A view of Quito, capital of Ecuador, from the summit of the Panecillo
View of Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital, from the summit of the Sacsahuaman
We were off at daylight, as travelers should be, along a fertile, V-shaped valley. The rain had given the morning a scent of fresh lushness rare in the dry Andes; birds sang gaily in the willows along the stream; and great masses of snow-white clouds lay banked in the hollows of the mountains. Then came another mighty climb to a stagnant, mountain-top lagoon, and the usual hundred yards or so of level going before we pitched down another of the stony bajadas that seem to shake all the bolts of the anatomy loose, like a runaway railway train bumping over the ties. Suddenly there disclosed itself to view one of those Andean vistas so tantalizing to the photographer, since any attempt to reproduce them on a film results only in a waste of effort and material. The earth had been scolloped out into an enormous valley, with a very green, thread-like river racing Amazonward far down in its rocky gorge; hundreds of little stone-fenced patches newly plowed to await the rain, were scattered far and near on all the fertile, enclosing mountainsides that rose higher and higher as we descended. Each Indian chacra showed two tiny white houses connected by a high wall, which, no doubt, enclosed the corral, enticing—at least at a distance—in their specklessness. Then, far, far off across a vast expanse of gashed and tumbled valley, at the back of a great tilted field broken into squares of the yellow-green of sugar-cane, alternating with the deeper line of alfalfares, with a ribbon of road winding to, and swallowed up within it, could be plainly made out the little city of Abancay, backed by mountains capped with snow-white clouds.
The brilliant sun had reduced things again to the old, familiar dry-as-dust condition, making a torture the long perpetual zigzag down to the river Pachachaca, flowing north through a deep cleft in the mountains to the hot Amazonian montaña and the Atlantic, the gleam of its blue waters tantalizing to our choking, desert thirst. I reached at last the stone and cement bridge of graceful arch straddling the gorge, only to find, to my dismay, that this passed high out of reach of the water. But we would not be choked thus in plain sight of the inviting stream. I turned Chusquito up along the bank and tramped a long distance through cactus and chaparral, dust and tropical heat, without finding a break in the jungle-clad, precipitous bank. At last, unable to endure the tantalizing sight longer, I took chance by the forelock and dragged the animal down through the clutching trees and undergrowth as far as he could possibly go, then unloaded him, standing on a huge rock as on a pedestal, and carried my junk the rest of the way to a shady spot beside the racing stream. There I cooked, ate, read, wrote, bathed, washed all my available clothing, and napped, and it was mid-afternoon before I had loaded again. The little son of the chicha-shop had fallen behind in the long descent. As I ate, he crossed the bridge above, but though I fired my revolver several times to attract his attention, he went on unheeding. All the four hours had been burdened with the worry of perhaps finding it impossible to get Chusquito back again up that jungled precipice and rock-spill; but the little beast climbed it like a chamois in his native mountains, though a real horse would have refused to attempt it.
Abancay is one of the most insignificant of department capitals, the lowest and most nearly tropical city of all this trans-Peruvian trip. Hot as it is, there are snowclads close behind and seeming hardly a rifle-shot away from the town, and back along the valley through which we had come the double Indian houses stood out as clear white specks far up the perpendicular mountain walls, fifteen and even twenty miles away. The place has probably fewer than 2000 inhabitants, of whom easily ninety percent. are more or less Indian, the few whites being chiefly importations in the form of government officials. The town is not old, and is somewhat built to order. Yet it has not only electric lights, but a good water-supply—when this is not polluted on its journey as an open brook through the town. There is a simple monument, designed by my former host, Da Pozzo, to a local hero who rose to the lofty heights of a department prefectship; one of the few artistic things in Peru, because of its absence of over-ornamentation. Bread was again worth nearly its weight in gold, the town being well below the wheat-line. A disease known as “obero” is common among the Indians, turning the face a sooty black. There is also a white “obero,” which gives its victims the appearance of those negroes who seek to attain white skins by acid treatment. Some of the chola women are decidedly pretty, in spite of their habits; but, as so often with their sex the world over, once they begin to suspect that fact they are prone to attempt to improve on nature, with distressing results. Every woman wears the dicclla, a square of cloth richly embroidered and worked with flowers, about her shoulders. In it a baby is carried when the wearer attains one, apparently not a difficult feat in Abancay. But none go without this article of attire, and he who does not look closely will scarcely notice whether the dicclla is full of baby, or is empty.
In my first stroll about town I came upon the boy of Andahuaylas in one of the huts on the outskirts, where he was evidently avoiding me because he had eaten—raw—the five eggs I had given him to carry. He had fallen in with friends, and demonstrated his Latin-American temperament by giving up his plan to walk to Cuzco.
The “Hotel Progreso” of Yacarias Trujillo is, like Abancay, more easily imagined than described. A stone-paved rectangle full of clothes-lines, flapping with garments of both sexes, of Indian and chola women and children of all degrees of ignorance of soap, of parrots, turkeys, a belligerent goose, chickens without number, countless yellow curs, a dozen fat and self-assertive pigs, and an occasional drunken man, formed its center. A wall half-separated it from the barnyard general-convenience and kitchen, beneath which flowed an open sewer and water-supply. My “room” was an ancient, lopsided, scarfaced, airless den opening directly off this, with the dust of ages on its battered and medieval furniture. The longer of the two maltreated wooden platforms on legs that posed as bedsteads was at least a foot shorter than I, though I make no great requirements in that respect, and I had either to hang my legs over the razor-edge of the footboard, or thrust one out at each corner. In these Andean hostelries the landlord may hover around the guest on the day of his arrival, chiefly out of curiosity, commanding the servants who furnish the room to order. But he never does so on the succeeding days, as his attention is fully taken up with the little grocery, drunkery, and billiard-room on which his real income depends, and one is lucky indeed to lay hands once a day on a servant to bring a pitcher of water and empty the basura. As to a clean towel or a change of sheets, the only way to obtain them, whatever the length of stay, is to move to another hotel—in the unlikely event that one exists. But the accomplished bachelor prefers, on the whole, to be his own chambermaid, rather than admit to his room the average variety of Andean hotel servant. The service was genuinely table d’hôte, in that we gathered around the table with the entire family of our host, his children, dogs, and chickens, some local government officials, and the ubiquitous four-eyed German with his stale jokes and flat-footed attempts to make himself “simpático.” On Sunday we had to dinner a dried-up but still bright old lady who claimed to remember the battle of Ayacucho, 88 years before, and to have seen as a small girl the beaten Spaniards racing pell-mell through “Dead Man’s Corner.”
Yacarias had learned none of those tricks of his tribe that are the burden of the traveler almost the world over. Though his rates were ninety cents a day, he refused to collect for the meal or two I ran over and when I left he forced upon me a roast chicken for my fiambre, or road lunch, as “a little remembrance.” Moreover, to my astonishment he actually had Chusquito back from his pasture and tied in the patio with a juicy bundle of alfalfa before him, by the time the religious fiesta had sunk into its drunken sleep and quiet had settled down over the Andes. To have a Latin-American promise to do a thing and then to do it the same day was a breath-taking experience, indeed.
We were off at the crack of dawn on the last stage of my march to the ancient capital of the Inca Empire. That eagerness the traveler always feels in nearing the scene of boyhood dreams caused me to scold Chusquito more than usual for not keeping out from underfoot on the famous climb to the next mountain notch, with its achapeta, or stone-heap, on which Indians are said to have tossed their coca-cuds since long before the Conquest. The descent was even swifter, and by three we had ended the nine leagues to Curahuasi, a scattered collection of huts on a high shelf of mountain. Chusquito had brought with him his own dinner wrapped in my rubber poncho, in the form of a wad of alfalfa he had not been able to finish in Abancay. But, though he managed to make away with it, he seemed to prefer the short, dry mountain-grass of the central plaza, consisting of a large, open space adorned by one lone eucalyptus. I was soon possessor of the Stone-age key and padlock of the cabildo, an empty mud cave furnished by the municipalidad, to which the traveler is as legally entitled as to lodging in a French asile de nuit. The same building included the jail, full of the aftermath of the religious fiesta in the persons of bleary-eyed Indians thrusting their faces through the wooden bars of the single window, imploring liquor and tobacco. But though I had wine, chicha, and pisco, and Peruvian prisoners are permitted anything they can lay hands on, it seemed wiser to let them reflect on the error of their ways. The ragged lieutenant-governor came to inquire if he should send a “cholita” to keep me company, and seemed to consider my negative reply a personal affront. Now and then an Indian, all but hidden under a load of green alfalfa, loped across the plaza, pursued by several asses taking a bite at every jump. It is the custom in this region for all aboriginals, men, women, or children, to snatch off their hats and murmur “Buenas tardes”—whatever the time of day—to every white man. If I failed to answer, they repeated that inane, redundant, and not always truthful remark in a loud, distressed voice until I replied, as if they feared some punishment unless their greeting was returned. When it came to every passerby thus insisting on recognition as often as he passed the cabildo doorway in which I sat writing my notes, it was hard to refrain from replying with the adobe brick nearest at hand.