Beyond Marcavalle, on the second day, the stony road was for a time even more densely populated by llama, donkey, and mule-trains, by haughty, white-collared gentry ahorse, and villagers afoot, all,—“gente,” arrieros, Indians of both sexes, and, one could almost believe, the very llamas—silly or stupid with drink. Even the women chewed coca, each bulging cheek suggesting a cud of tobacco. Indian women, that is, for in a land where every man rides it is the rarest sight to see a woman on horseback; and even the chola who drags her skirts through the accumulations of years in her native hamlet, would sooner break the seventh commandment than ride astride. Then bit by bit the travel died out; the single telegraph wire strode knock-kneed away over an uninhabited world, and for an unbroken half day we tramped across a vast brown pampa, with only an occasional flock of sheep, the stone and straw kennels of shepherds at so great a distance off that I must trust as usual to luck in guessing aright among many faint paths, and at times even total absence thereof.
The adobe-and-thatch Indian hamlet of Nahuinpuquio was en fiesta, celebrating some church holiday. The air pulsated with the harsh and discordant noise of fife and drum, in the melancholy rhythm of all music of the aboriginals, and the drear landscape was brightened here and there by groups of dancers, Indians in fantastic costumes and ludicrous masks, who danced in fixed spots without moving a yard an hour in any direction. Over the valleyed and rocky face of the mountain beyond, a bit of the road consisted of rough-stone steps that may have been part of the old Inca highway. Then the trail pitched down into an ever warmer valley, the enclosing hillsides and rocky ranges marked off in hundreds of little stone-fenced patches, most of them newly plowed and waiting for rain. Toward sunset we came out suddenly above a river brilliant green with the patches of verdure stretching along it as far as the eye could command,—the Mantaro, racing Amazonward through its rock-hewn gorge, with villages tucked away here and there up the face of the great cliffs that rose ever higher as we wound forever downward round and round the headlands.
In the parlor of the “Hacienda Casma,” where shake-downs were prepared for three travelers whom chance had brought together in the half-tropical throat of the valley, lay piled the Huancayo-Huancavelica mail,—in virtually new American mail-sacks. The unusually noiseless sincerity of our host and the extraordinary order of his establishment surprised me not a little, until I learned that he was Argentine born. These rural haciendas take life easily. It was nearly eight next morning before we drifted together for coffee, bread, and cheese, and some time later that the mayordomo prevailed upon his Indian assistants to drive from the hacienda pasture a score of mules and horses, from which we each chose our animals. While I sat reading in the fresh, bird-singing, June morning, awaiting my four-footed companion, a travel-stained Indian slipped noiselessly into the yard with a letter which the wife of the hacendado opened and began to read. Her suppressed laughter soon drew the attention of her husband, who, having taken possession of the epistle, began in his turn to shake with mirth. When he had finished, he sent out of ear-shot the Indians who flocked in and about the corredor, and read the note to his guests. It was from the parish priest high up on the mighty range that shut in the river, and ran in part, all in a solemn, almost sanctimonious tone:
“Yesterday, dear compadre, while on a round of confession among my scattered flock, to whom God grant all blessings, I found in the house of the widow —— a poor little orphan, newly born. Now I beg of you in the name of charity and the Holy Church to do me the inestimable service of acting as godfather to this unfortunate little innocent, that it may not be in danger of dying in mortal sin for want of baptism. We will ride there on Thursday.... Now I beg and pray you, dear compadre, to grant me this favor, and above all to say nothing whatever of this matter to anyone, since it is of no importance to any but ourselves, not even to mention it to your good and pious wife, whom God....”
“But—” I began, somewhat at a loss to account for the roars of laughter that increased with each phrase.
A hint of what the second-class traveler on Peruvian railways must put up with—without the clashing of colors and the odors of pisco and chicha
The wide main street and a part of the immense market of Huancayo, said to be the largest in Peru. The Indians, dressed in every shade of vivid colors and carrying every species of native product, trot in from a hundred miles around for this Sunday gathering
“Why, it’s—you see it’s—well, the padre knows the widow well, very well indeed,” explained my host, wiping his eyes with a corner of his poncho, “and this is the fourth time since I became owner of Casma that he has asked me to be godfather to some poor little orphan he has found in different parts of his scattered parish. He is a man of force, is the padre. But of course he doesn’t want the good and pious señoras of his flock to know about his little amusements. We Argentinos, however—well, who knows the secret of keeping a secret from a woman,” he concluded, gazing after his wife as she hurried away, her shoulders still shaking.