forgotten all about our princely lineage, and only remembered to charge us treble for everything he could think of. Although we had gotten up at five o’clock, no Indians sober enough to act as guides could be found for several hours, and it was after ten before we finally left Huanta.
The son of the Gobernador was the only person who had energy enough, or had sufficiently recovered from the debauch of the night before, to do us the honor of escorting us out of town. This had come to be such a regular feature of our travels since leaving Cuzco that we always looked forward with curiosity to see what would happen. This young fellow was very polite and went with us as far as the entrance of the local cemetery, a bizarre white-washed adobe gate, protected from the weather by a little covering of red tiles. There must have been something prophetic about his bidding us good-by at the gates of a cemetery, for he was the last honorary escort that we had in Peru.
Our road led us through a thickly populated region. Here and there on the roadside, unfortunate individuals, both men and women, who had been too far gone to reach home the night before, were sleeping off the effects of the Carnival. Ordinarily one does not see much drunkenness in Peru, but this certainly was an exception.
Small towns and villages followed in quick succession. Then we descended into the valley of the Huarpa River and across a well-built toll-bridge. The bridge was so long and so high above the stream that my mule concluded he would stay on the east bank. He yielded to our combined efforts, but only after much beating. We now passed through a semi-arid region of cactus and mimosa trees like the basin of the Pampas River, until we began to climb an extremely steep ravine. Several times we lost our way, and in places the path had been completely washed out by the rains. The crux came at a little waterfall only five feet high. So smooth was the face of the rock over which the little stream of water trickled that our sure-footed animals found it impossible to reach the upper level until we had built a rude stone stairway which they cheerfully essayed to climb. Their energetic scrambles were finally rewarded by success. For three hours the trail wound upwards as steeply as it was possible to go, until we reached the bleak paramo near Marcas.
A magnificent panorama lay spread out before us. In the foreground were hillsides dotted with thatched huts and fields where sheep and cattle grazed; in the middle distance, deep valleys whose rivers had cut their way down into gorges out of our sight; and far beyond, a magnificent range of mountains, some capped with snow and others with clouds. It was a little after five o’clock when we entered the picturesque little village of Marcas with its two dozen huts scattered about under the lee of the rocks or clustered near the road. We recognized it as just the sort of village where we would have been refused both food and shelter had we been alone. But as we were accompanied by an energetic sergeant who did not propose to allow any poor Indians to stand in the way of our progress, a hut no dirtier or more comfortless than the rest was soon put at our disposal, and the sergeant did his best to get us all a good supper out of our own provisions.
Our baggage animals had had a frightfully hard day of it and our soldiers assured us that if we intended to catch the weekly train out of Huancayo, it would be necessary to have at least one more beast of burden, for although our luggage could be conveniently carried by two mules going at a walk, if we expected to make forty miles a day, as we hoped to do, one animal must be rested every other day. Accordingly the Indian alcalde of Marcas was instructed to get us a mule. “But there are no mules here” he replied. A horse then. “Very well, there is one old one which I will have ready for you in the morning.” Soon after breakfast an old white horse appeared, accompanied by a weeping Indian woman who had no desire to take our money and who was thoroughly convinced that she would never see her horse again. It was finally agreed that the horse should go only to the next town where we could get another beast and send this one back by one of the Indian alcaldes that now accompanied us from village to village, returning as their task of acting as guides was taken up by the alcaldes of the next place.
With the aid of the fresh horse, we made good time and skirted the slopes of a high range of hills leaving the trim little town of Acobamba far off on our left. It lies in the valley of the Lircay which is quite densely populated and seemed to be very fertile. In the middle of the afternoon we reached Urumyosi where there are curious great rocks shaped like sugar loaves. They are of soft sandstone which is easily worked, and a number of caves have been made by poor people at the base of the rocks. After a long cold ride and ten hours in the saddle, we came in sight of a mud-colored town called Paucara which has long had a very evil reputation. Whether this is deserved or not we did not endeavor to discover. The sergeant persuaded the owner of a rude little hut, half a mile from the town and on the direct road, to let us spend the night there. One of our neighbors brought freshly cut barley-straw for the mules, another brought a dozen eggs, and with the aid of our own supplies and cooking utensils, we fared splendidly.
The night was excessively damp and as bitterly cold as it can be only in a genuinely tropical country when the temperature drops forty degrees after the sun goes down and an icy wind penetrates your very bones, even though you have hurriedly put on two or three sweaters and a couple of ponchos as it grew dark. There is no cold like the cold of the tropics. Furthermore the carcass of a recently killed sheep hung dripping in the hut. The floor was wet and muddy, there were no windows and only a small door. We wished we had a tent.
There being no incentive to linger at this charming country-house, our Indians were actually up and away before six o’clock. We had saved four eggs the evening before to be cooked for our breakfast, and after loading our pack animals and seeing them safely off with all our supplies, we handed our