eggs and some tea to the housewife and asked her to prepare us a frugal meal. Alas! it was quite impossible. The cooking activities of the evening before had used up every stick of firewood within a radius of a mile, and there was no way in which water could be boiled. The only provisions for our breakfast were the raw eggs. We had before us a ride of forty miles over an exceedingly rough country, part of which lay at an elevation of fourteen thousand feet above the sea, so we hastily swallowed our eggs as best as we could and started off with the prospect of twelve hours in the saddle.
At first the road wound slowly up the valley of Lircay, until finally it climbed over the edge of the hills to a great bleak plateau where hundreds of llamas were feeding. When you come to a llama range you may be fairly certain that the altitude is not far from that of the top of Pike’s Peak. Add to this a blinding snow-storm that keeps you from seeing more than six feet ahead of you, a wearied mule, a very hungry rider, and the uncertainty as to whether you are on the right road or not, and you will have a picture of our predicament during part of that never-to-be-forgotten day. At length, to our great delight, the trail began slowly to descend from cheerless paramos and little mountain lakes into a great valley where, thousands of feet below, we could see huts and cultivated fields.
Skirting the hills half-way up the valley and avoiding the attractive little trails that led down to Indian villages, we kept turning more and more to the westward until we rounded a spur and came on a magnificent view of the great river Mantaro that on its way to join the Apurimac has cut a wonderfully deep cañon through this part of Peru. A tortuous descent of two thousand feet brought us to the new toll-bridge of Tablachaca and onto an excellent road. Of course, this does not mean that it could be used for wheeled vehicles, for of carts there are none in this part of the world. It simply means that a trail four or five feet wide and reasonably free from rocks and holes allowed the mules to jog along at a gait of nearly five miles an hour. So slow had been our progress over the paramo that it was considerably after dark before we reached the picturesque old stone bridge of Yscuchaca, re-crossed the Mantaro, and clattered over the cobble-tones of this well-built little town.
We had rather flattered ourselves that no one here knew we were coming and so we had avoided an official reception and all possible attacks on our digestive faculties. But we had to pay for it by finding that it took nearly two hours longer than usual before we were able to secure any accommodations whatsoever for the night. The Gobernador of Yscuchaca lived a mile or more out of town on his country estate, and learning finally that there were two “distinguished foreigners” in town, sent his head servant to welcome us, gave us the use of a room in his town house, provided our mules with pasturage, and the next morning charged us three times the regular tariff. I regret to say that we took advantage of the absence of the Gobernador to pay his major-domo what our sergeant told us was the
legitimate price and left him wondering why he had not been able to overcharge us as he had certain American civil engineers who had been here not long before, surveying for the extension of the central railway of Peru.