Vagabonding down the Andes / Being the Narrative of a Journey, Chiefly Afoot, from Panama to Buenos Aires

by Harry Alverson Franck

Thanks to the pleasure of having a hearer who could understand him, the exile’s sad, not to say jumbled, story was soon forthcoming.

“I ’ad a good iducation, d’ ye see,” he began, “sent to collidge an’ all that; but I tykes it into my ’ead t’ go t’ sea. An’ I was first-cabin steward on the ‘Dinkskiver’—I’ve my papers an’ discharge, an’ ready t’ show ’em t’ any man—an’ we runs int’ Australy, an’ I goes t’ the —— Club there, an’ a gentleman he introdjuces me t’ the club, which is where all the best gentlemen belongs, d’ ye see. An’ ’e says, ‘Look ’ere, if you’d like t’ stop ashore we’ll get the captain t’ sign y’ off an’ we’ll put y’ up as steward t’ the club,’ d’ ye see—I bein’ a first-class cook an’ can bake an’ do any kind o’ cookin’—an’ I got me papers an’ discharges right ’ere with me t’ prove it. An’ it was a right-o job, one o’ the best jobs I ever ’ad, s’ elp me. So I was steward t’ the —— Club, d’ ye see—an’ I’ll show the papers provin’ it t’ any man interested—but fin’ly one day I blew that job, d’ ye see; an’ I was three years out in Australy. But finally one day I says t’ myself, ‘I might as well see America, too.’ An’ I ’ad my passage pyde clean ’ome t’ Liverpool, d’ ye see, on the Roossian steamer ——, an’ we come across t’ Ayquique first, she bein’ bound round the ’Orn ’ome t’ Liverpool. But three of us gets ashore in Ayquique, d’ ye see, an’ we was messin’ about there an’—an’—lookin’ about, d’ y’ understand, an’ fin’ly we was left ashore there in Ayquique, d’ ye see, not ’avin’ got on board again before the packet sailed. An’ the British Consul ’e says, ‘Well, I’ll do anything I can fer ye, boys.’ An’ I ’ad money too, d’ ye see, an’ my passage was pyde clean ’ome t’ Liverpool on the Roossian, only she slipped ’er ’ook while we was ashore an’ there we was stranded in Ayquique.

“So then I gets up t’ this ’ere Arequeepy” (It turned out later that he meant Arica) “an’ I ’ad money on me, d’ y’ understand, but I was lookin’ about an’ seein’ if I couldn’t get work, d’ ye see, an’ messin’ about ’ere an’ there, an’ fin’ly I ’adn’t no money left an’ was on the beach there in Arequeepy. An’ so I tykes on with the boss ’ere as cook—I bein’ a first-class cook an’ steward—an’ the boss ’e likes me all right, too, d’ ye see. Only d’ ye know what ’e’s pying me? Sixty bally paysoze a month! That is, I sye ’e’s pying me that, but not a blightin’ tanner ’as ’e give me yet, an’ s’ elp me, I ayn’t so much as ’ad a shave since I took up with ’im. So finally I says, ‘Well, ’ere, sir, I wants me money.’ An’ the boss says, All right, ’e’d pye me all right, only ’e ’adn’t nothin’ with ’im t’ pye me then, the banks bein’ all closed on a Sunday; an’ ’e says, ‘Well, I’ll tell ye what I’ll do. If you’ll go up t’ Bolivy on this ’ere trip I’ve got t’ make, I’ll pye ye soon as ever we get down again,’ d’ ye see. So I says, ‘That’ll do me,’ an’ we come up ’ere. An’ I ayn’t ’ad my clothes off on th’ ole bolly trip, an’ cookin’ all the time. The boss ’e likes me all right, d’ ye see, but I don’t know ’ow about this ’ere Peruvan in the ki’chen with me, seein’ as ’ow I can’t understand ’is bloomin’ lingo. An’ I only jus’ left a good cookin’ job account o’ a black feller. ’E was always pickin’ up with me, an’ fin’ly one day ’e calls me a —— —— ——, an’ I says, ‘You’re another, ye —— —— black ——,’ an’ so I quit an’ got this ’ere job with the boss—anythink at all t’ keep y’ afloat when y’re stove in, d’ ye see. An’ yesterday mornin’ we stops at a place, d’ ye see, an’ the boss says, ‘Well, now, Joe, rustle out an’ buy some pervisions’—an’ me not knowin’ a word o’ the bally lingo! An’ then las’ night when I’d served ’em coffee at ’arf past midnight, the boss says, ‘Well, ye might as well turn in an’ do a wink o’ sleep, Joe.’ So I turns in under the dinin’-room tyble; only I couldn’t sleep any all night fer the cold. Nobody ’ad took the trouble t’ tell me it was cold up ’ere, d’ ye understand, an’ bein’ in the tropicks I didn’t see ’ow it could be—an’ me been livin’ in North Australy where it’s a ’underd an’ twenty in the shyde. But I says t’ myself, d ’ye see, I’ll tyke one blanket along in cyse I ’ave a chance t’ turn in on the trip. Only one blanket don’t stop the cold at all ’ere, d’ ye see, an’ when the boss comes int’ the dinin’-room this mornin’ an’ says, Well, Joe, let’s ’ave some coffee,’ I ’adn’t slept none whatever. An’ I ’ave that funny feelin’s, my legs all ’eavy an’ achin’ an’ feelin’ that bad in the back o’ the neck I don’t know but I’m took with somethink. I’ll tell ye this ayn’t no white man’s country, tyke it from me. When I gets down again, if the boss’ll give me my money, I’m goin’ t’ make fer ’ome full speed a’ead, I’m tellin’ ye an’ not ashymed of it. It’s all right-o fer you that talks the lingo an’ as got ’ardened t’ the cold. But fer me that couldn’t sleep a wink all night fer bein’ that cold—’ere in the tropicks, too—an’ that busy cookin’ day an’ night I ayn’t ’ad my clothes off On the trip, an’ this ’ere achin’ in my legs, d’ ye see, as if I’d been took with somethink.... No, I ayn’t been down t’ the city, though o’ course I see it from up ’ere, an’ I was wonderin’ what place it would be, bein’ a moderate fine lookin’ town fer these ’ere foreign countries. But we’ll be goin’ back t’night; the boss’ll likely be ’ere any minute. An’ I comes of a good family, d’ ye see, an’ they’ll be ’appy t’ see me ’ome again, they will. They give me a good iducation an’ sent me t’ collidge an’ all that, d’ ye see; only I took it int’ me ’ead t’ go t’ sea an’ come out t’ Australy, an’ I’ll show any man me papers—”

But the bitter night air that was beginning to sweep across the plateau was not the only reason I decided to be on my way.

As the sun sets gradually down through the cuenca of La Paz, so it rises, gilding first the western precipice far up near the edge of the plateau, plainly seen from my pillow in the “Tambo Quirquincha,” then slowly crawling down into the valley until, long after its first appearance, it finally floods in upon the city itself and lights up its streets and eastern house-walls. On such a cool, sun-flooded morning, known to the calendar as December fourth, a cholo boy of eleven presented himself to carry my baggage to the station, and did so easily, though I should have groaned at the load myself. The second-class coaches, here tramcars, left first, and slowly corkscrewed up out of the valley, the motorman, once we were started, coming inside where it was a bit less frigid, closing the door behind him, and giving all his attention to two comely cholas whose little black eyes jumped about like those of guinea-pigs.

On the “Alto” a brilliant sun somewhat tempered the biting cold of the puna at this early hour. At Viacha a better train awaited us, her engine turned south,—big vestibuled cars, marked “Ferrocarril á Bolivia” and plying to Antofagasta, a smooth, well-built roadbed that spoke of Chile and more modern countries, a diner ready for those who did not choose to buy boiled goat and frozen potatoes of the skirt-heaped Indian women squatting at the stations. Once off across the sandy, bunch-grass wilderness, flat as a sea, with herds of llamas grazing here and there, and little farms of all shapes hanging on the slopes of far-off and gradually receding hillsides, the train sped on as if it never intended to stop again. In truth there was little reason to do so, for it was as dreary a region as the imagination could picture. The few stations at which we halted briefly, single, wind-swept huts on the edge of salt marshes, bore names fitting to the landscape,—Silencio, Soledad, Eucalyptus—here a lone tree afforded the only feature to which a name could be attached. Now and then mirages across the dismal desert gave the lomitas the appearance of islands, the heat waves seeming to be water lapping their shores.

Cholas of La Paz, in their striking costume

In mid-afternoon Oruro arose across the brown pampa, as Port Saïd rises from her muddy sea, and we rumbled into a flat, miserable, if from the miner’s point of view important town, gloomy, bleak, perhaps the most desolate city my eyes had ever fallen upon. The squat adobe buildings, chiefly one-story, were in many cases thatched over tile roofs, giving them the appearance of wearing a weather-worn hat over colored caps, like the Indians of La Paz. Reddish-brown, utterly barren desert hills, with mine openings, formed the background. The wind drove the sand like needles into our faces and seemed bent on cutting our eyes out. Cholas ostentated themselves in somewhat the same costume as those of the seat of government, but dulled and soiled by the all-pervading dust. Siberian, dreary, comfortless, the place seemed, yet its stores were well-stocked, and there were more gringos per capita than I had seen in many a day. Seeming to hate themselves and life in general, even the Americans had a haughty, unapproachable air, as in so many mining towns of the Andes, the unconscious result no doubt of caste treatment of Indian workmen.

I was only too glad when the train on a newly-constructed branch-line carried us off northeastward late next morning. A long string of mud monuments still marks the centuries’-old route across the trackless desert. Beehive-shaped huts of mud huddled in the sunshine here and there. We climbed in long zigzags over the crest of the Cuesta Colorada, drear hills of broken rock where only a scant brown bunch-grass finds foothold. Below the divide hearty gringo faces, more cheerful in this lower altitude, broke in now and then on the monotony of Latin-American features. Many tents marked with large letters “F. C. A. B.” lined the way, interspersed with the stone kennels of workmen and their women, and the swarming natural consequences. There is something about a railroad construction-gang more suggestive of the world’s progress than almost any other labor of man.