In the Wilds of South America

by Leo E. Miller

We reached Tarata in two hours. It is a town of considerable size; the elevation is nine thousand eight hundred feet, and it is desolate beyond description. The inhabitants are largely Indians of an independent temperament, though living in abject poverty. We found it almost impossible to secure lodging, or to find help to carry our luggage up from the station, so appealed to the chief of police, who rounded up a number of men and placed them at our disposal. Perhaps our difficulty was due partly to the fact that the Indians were celebrating a religious holiday. They had taken an image of a saint from the church and were carrying it back and forth through the streets. A group of them preceded the procession and set off pinwheels and cannon crackers, while those following also employed explosives of various kinds with which to add to the din. The people are so fond of this sort of pastime that it is difficult to persuade them to desist long enough to perform any service, no matter how slight; and the guise of religious fervor gives them license to indulge in acts that would not be tolerated at other times.

Padre Fulgencio, with whom we had become acquainted at the mission on the Chimoré, had told me a great deal about the monastery of San José, located at Tarata, and had given us a letter of introduction to the abbot. We therefore called upon that personage at the first available moment.

The huge building stands on an eminence overlooking the town and surrounding country, and is said to be the largest of its kind in Bolivia. We were ushered through long, gloomy corridors, past rows of small, cell-like rooms, and finally into the quarters of the abbot. This good man received us in his cell, and cordially offered to assist us in any way possible. He also invited us to make the monastery our home during our stay in Tarata. A group of monks added their invitation to their superior’s, but the edifice, with walls eight or ten feet thick, small, narrow windows, bare, gloomy rooms, and the chill damp as of a dungeon was not very inviting, and we preferred to return to the Quechua hut that seemed to belong more to the every-day world. One of the priests, however, secured an arriero and mules to take us the first stage of the journey.

Our man arrived about noon on Sunday, September 18. Much to our surprise we saw that he had but one arm, but this did not prevent him from being one of the best mule-men we ever employed. He had evolved a clever system of loading the packs that was admirably suited to his needs. Instead of the long ropes or thongs ordinarily used to tie on the cargoes he had strong nets that fitted over the packs, with loops that could be hooked over pegs in the pack-saddle. He lifted the trunks, each weighing one hundred and twenty-five pounds with his one arm, slipped them into place, and then tied them securely to prevent them from bouncing up and down as the animals trotted along.

The first afternoon’s ride was short and ended at the arriero’s house in a village called Uaiculi. There, as at Tarata, scores of yellow finches lived about the houses; they were fully as plentiful as English sparrows are in the United States, and acted not unlike them. The soil in this entire region is so arid and rocky that even cacti grow in limited numbers only. There are no streams, so water of a poor quality is obtained from deep wells. Nevertheless the whole country is thickly settled. The Indians are adepts at conserving the scanty water-supply, and at irrigating. They grow fruit and also cultivate small, isolated fields of grain, but the greater part of their subsistence is derived from the flocks of sheep and goats that seem to thrive in the desert-like country.

The climate is very cold and during the winter months there is a high wind. We could see funnel-shaped masses of dust moving across the plain all day long; occasionally a dozen or more, resembling small cyclones, were visible at the same time.

After leaving Uaiculi the way lay along the edge of the barren plain for some miles. A ridge of high peaks, some of them covered with snow, rises on each side. Then the trail ascended the slope to the east, rising gradually in a series of terraces, four to six hundred feet high. Sometimes low hills flanked the trail, and often we passed along the top of flat plateaus.

The slopes of the highest peaks were littered with fields of broken sandstone that resembled a quarry-dump for shattered rocks of large size; groves of gnarled trees, not over twenty-five feet high, grew in these rock-strewn areas, and we found them nowhere else. Where there were no rocks thick clumps of tall grass stood. When we reached the elevation of thirteen thousand four hundred and fifty feet we found a very peculiar plant belonging to the bromelias (Puya); the smooth, trunk-like stem was about eighteen inches through; this served as a pedestal for the dense clump of slender, bayonet-like leaves; a tall spike of small yellow flowers rose from the centre of the plant. Numbers of giant humming-birds (Patagona gigas) came to sip nectar from these flowers.

The great Puya, a species of pine growing in the Bolivian Andes at an elevation of 13,000 feet.