In the Wilds of South America

by Leo E. Miller

On the eastern side of the divide the trail leads downward abruptly, and the character of the country changes; at eleven thousand feet a sparse growth of bushes appears, growing denser with each passing mile. Suddenly we found ourselves on the rim of a gorge through which the Incachaca River rushes—a raging mountain torrent fed by snows melting in the high altitudes. The path is a mere shelf cut in the face of the cliff; to the left rise the smooth walls of frowning, black rock; to the right is a sheer drop to the river. We could peer over the edge of the precipice and see drifting clouds two thousand feet below, filling the chasm and shutting from view the bottom hundreds of feet lower down.

At seven thousand seven hundred feet the forest begins; a collection of half a dozen huts called Incachaca nestles in its inner border, and there we decided to remain for a few weeks. We secured space in a large house belonging to an organization which is engaged in digging a canal along the opposite side of the gorge; when this work is completed the water of the river will be turned into the artificial course and utilized for running dynamos to furnish electricity for the light and street-car service of Cochabamba. A power-house had been constructed at the bottom of the ravine, and the lines for transmitting the current had been strung across the mountains.

At Incachaca the river flows through an underground channel; while exploring the forest one day we came suddenly upon the narrow cleft in the mountainside, scarcely a dozen feet across, and with a great deal of effort were finally able to distinguish the roaring white torrent a hundred feet below. The edges of the cleft are so overgrown with ferns that one has no idea of its existence until the very brink is reached. A short distance below, the river emerges from the darkened cavern, and plunging over the face of a precipice, thunders into a pool in a sheer drop of fifty or sixty feet.

We found the upper limit of a subtropical fauna at Incachaca. Bird-flocks travelled hurriedly through the trees; they were composed of bright-colored tanagers, finches, and cotingas. Honey-creepers and hummers were plentiful in the flowering shrubs. Queer little ducks called merganettas disported in the pool below the falls, and dippers ran nimbly along the edge of the water. In one of the tall trees near the river we discovered the nest of an eagle. We found it impossible to climb the tree, but a German named Ricardo Marquardt, who was in charge of the workmen along the river, succeeded in reaching the huge mass of sticks seventy feet above the ground, and brought down a beautifully spotted egg. To my companion, Mr. Howarth S. Boyle, who accompanied me on the entire trip, belongs the credit of taking the rarest birds from this locality; they were a pair of white-eared thrushes (Entomodestes), which, so far as I can learn, exist in only two other museums. Among the lower growth lived many ant-thrushes (Grallaria), whose clear call could be heard at all hours of the day. This is one of the hardest of all birds to collect. The long-legged, tailless songsters never leave the thick growth of ferns and brush, and the only way to secure them is to enter the dense cover, sit quietly, and imitate the clear, ringing call in the hope of attracting the birds; sometimes this requires hours of patient work, and more often than not the effort is futile.

Coatimondis, or raccoons, roamed in the woods in small bands, sniffing in the damp mould and searching for insects; while feeding they uttered deep grunts, but when frightened they gave a succession of rapid bird-like chirps. These animals spend a good deal of their time in the trees, but are almost invariably found on the ground in the daytime; when pursued they are very pugnacious and it takes an exceptionally agile dog indeed to avoid being severely torn by the sharp teeth and claws. In captivity they become very tame, and make nice little pets, although their mischievous disposition often gets them into trouble.

From Incachaca to Locotál is a distance of only eight miles, but the scenery along a part of the route is as impressive as any to be found in the entire Andean chain; perhaps the gorge of the Urubamba, in Peru, alone equals it in grandeur and awe-inspiring magnificence. The bare, shattered, and split crags reach many hundred feet above the trail, and stand in a leaning position so that the tops actually hang over the narrow passageway as if threatening to topple over at any moment; below, the steep slope is covered with huge boulders which have fallen from the towering masses above.

At Locotál there are but half a dozen houses, occupied by Quechua families who subsist mainly on the profits derived from the sale of chicha. We stopped a few days in a hut owned by a kind-hearted old woman who gave us permission to use it; next day we found that we were occupying the schoolroom, and the teacher followed by his half-dozen ragged scholars came to take possession. He tried to show us how important it was to have the place at once, but we saw no reason why he could not conduct his class out under the trees just as well as under the shelter; this suggestion offended him very much, so greatly to the delight of the pupils he declared a vacation until the gringos should move on.

Chicha, the native drink of Quechuas and Bolivians alike, is a kind of corn-beer; it is made by grinding maize into a fine meal, after which the women and children thoroughly masticate a part of it; water is added to the mass and the thick liquid is boiled several hours, after which it is poured into jars to ferment; it is of a yellow color, has a tart, agreeable taste, and is intoxicating.

The forest at Locotál is somewhat taller than at Incachaca, but the birds are of a similar character. Very abundant and beautiful were the brilliant cocks-of-the-rock; the bright, orange-red creatures flashed through the deep green of the forest like fiery comets and, perching on the low branch of a tree, quietly surveyed their surrounding, or uttered hoarse, croaking calls. This bird is most conspicuous in its natural environment. Among the other large birds were green toucans (Aulacorhynchus); the natives hunted them on every possible occasion for the sake of obtaining the bill, which they use as remedio, the rasping sound made by rubbing the mandibles together being supposed to be an unfailing cure for epilepsy.

While pursuing our work at Locotál, a man named Quiroga chanced to pass, and begged that we pay him the honor of stopping at his house some distance below; it was a charming place, he said, in the very heart of the wonderful Yungas. We gladly accepted his invitation, and one morning loaded our outfit on mules and started down the trail. For a mile there is only a narrow ledge in the face of a rounded mountain of dark sandstone; a few stunted sprouts, and myriads of orchids covered with purple blooms, have secured a precarious foothold in crevices in the glazed surface; hundreds of feet below, but invisible, the river tears through a narrow gorge. At one point a strip of the shelf upon which we travelled had entirely disappeared; we could not see the bottom of the canyon—its depth was too great—but there were evidences we could not mistake, telling us the history of the gap in the trail. Vultures hovered over the spot and perched on the scant vegetation, and from below came an overpowering stench. What more was needed to reveal the fact that the missing section of trail, in its mad dash through space, had taken with it the pack-train of mules, and probably the men attending them, which chanced to be passing at the time.