We were conducted to the dwelling of a stocky, well-built Indian named Guzman, the most reliable man in the village, who had been selected to be the head of the party of carriers that was to accompany us to Conservidayoc. Guzman had some Spanish blood in his veins, although he did not boast of it. With his wife and six children he occupied one of the best huts. A fire in one corner frequently filled it with acrid smoke. It was very small and had no Page 278windows. At one end was a loft where family treasures could be kept dry and reasonably safe from molestation. Piles of sheep skins were arranged for visitors to sit upon. Three or four rude niches in the walls served in lieu of shelves and tables. The floor of well-trodden clay was damp. Three mongrel dogs and a flea-bitten cat were welcome to share the narrow space with the family and their visitors. A dozen hogs entered stealthily and tried to avoid attention by putting a muffler on involuntary grunts. They did not succeed and were violently ejected by a boy with a whip; only to return again and again, each time to be driven out as before, squealing loudly. Notwithstanding these interruptions, we carried on a most interesting conversation with Guzman. He had been to Conservidayoc and had himself actually seen ruins at Espiritu Pampa. At last the mythical “Pampa of Ghosts” began to take on in our minds an aspect of reality, even though we were careful to remind ourselves that another very trustworthy man had said he had seen ruins “finer than Ollantaytambo” near Huadquiña. Guzman did not seem to dread Conservidayoc as much as the other Indians, only one of whom had ever been there. To cheer them up we purchased a fat sheep, for which we paid fifty cents. Guzman immediately butchered it in preparation for the journey. Although it was August and the middle of the dry season, rain began to fall early in the afternoon. Sergeant Carrasco arrived after dark with our pack animals, but, missing the trail as he neared Guzman's place, one of the mules stepped into a bog Page 279and was extracted only with considerable difficulty.
We decided to pitch our small pyramidal tent on a fairly well-drained bit of turf not far from Guzman's little hut. In the evening, after we had had a long talk with the Indians, we came back through the rain to our comfortable little tent, only to hear various and sundry grunts emerging therefrom. We found that during our absence a large sow and six fat young pigs, unable to settle down comfortably at the Guzman hearth, had decided that our tent was much the driest available place on the mountain side and that our blankets made a particularly attractive bed. They had considerable difficulty in getting out of the small door as fast as they wished. Nevertheless, the pouring rain and the memory of comfortable blankets caused the pigs to return at intervals. As we were starting to enjoy our first nap, Guzman, with hospitable intent, sent us two bowls of steaming soup, which at first glance seemed to contain various sizes of white macaroni—a dish of which one of us was particularly fond. The white hollow cylinders proved to be extraordinarily tough, not the usual kind of macaroni. As a matter of fact, we learned that the evening meal which Guzman's wife had prepared for her guests was made chiefly of sheep's entrails!
Rain continued without intermission during the whole of a very cold and dreary night. Our tent, which had never been wet before, leaked badly; the only part which seemed to be thoroughly waterproof was the floor. As day dawned we found ourselves to be lying in puddles of water. Everything Page 280was soaked. Furthermore, rain was still failing. While we were discussing the situation and wondering what we should cook for breakfast, the faithful Guzman heard our voices and immediately sent us two more bowls of hot soup, which were this time more welcome, even though among the bountiful corn, beans, and potatoes we came unexpectedly upon fragments of the teeth and jaws of the sheep. Evidently in Pampaconas nothing is wasted.
We were anxious to make an early start for Conservidayoc, but it was first necessary for our Indians to prepare food for the ten days' journey ahead of them. Guzman's wife, and I suppose the wives of our other carriers, spent the morning grinding chuño (frozen potatoes) with a rocking stone pestle on a flat stone mortar, and parching or toasting large quantities of sweet corn in a terra-cotta olla. With chuño and tostado, the body of the sheep, and a small quantity of coca leaves, the Indians professed themselves to be perfectly contented. Of our own provisions we had so small a quantity that we were unable to spare any. However, it is doubtful whether the Indians would have liked them as much as the food to which they had long been accustomed.
Toward noon, all the Indian carriers but one having arrived, and the rain having partly subsided, we started for Conservidayoc. We were told that it would be possible to use the mules for this day's journey. San Fernando, our first stop, was “seven leagues” away, far down in the densely wooded Pampaconas Valley. Leaving the village we climbed up the mountain back of Guzman's hut and followed Page 281a faint trail by a dangerous and precarious route along the crest of the ridge. The rains had not improved the path. Our saddle mules were of little use. We had to go nearly all the way on foot. Owing to cold rain and mist we could see but little of the deep canyon which opened below us, and into which we now began to descend through the clouds by a very steep, zigzag path, four thousand feet to a hot tropical valley. Below the clouds we found ourselves near a small abandoned clearing. Passing this and fording little streams, we went along a very narrow path, across steep slopes, on which maize had been planted. Finally we came to another little clearing and two extremely primitive little shanties, mere shelters not deserving to be called huts; and this was San Fernando, the end of the mule trail. There was scarcely room enough in them for our six carriers. It was with great difficulty we found and cleared a place for our tent, although its floor was only seven feet square. There was no really flat land at all.
At 8:30 P.M. August 13, 1911, while lying on the ground in our tent, I noticed an earthquake. It was felt also by the Indians in the near-by shelter, who from force of habit rushed out of their frail structure and made a great disturbance, crying out that there was a temblor. Even had their little thatched roof fallen upon them, as it might have done during the stormy night which followed, they were in no danger; but, being accustomed to the stone walls and red tiled roofs of mountain villages where earthquakes sometimes do very serious harm, Page 282they were greatly excited. The motion seemed to me to be like a slight shuffle from west to east, lasting three or four seconds, a gentle rocking back and forth, with eight or ten vibrations. Several weeks later, near Huadquiña, we happened to stop at the Colpani telegraph office. The operator said he had felt two shocks on August 13th—one at five o'clock, which had shaken the books off his table and knocked over a box of insulators standing along a wall which ran north and south. He said the shock which I had felt was the lighter of the two.
During the night it rained hard, but our tent was now adjusting itself to the “dry season” and we were more comfortable. Furthermore, camping out at 10,000 feet above sea level is very different from camping at 6000 feet. This elevation, similar to that of the bridge of San Miguel, below Machu Picchu, is on the lower edge of the temperate zone and the beginning of the torrid tropics. Sugar cane, peppers, bananas, and grenadillas grow here as well as maize, squashes, and sweet potatoes. None of these things will grow at Pampaconas. The Indians who raise sheep and white potatoes in that cold region come to San Fernando to make chacras or small clearings. The three or four natives whom we found here were so alarmed by the sight of brass buttons that they disappeared during the night rather than take the chance of having a silver dollar pressed into their hands in the morning! From San Fernando, we sent one of our gendarmes back to Pampaconas with the mules. Our carriers were good for about fifty pounds apiece. Page 283
Half an hour's walk brought us to Vista Alegre, another little clearing on an alluvial fan in the bend of the river. The soil here seemed to be very rich. In the chacra we saw corn stalks eighteen feet in height, near a gigantic tree almost completely enveloped in the embrace of a mato-palo, or parasitic fig tree. This clearing certainly deserves its name, for it commands a “charming view” of the green Pampaconas Valley. Opposite us rose abruptly a heavily forested mountain, whose summit was lost in the clouds a mile above. To circumvent this mountain the river had been flowing in a westerly direction; now it gradually turned to the northward. Again we were mystified; for, by Raimondi's map, it should have gone southward.
We entered a dense jungle, where the narrow path became more and more difficult for our carriers. Crawling over rocks, under branches, along slippery little cliffs, on steps which had been cut in earth or rock, over a trail which not even dogs could follow unassisted, slowly we made our way down the valley. Owing to the heat, humidity, and the frequent showers, it was mid-afternoon before we reached another little clearing called Pacaypata. Here, on a hillside nearly a thousand feet above the river, our men decided to spend the night in a tiny little shelter six feet long and five feet wide. Professor Foote and I had to dig a shelf out of the steep hillside in order to pitch our tent.
The next morning, not being detained by the vagaries of a mule train, we made an early start. As we followed the faint little trail across the gulches Page 284tributary to the river Pampaconas, we had to negotiate several unusually steep descents and ascents. The bearers suffered from the heat. They found it more and more difficult to carry their loads. Twice we had to cross the rapids of the river on primitive bridges which consisted only of a few little logs lashed together and resting on slippery boulders.