and to assist him by their counsel in the government of their country. Strange though it may seem, they have amongst their legends one of the flood we read of in Bible history. But oppression and cruelty have done much to sap up their strength and pride, and has left them a happy-go-lucky, indolent and harmless race; the men are short in stature, strong and sturdy in limb, but no great lovers of work, this being so, and no doubt a remnant of their old pride makes their women the chief workers, more especially about their homes and in the fields.
The Indians who were with us were employed on the great tunnel at the top of the track, and they were engaged to wheel the debris out of the tunnel, as the Chinese were blasting and cutting. Now all Indians carry weights on their heads, but as a barrow of broken rock was too heavy for that, they were forced to adopt our method of wheeling it, but when empty, nothing would induce them to wheel the barrow back, no, they would turn it upside down and carry it on their heads, much to the amusement of the other workers.
One morning, before turn-to time, I strolled up the valley above our camp to get a nearer view of some of the magnificent waterfalls to be found among the snow-capped peaks. I had climbed up and down for some time, when I became very thirsty, and meeting one of the Gambetta Indian women carrying a skin of goat’s milk, I asked her for a drink. She at once gave me a horn full, which I drank eagerly and found very refreshing. Then I went back to the camp.
“Where have you been rambling to?” said Mike Hogan, the foreman.
I told him, and added, “I got a good drink of milk from an Indian woman.”
“The devil you did,” he said, “was it boiled?”