Of the original number that left with him, he was the only survivor. As soon as one performer had died, or retired from the profession, some strolling provistero was always found to fill the vacancy.
While the company travelled in the upper countries of Bolivia, Peru, New Granada, and Ecuador, success followed them; for silver is more plenty among the middle and poorer classes of those republics that abound in rich mines than in the Argentine Republic. Here their good fortune deserted them. They had crossed over the vast pampa country, and, by giving here and there a granfuncion, had taken money enough to enable them to reach Mendoza. Mr. H. informed me that he should follow along the sierras of the Andes, and cross the great travesia that covers several of the upper provinces, until he reached Potosi, and from Bolivia the company would cross the Cordillera to Peru, where better luck would surely meet them.
Being the latest arrival from North America, I had to answer many questions, as they had not heard from that country since leaving the Paraná, twelve months before. At dusk a negro band played an air that was very popular in the United States nine years before. With all the facilities of communication that exist between the two countries, the song and accompanying music had just reached Mendoza, a town supposed by its inhabitants to be first in the scale of civilization and refinement.
The following morning I visited the Plaza Nueva, where the carts of our caravan were discharging their cargoes, and received from the old Indian my bag.
We parted pleasantly, and I only regretted that my present to him could not have been as great, proportionately, as my regard for him. The patron and capataz commended me to the care of my Maker, and wished that many years might be added to my life, to which civil speech I made an appropriate reply. As for the peons, they said nothing, nor even comforted me with a single glance or nod of good feeling.
CHAPTER XIII.
MENDOZA.
Two or three days were passed in inquiring for a troop of mules bound for Chili, but no information could be obtained of any, and I afterwards learned that the last troop of the season had left Mendoza on the day after my arrival, and had barely succeeded in reaching Chili with their lives.
For twenty-one days the Andes were enveloped in clouds, the dark and portentous appearance of which was terrible to behold. I passed hours of each day in watching the fierce temporales, as the natives called them, that came rolling along the summit of the sierras from the regions of Cape Horn, covering, in their mad career, whole ranges of mountains in a mantle of snow. To have attempted a passage at that time would have been certain death; so with all the philosophy that could be drawn from irremediable disappointment, I became resigned to my fate to remain in the interior of the country until the genial sun of another spring should melt the snow-drifts that blocked up the passes of the Andes.
The old Spanish town of Mendoza is situated in latitude 32° 51′ south, longitude 67° 57′ west, at the foot of the eastern declivity of the Andes. It was laid out in cuadras, or squares, the sides of which were one hundred and fifty yards long. It contained, at the time of my visit, nearly ten thousand inhabitants. Of the two plazas the Independence was the most celebrated, because of the fountain it contained. This fountain, however, was dry when I was there, the aqueduct having become choked with leaves and stones; it had been permitted to remain in this useless state for some time, and I was of the opinion that it would still continue dry, as no attempt was made to clear it out, and no plan was discussed by which it might in the future be again in operation.
The Alameda, a much-talked-of public walk on the side of the town nearest the mountains, was resorted to by all classes. An artificial canal flowed beside the principal walk, watering a row of fine poplars, beneath which were a few stone seats, where I often sat and watched the different classes of the Mendozinos promenading after the siesta.