Our conversation turned to hidden treasure and antiquities which the neighboring mountains are said to be full of if we can believe legend. Tarata is in the heart of what once was the great Inca Empire. Upon the advent of the Spaniards the Incas hid from them the greater part of their ornaments of silver and gold where they remain undiscovered to this day. The Spaniards worked the mines of Peru, Chile, and Bolivia, but they in turn for three centuries were a prey to the pirates which ravaged the coast and many of the inhabitants were obliged to bury their wealth to keep it from them. The Catholic Church in South America was always wealthy in its amount of gold ornaments, so when the Inquisition was overthrown, it was in vogue for the citizens to loot the churches. In order to save its wealth from rapinous hands, the clergy sequestered much of its treasure in the mountains. Priests were murdered by pillaging bands of Indians and with their death was lost the cue to the hiding-places. Enough treasure has been found, practically stumbled upon, to give authenticity that vast amounts have been hidden, but the only person in modern times that made a fabulously rich haul was Valverde in Ecuador, who was wise enough when he found his treasure to return to Spain and die in opulence.
Padre Albarracin excused himself and soon returned bringing with him two images several inches long which he said were Inca idols of silver. He also stated that they were in good hands because the pagans could not get them as long as they were in his possession; the drunker he got the oftener he would repeat this and utter quotations from the Scripture such as this: "Their idols are of silver and gold, the work of men's hands. Eyes have they, but they see not," etc. When he finished he would ask me: "It applies, does it not? These idols are of silver."
Then with a sweep he would send them flying from the table. Once I ran to pick them up. "Do they please you?" he asked. I answered in the affirmative. "Then you may have them," he said. He then expounded on the great sacrifice he was making saying that these two manikins were the identical ones Holy Writ referred to and that they were priceless on account of it.
After supper when I was examining one he grabbed it away from me, climbed on a chair, and placed it on top of a wardrobe. When I asked him why he did that he replied that he was hiding it because he feared that I would worship it. I told him that there was little chance, which made him quote more Scripture such as: "Let the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing."
When he went to get another bottle of chicha, I removed the idol from the wardrobe. The other one was lying on the mantlepiece and I took them both because he gave them to me. I have shown these idols to many people and although I have had them stolen several times by acquaintances, I have always got them back. Regarding antiquities Señor Carmona made me a present of a plate of solid silver hand wrought in Cuzco in the end of the sixteenth century. On its face are the portraits of Pizarro and of Atahulapa carved in silver. Although it was of no value to Carmona, who would have been unable to sell it for more than its intrinsic value of metal, I have been offered three thousand dollars for it which I refused to consider.
Padre Albarracin was getting so drunk that both Don Santiago and myself excused ourselves soon after supper. Coming out of the house, Prat stumbled over something lying in the garden. It was Lieutenant Guzman in full dress uniform, soused and dead to the world. Things were just as bad at the Casa de Huespedes. Captain Frias was asleep with his head on the dining room table, and Vargas fell down the stairs trying to show Carmona his room. The cause of the debauch was due to the fact that Don Santiago brought up much wine, gin, vermouth, and grape chicha with his mule caravan. The shaking the chicha got en route augmented its fermentation which made it as bad as hard cider. The night before when we arrived he had left six cases to be distributed to the priest, the alcalde, the intendente, Captain Frias, Vargas, and the notary.
The next day I rode to Carmona's hacienda which is located about nine miles up the Ticalco River on a level expanse of land which stretches northward to the stony slopes of the barren mountain Cumaile. The house itself is a long, low, rambling affair of adobe which was once whitewashed, but that so long ago that but little of the white color is left on its sides. It rains in this region and the broad tiles of the roof are the only things, I take it, which prevented the building from being melted by the rains. A compound originally enclosed the whole building, flower garden, and adjacent peon and work sheds, but at the present time only pieces of wall of this compound remain. It was destroyed in 1881 by the Chilean soldiers who here besieged the Peruvian landlord who had fortified himself and held out behind the walls. Everywhere on the landscape steers grazed in tall alfalfa, fattening themselves for the butcher shops of the coast towns.
Most of the civil inhabitants of Tacna and Tarata are of Peruvian origin having either been born there when the Chilean Province of Tacna formed part of the Peruvian Province of Moquegua, or are descendants of people born before the Pacific War. Tacna is an old town of stone buildings, not at all Chilean in character, but very much like the larger towns of south central Peru. The natives have strong Peruvian sympathies and are always living in hope that some day or other Tacna and Arica will be returned to Peru. Now this is ridiculous because Chile has no intention of giving these places up, although the resources of the Province of Tacna are small. The most important feature is that Arica is the seaport of La Paz, Bolivia, and it is well for Chile to retain possession of it. Tacna was a poor town when it was Peruvian; the majority of its inhabitants lived in poverty. Since it has become Chilean, it has prospered and is to-day very wealthy. This is largely due to live regiments which are stationed there and which bring money into the town. For the past thirty years Peru has passed through many changes of governments, and revolutions have been frequent; it has been misgoverned and unprogressive. Chile, although it cannot be called progressive has aims that way but has been handicapped from the want of money and immigration. It has only had one revolution; that a small civil war started by Balmaceda, but in government, progress, and in everything else is so far ahead of Peru that it seems incredible that the natives of the Province of Tacna are desirous of again returning to Peru's revolutionary and mediæval yoke.
Don Santiago Carmona was an exceptional haciendero in so far that he is a native Chileno. He left his birthplace, La Serena, forty years ago and never once has he returned. His military service was spent not far from Temuco where his regiment was quartered as a protection to the settlers against the Araucanian invasions. For this reason he took no part in the Pacific War. His father died when he was in the service and he was left with a small fortune. With this money he bought from the Chilean Government the hacienda that he now resides upon. The latter had originally confiscated it from the Peruvian landlord who had fortified himself there against him. Carmona married a Peruvian girl from Tacna who had long since died after having borne two sons. One of these sons is a haciendero in Ovalle and the other is a priest in Spain. The latter is figuring on returning shortly to Chile because he has been offered a sacerdotal office in Santiago. Carmona has become wealthy and is thinking of making a a trip for a half-year's duration to his birthplace, thence to Ovalle, Santiago, and Araucania. He also has a desire to see Punta Arenas.
Prat suggested that since we had come thus far towards Peru by land that it would be as well to continue it this way. He had a mortal fear of seasickness to which malady he was a prey every time he put foot upon a ship no matter how calm the water was. Now I had no maps with me and did not know how to get to Peru, although I knew that Tacna was the northernmost province of Chile and the boundary line was no great distance away. To get information on the subject I went to Don Santiago who told me that Moquegua was the nearest Peruvian city, but that it was a week distant over a hot, sandy desert, and that the best way would be for me to return to Arica and go up the coast by steamer. He said that in Tarata there were people who had made the horseback ride to Moquegua and that it would be possible for me to hire a cholo to accompany us. I had heard about bandits in the interior and asked him about it. He answered that highwaymen existed only in the high mountains near the Bolivian frontier, and that I would find the few inhabitants in the country I was contemplating traveling through very docile. Beyond the Sama River which was Peru, he knew nothing about the inhabitants but imagined them to be much the same as on the Chilean side of it. The Peruvian boundary was not fifteen miles away, yet the hacienderos of the neighborhood seldom crossed it, and it was as much of a tierra incognita with them as is the interior of Chihuahua to the ordinary citizen of El Paso, Texas.