An Augustinian prior, Calancha, collected traditions of Chanchan, that great city of the Chimus which covered twenty square miles. He tells of the processions to the Moon temple, when the Grand Chimu, wearing the jeweled diadem, in robes of feather-mosaic as fine as warp and woof, was carried in his litter by courtiers, surrounded by musicians, minstrels, priests, and warriors with lances and long waving plumes.
The mounds scattered in fragments through the desert were terraced pyramids in those days, the walls upholding them brilliantly painted and richly embossed. Traces can still be seen of their paintings of wild birds and animals, and step-patterns like the pyramids themselves. Vines of the passion-flower drooped their fruit over the garden walls upon the terraces, for water ran to the very top. Even the avenues of trees had individual nourishment from the distant mountains through a lofty aqueduct, the most amazing accomplishment of an amazing people. In the labyrinth below worked the designers, dyers, potters, weavers, and the gold-and silver-smiths, expressing the florid taste of the Chimus.
These sea-worshippers, fish-worshippers, made fish-gods of gold. In Chanchan their small fish-god has been found, worth three million dollars. With it were gold bowls, little figures of fish, lizards, serpents, and birds, neck and arm bands, scepters and diadems, and emeralds from the north. The larger fish-god is yet to be discovered. Manuscripts describe conscientious attempts to unearth it.
The race has vanished; vast Chanchan is gone. We are not even sure what this great people called themselves. Their gold and silver ornaments have long ago been melted into European coin. Traditions of their wealth and magnificence came only through their conquerors, who themselves had no written language. Were we to believe only Inca tradition, all the Yuncas of the coast were savages, given up to unnatural sin. Fortunately there are vestiges of their pyramids and labyrinthine interiors of their temples and palaces, bits of their pottery, and patterns of their cotton fabrics. There are, too, fragments of their marvelous irrigation system, a dumb reminder to Peru that present needs were once supplied by the intelligence and industry of an Indian civilization.
A bush with many-colored clusters of flowers joined together like a bunch of grapes grows not far from the site of Chanchan. It is said that each flower has a different shape as well as a different color. The name of the bush is the “Flower of Paradise.”
CHAPTER IV
PICA, THE FLOWER OF THE SAND
A towering, scoop-topped wagon, fruit-filled, dragged by nine mules, lurched through the desert. Far in the distance, on the first low swelling of the mighty chain of the Andes, there was a faint dark line whence it came.
The driver of the wagon handed me a small branch of a chirimoya tree. The three narrow, fleshy lobes of the chirimoya flower lie close together among the pale green foliage and send forth a perfume as poignant, though faint, as if there were rain-drops for conductors. The aromatic, gently acid flesh of its fruit lies in rays, the exquisite scent of the flower tasted in the fruit. Warmed by the sun on its journey from the valley oasis, the whole freshness of the desert was condensed in this single flavor, like the crystallization of a perfect moment. Strange imaginings sprang from tasting it.
A gallop across the desert is a good prelude to anywhere, especially if one has silver bridle and stirrups and a long lariat with silver knobs. The muleteers sat upon high black saddles of alpaca hair. The colors of their mufflers must have been brilliant underneath the dust. Their trappings were embroidered in red with a red-worsted fringe, Inca-fashion, over the mules’ temples. Our little unshod ponies picked their way between the stones, up hill and down, over the roadless road to Pica.
The desert of Tarapacá, now belonging to Chile, is called the Plain of the Eagle. A fit arena for gaunt battles in former days, a road across it is now distinguishable by the bones of beasts of burden which have dropped on their way.