Opposite the hotel was a fine old building with a wonderfully carved stone gateway and attractive iron balconies jutting out with stone supports from each second-story window. It is now the residence and warehouse of one of the largest importers in Bolivia. Once it was the abode of a Spanish marquis. The exquisitely finished exterior bears witness to the good taste of its builder and the riches and extravagance that once ran riot in Potosí.
So also do the beautiful towers, all that are left standing of the Jesuit church. The church itself has disappeared, but the solidly constructed, exquisitely carved stone towers remain as silent witnesses to the power of that Christian order that did most to advance the cause of civilization in South America.
Unquestionably the most picturesque part of Potosí is the market-place and the streets in its immediate vicinity. Hither come the miners and their families to spend their hard-earned wages. Here can be purchased all the native articles of luxury: coca, chupe, frozen potatoes, parched corn, and chicha (native hard cider made from anything that happens to be handy). The streets are lined with small merchants who stack their wares on the sidewalk against the walls of the buildings. There are no carriages and few horseback riders, so that one does not mind being crowded off the sidewalks by the picturesque booths of the Quichua merchants.
In the streets flocks of llamas driven by gayly-dressed Indians add a rare flavor not easily forgotten. The llamas move noiselessly only making little grunts of private conversation among themselves; quite haughty, yet so timid withal, they are easily guided in droves of fifty by a couple of diminutive Indians.
To see these ridiculous animals stalking slowly along, looking inquisitively at everyone, continually reminded me of Oliver Herford’s verses about that person in Boston who
“Looked about him with that air
Of supercilious despair
That very stuck-up people wear
At some society affair
When no one in their set is there.”
In the immediate vicinity of the market-place every available inch on each side of the street is used by the small tradesmen. They are allowed to erect canopies to protect their goods from the sun and rain, and the general effect is not unlike a street in Cairo. On one corner are piled up bolts of foreign cloth, their owners squatting on the sidewalk in front of them. On another corner, leaning against the white-washed walls of a building, is a native drug store. The different herbs and medicines exposed for sale in the little cloth bags are cleverly stacked up so as to show their contents without allowing the medicines to mix. The most conspicuous article offered for sale is coca, which is more to the Quichua than tobacco is to the rest of mankind.
The market-place itself is roughly paved with irregular stone blocks and is surrounded by arcades where are the more perishable European goods. The vendors of Indian merchandise squat on the stones wherever they can find a place and spread out before them their wares, whether they consist of eggs or pottery, potatoes or sandals.
It is the custom to arrange the corn and potatoes in little piles, each pile being worth a real, about four cents in our money, the standard of value in the market-place. Under umbrella-like shelters are gathered the purveyors of food and drink, their steaming cauldrons of chupe surrounded by squatting Indians who can thus get warmed and fed at the same time.
The Quichua garments are of every possible hue, although red predominates. The women dress in innumerable petticoats of many-colored materials and wear warm, heavy, colored shawls, brought together over the shoulders and secured with two large pins, occasionally of handsome workmanship, but more often in the shape of spoons. Generally they are content with uninteresting felt hats, but now and then one will have a specimen of a different design, the principal material of which is black velveteen, ornamented with red worsted and colored beads. On their feet the women usually wear the simplest kind of rawhide sandals, although when they can afford it, they affect an extraordinary footgear, a sandal with a French heel an inch and a half high, and shod with a leather device resembling a horse shoe.