Most of the women wore felt hats of native manufacture, picturesque coats of white cotton decorated with many little pieces of colored calico, and as many heavy woollen petticoats as they could afford. The majority wore rough rawhide sandals without socks but a few had elaborately patterned knitted stockings.
A considerable quantity of chocolate is manufactured here and, as in the mountains of Colombia, no meal is considered complete without it. They appreciate better than we do the advantage of having the drink as light and airy as possible, and consequently never serve any without beating it to a light froth by means of a wooden spindle that is inserted in the pot and rapidly revolved between the palms of the hands.
There are several Indian silversmiths here, as well as in Potosí, where filigree-work, spoons, and simple silver dishes are hammered out. The director of the mint in Potosí told me he was frequently offered pure silver family heirlooms that have come down from the extravagant days of the seventeenth century when in a well-to-do house every imaginable utensil was made of silver.
Another specialty of Sucre is the manufacture of tiny dolls out of pieces of fine wire, lace, and tinsel. They range in size from four inches down to half an inch. Sometimes an effort is made to copy a native costume, but more generally the dressing is entirely fantastic or suited only to high carnival. Similar dolls are made in south central Mexico.
CHAPTER XII
THE ROAD TO CHALLAPATA
We were not sorry when the time came to leave Sucre. It not infrequently happens that interior provincial cities of considerable local political importance are not very lenient toward strangers, particularly if the latter are dressed in breeches that seem at all outlandish to the provincial mind. I understand that Chinese have found this to be true in the capitals of our Western States. The thing had happened to me before in Tunja, the capital of the province of Boyacá, Colombia. And it happened here in Sucre. Whenever we walked the streets examining the public buildings or visiting the market-place, we were considerably annoyed by loafers, both men and boys, who, recognizing us as strangers and foreigners, regarded us as the proper target for all manner of witticisms.
An hour after leaving the city, we turned to look back, and found the view from the west quite attractive. In the foreground, dry gulches, stony hillsides, and an occasional thatched mud hut. In the distance, hills sloping down so abruptly that one could not see the bottom of the gulch that lay between us and the city. Immediately beyond, the white walls of Sucre overshadowed by a mountain whose twin peaks rise beyond the eastern suburbs. There was just a suggestion of green, reminding us that this is the last fertile spot on the outskirts of the great arid plateau, towards which we now turned.
As the road between Sucre and the railway is one of the most important thoroughfares in Bolivia, it was to be expected that there would be postes every four or five leagues. The first one we came to was that of Punilla, four leagues from Sucre. All we needed was a guide, but the only postillon we could secure had a very sore foot, scarcely protected at all from the stony road by the primitive rawhide sandal that he wore. Yet he came along quite cheerfully.
The postes between Sucre and Challapata are larger than those in southern Bolivia. They are modelled on the Inca tambos that used to exist on all the more frequented trails in the highlands of Peru and Bolivia; a range of low, windowless buildings, either of stone or adobe, sometimes completely surrounding a courtyard, at other times only on three sides, containing a few rooms of which one is furnished with a rough and very shaky table and three or four adobe platforms intended for bunks; mud floors that have accumulated dirt and filth of every description ever since the building was constructed; poorly thatched roofs from which bits of straw and pieces of dirt occasionally dislodge themselves to fall on the table where we spread our canned repast, or to alight on our faces just as we were trying to get to sleep.
The trains of pack animals that we met on the road, whether llamas, burros, or mules, were all engaged in bringing freight from the railway. This consisted mostly of boxes of soap and canned goods, cases of wine and beer and condensed milk, and small packages of general merchandise.