“Ay; what do ye think of ’em? Mexican spies and gun-runners, dressed and painted up as Apaches, as I’m a sinner. If we’d had a redskin with us he’d ha’ seen through ’em in a jiff.”
The pseudo-Apaches were soon bound and, despite 165 the protest of the trappers, taken in charge by Wise, who handed them over to the first military picket he met. They were one of the many parties sent out by the Mexicans to steal guns, ammunition, horses, and information, and had visited the trappers’ camp that morning in the hope of making a haul of weapons. Finding it garrisoned they had run away again, venting their disappointment in a hasty volley at the men who wore the Government uniform, secure, as they flattered themselves, from pursuit through the trappers’ having no horses. Lieutenant Wise had many more exciting adventures before that war was ended, but these did not again bring him in touch with the warfare of redskins, whether genuine or sham.
CHAPTER XIII
WITH THE AYMARAS AND MOXOS
There is no part of the American continent, save perhaps Guatemala (and, of course, the Arctic Regions), where the Indian race has survived in such power and—relatively—such numbers as in Bolivia. At the last census, the entire population of the republic was two millions, and of that number the whites, blacks, and half-bloods together amounted to less than three hundred thousand. The coast Indians belong mainly to the Colla (more commonly called Aymara) tribe of the Quechuan family, and, unlike the average redskin, are square and squat in build; long in the arms and body and short in the legs; many of them have passed their lives entirely on the mountains and have never seen a lowland river or town.
In Bolivia there is no British Consulate, for Britishers there are almost as rare as Samoyeds; but as a rule there is some semi-official chargé d’affaires in residence. From 1848 to 1855 this office was filled by a young Englishman of Italian extraction—Hugh de Bonelli; and much of that time he passed exclusively among Indians; hunting, sight-seeing, mountaineering, and collecting natural history specimens.
In mixing among the Aymaras, one of the first 167 things he discovered was that, though himself an exceptionally good walker, he was a baby at such exercise when pitted against them. While staying at a native village on Lake Titicaca, he expressed a wish to visit a spot rather less attractive than the Sahara—the Atacama Desert, to wit, which lies between the coast and the Andes. Plenty of men were willing to guide him, though they cautioned him that they could not be spared for more than a day or two, because a general meeting of the tribe was about to take place. Now as the lake lies more than twelve thousand feet above the sea-level, and when this prodigious descent had been made, there would be several miles to traverse on foot, he wisely abandoned the project. Nevertheless, being curious to test the truth of the reports he had heard as to their long walks, he accompanied a party of Aymaras who were bound for the far end of the lake with loads of silver.
They started at sunrise, and the mountain air being deliciously cool, he was not at first incommoded by the pace at which they went. But that pace was five miles an hour!