The Cauca was now a broad, dry, treeless region without streams, though little humped bridges lifted us across the waterless beds of what would be such at other seasons, and which still retained the name of “river” in local parlance. Arrieros of this section put red bands about the brows of their horses and mules, perhaps only for the purpose of identification, but giving the animals the coy appearance of coquettish girls. As we advanced, the long drought grew more and more in evidence. Across the sun-cracked valley floor lay scattered the bleached bones of scores of cattle that had died of thirst. Policarpo and I, falling behind, were in danger of suffering the same fate; for the band of recruits, like another locust horde, drank the world ahead wholly dry. The rare hovels and amateur shops along the way were prepared to feed and minister to the thirst of only the customary few daily travelers; not to the ninety-four of us that suddenly descended upon them out of the north without warning. Hays and I were forced to stride on past the sponge-like avalanche of humanity for self-preservation.
Here and there we got huge glasses of chicha, the favorite native beverage, at a cent or two each. So many travelers have pictured the making of this by toothless old women chewing yuca and spitting it into a tub to ferment, that the impression should be corrected at the outset. That custom does exist, but it is found only among the untamed tribes of the upper reaches of the Amazon, scarcely trodden by one in ten thousand South American travelers. All down the great Andean chain this nectar of the Incas is made chiefly of maize, though also of other grains, berries, and of almost any vegetable matter that will ferment, by just as agreeable processes as any other cooking operation of the same region. The notion of cleanliness is, at best, rudimentary among the country people of South America, yet the brewing of chicha certainly compares favorably with the ways of our average cider-mill. A well-made chicha, indeed, resembles somewhat in taste the best cider, and is the surest thirst-quencher I have yet encountered, distinctly superior in this respect to beer. Many were the chicha recipes I gathered along the Andes. For the interest of those who wish to temper a hot summer day with an excellent heritage from the ancient Inca civilization, let me translate the most common one.
“Chicha de morocho:
Take hard, ripe corn” (morocho is one of the several excellent species of maize that, like certain grades of the potato, has never been carried from its original Andean habitat to the rest of the world) “shell, and boil for two hours. Let it cool, then grind, or crush under a stone, sprinkling from time to time with some of the water in which it has been boiled. Keep this mass in a well-covered jar. As it is needed, mix with water; one soupspoonful of the prepared mass to one liter of boiling water; add cloves, a very little vanilla, and as much sugar or rapadura as is considered necessary. Mix with an equal amount of cold water and place in jars to ferment. Once fermented, it is ready to serve.”
Worse than the locusts was the flock of recruits that, until we outdistanced them, ate and drank up everything the amateur shops, tended by leprous old women, afforded along the way
The market-place of Tuluá, with the cross that protects it against all sorts of calamities—except those which befall it
We reached Zarzal, beyond a blistered, red-hot plain, soon after noon, with nineteen miles already behind us. It was thus we would always have arrived; the day’s work done early in the afternoon, to wash, eat, and loaf awhile on the canvas cots in our cell-bare room; then to loll in the rawhide chairs on the broad tile-floored veranda before our door, reading the literature of the country, languidly watching the afternoon shower, and taking a stroll in the evening for exercise. In the Andes, however, the itinerary is subjected to a haphazard arrangement of stopping-places that make so ideal a plan impossible. We gave orders for dinner and supper upon our arrival. The ignorant, good-hearted old landlord literally hung over us as we ate, fingering our dishes and even our food. The place might, with entire justice, have advertised “personal services.” At two we finished a heavy dinner. At three-thirty our host waddled in to announce that the “large supper” we had ordered was ready! We managed to plead off until five, but for that concession were obliged to eat the meal cold as an abandoned hope.
A heavy rain during the night—our coming seemed to have broken the long drought—made the going lead-heavy for the first few hours, until the blazing sun had dried up the “gumbo” mud. A richer region appeared as we advanced. Once or twice it seemed as if the central and western ranges were about to join hands and cut us off, but the “unmade” road always found a way through with, at most, an occasional dip, or a slight winding climb. During the hot afternoon we picked up a recruit straggler, complaining of fever. The entire company was scattered for miles along the valley, as often panting in a patch of shade as hobbling forward on their blistered, light-shod feet. Magnificent trees stood out here and there across the rich bottom lands. Often the way led through dense gaudales, bamboo groves that waved their gigantic plumes lazily in the summer air. Here and there the vegetation vaulted entirely over a “river” into which filtered only a few rays of sun, as through the roof of an abandoned ruin. Occasionally we came upon a chacra, a little farm with a tiny thatched hut faded with age, its floor of trampled earth, surrounded by coffee bushes, papaya, chirimoya, and other fruit trees of the tropics, the sometimes recently white-washed dwelling furnished only with a few crude leather stools, a wooden bench, a lame table, and a few cántaros and dishes of native pottery. Pigs and chickens treated the family with perfect equality; under the trees meditated old donkeys, broken down by a lifetime of toil under heartless drivers. We were indeed approaching the scene of “María” in all its photographic detail.