I left Paucar-colla early next morning, and passed by several fields of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), the harvest of which was just beginning. The stalks are cut and tied up in heaps, and then the grain is beaten out with sticks. It is used by the Indians in their universal dish, the chupe, and in various other ways; but it is an insipid and not very nutritious grain. Just beyond the village there is a stream called the Illpa, which, in the dry season, scarcely wets the mules' hoofs; but at this time of year it was swollen into a broad river, and it was necessary to cross it on reed balsas, with the luggage, while the mules swam. A very large troop of mules, laden with aguardiente, was passing over at the same time—a long and tedious business. There are many streams crossing these roads, which are swollen during the rainy season, and very serious delays are thus caused for want of a few bridges. From the Illpa to Caracoto there is a broad plain extending to the shores of the lake, with the town or village of Hatun-colla on one of the last spurs of the cordillera to the west.[281] This wide expanse, in the rainy season, is swampy and half submerged. It was covered with flocks and herds, with huts and out-buildings scattered over it, and surrounded by mud walls. Here and there we passed pretty little cow-girls and shepherdesses, now dressed in the Quichua, not the Aymara, costume. Some of these little maidens, as they stood by the wayside spinning wool, had such pretty faces, with the rosy colour showing through their soft, brown skins, and their figures were so graceful and dignified, that they strongly reminded me of the pictures of young Inca princesses in the churches of Santa Anna, and of the Jesuits, at Cuzco:—
"La vi tan fermosa
Que apenas creyera
Que fuese vaquera
De la Finojosa."
Potatoes, quinoa, and barley were cultivated in the skirts of the hills bordering on the plain.
The village of Caracoto is at the extreme end of a long rocky spur, running out across the plain; a street of neat mud huts, with a plaza and dilapidated church. At the post-house a child had died, which was set out on a table with candles burning before it, and the friends of the postmaster were holding a wake, singing, fiddling, and drinking. Between Caracoto and the next village of Juliaca there is another swampy plain: most of the road was under water, and we encountered a heavy hail-storm. The lights and shades on the cordilleras and nearer hills, the heavy black masses of cloud in one part of the heavens, and the sun's rays breaking through in the other, were very fine. Juliaca is a small town built under a spur of the mountains, with a handsome stone church. It was Easter-Sunday, and I was invited to meet all the principal families at dinner at the house of the cura. Several Indian alcaldes were in attendance; consequential old fellows in full dress, consisting of broad-brimmed black felt hats, sober-coloured ponchos, and black breeches very open at the knees, no stockings, and usutas or sandals of llama-hide. The distinctive mark of the alcaldes, of which they are very proud, is their staff of office, with silver or brass head and ferule, and rings round it according to the number of years the owner has held office. The Indians here wear the hair in numbers of very fine plaits reaching half-way down their backs. An Indian always accompanied the post-mules from one village to another, in order to take back the return-mules; and at Juliaca, while I was quietly enjoying the cura's hospitality, the Indians took my own mule back to Caracoto, as well as the post-mules. Next morning, therefore, I sent for it, and received an answer that the postmaster knew nothing about it. I was eventually obliged, after seeing the gardener and luggage on their way to Lampa, to go back to Caracoto, where the postmaster was drunk and insolent; and at length I found it, with a troop of others, on the great plain beyond Caracoto. Several Indians took much trouble for me in catching my mule; and it was late in the afternoon before I got back to Juliaca, and was ready to set out on my journey to Lampa. I mention this incident in order to show the trouble and inconvenience of acting as one's own muleteer, although such a mode of travelling is certainly four or five times as cheap as hiring an arriero; and I may add that the travelling by post-mules caused me incessant annoyance and trouble. Whenever they saw a chance the vicious brutes always ran off the road in different directions, bumped their cargo against rocks, and tried to roll, keeping us constantly employed in galloping after them, and greatly increasing the fatigues of the journeys. On several occasions, too, an animal was provided which was so weak or tired that it sank under its cargo before it had gone a league, and obliged me to return to the post-house for another. The adjustment and lashing of the cargos, like everything else, requires considerable knack and skill, which is only acquired by experience; the Indians were as ignorant in such matters as we were; and during the first three or four journeys our troubles were increased by the cargos constantly slipping on one side, when the mules always seized the opportunity of rushing off the road and kicking furiously.
A few miles north of Juliaca there is a large river, formed by the junction of those of Lampa and Cavanilla, the latter being the same which rises in the lake on the road between Arequipa and Puno, and flows by the post-house of La Compuerta. We crossed it in a reed balsa while the mules swam. Beyond the river is the great plain of Chañucahua, which was covered with large pools of water, at this season frequented by ducks and sandpipers. Close under the mountains, which bound it on every side, were a few sheep-farms, one of them the property of Don Manuel Costas of Puno, and the sheep roamed at will over many leagues of pasture-land. At the northern extremity of the plain the road ascends and descends a range of steep hills, and, turning a rocky spur, I came in sight of the town of Lampa. It was just sunset; the tall church-tower rising over the town, and a stone bridge spanning the river, were clearly defined by the crimson glow in the western sky, while the lofty peaked mountains forming the background were capped by masses of black threatening clouds. At that moment a tremendous thunder-storm, with flashes of forked lightning and torrents of rain, burst over the town.
Lampa is the capital of a province in the department of Puno, and I was hospitably received by the Sub-prefect, Don Manuel Barrio-nuevo, who occupied a good house in the plaza. A portion of the army of the South was quartered in the town; and the General came every evening to have tea with the Sub-prefect and his lady, a handsome Arequipeña. On these occasions the party consisted of General Frisancho and several officers, and ladies who came attended by their little Indian maids, carrying shawls, and squatting on the floor in comers during the visit. After tea and conversation the company generally sang some of the despedidas and love-songs of their national poet Melgar, in parts; and one young lady sang the plaintive yaravis of the Indians in Quichua.
The church of Lampa is a large building of stone, dating from 1685, with a dome of yellow, green, and blue glazed tiles, of which I was informed there was formerly a manufactory in Lampa. The tower is isolated, and about twenty yards from the church, apparently of a different date. Rows of Indian girls, in their gay-coloured dresses, were sitting in the plaza before their little heaps of chuñus, ocas, potatoes, and other provisions, amongst which, at the season of Easter, there are always great quantities of herbs gathered on the mountains, possessing supposed medicinal virtues. Among these a fern, called racci-racci, is used as an emetic; churccu-churccu, a small wild oxalis, is taken as a cure for colds; chichira, the root of a small crucifer, for rheumatism; llacua-llacua, a composita, for curing wounds; quissu, a nettle, used as a purgative; cata-cata, a valerian, as an antispasmodic; tami-tami, the root of a gentian, as a febrifuge; quachanca, a euphorbia, the powdered root of which is taken as a purgative; hama-hama, the root of a valerian, said to be an excellent specific against epilepsy;[282] and many others, the native names of which, with their uses, were given me, but I was unacquainted with their botanical names. Generally when the name of a plant is repeated twice in Quichua it denotes the possession of some medicinal property.
On the morning of our departure from Lampa the ground was covered with snow, which was slowly melting under the sun's rays. Immediately after leaving the town the path winds up a steep mountain range called Chacun-chaca, the sides of the precipitous slopes being well clothed with queñua-trees (Polylepis tomentella, Wedd.), which are gnarled and stunted, with dark-green leaves, and the bark of the trunk peeling like that of a yew. Their sombre foliage contrasted with the light-green tufts of stipa, and the patches of snow. The pass was long and dangerous, with little torrents pouring down every rut; and on its summit was the usual pacheta, or cairn, which the Indians erect on every conspicuous point. The path descends on the other side into a long narrow plain, with the hacienda of Chacun-chaca on the opposite side. The buildings are surrounded by queñua-trees, and in their rear two remarkable peaked hills rise up abruptly, clothed with the same trees, with ridges of rock cropping out at intervals. Their sides were dotted with cattle, tended by pretty little cow-girls, armed with slings, and some of them playing the pincullu, or Indian flute. The plain was covered with long grass, in a saturated and spongy state, and groves of queñua-trees grew thickly in the gullies of the mountains on either side. After a ride of several leagues over the plain, latterly along the banks of the river Pucara, I turned a point of the road, and suddenly came in sight of the almost perpendicular mountain, closely resembling the northern end of the rock of Gibraltar, which rises abruptly from the plain, with the little town of Pucara nestling at its feet. The precipice is composed of a reddish sandstone, upwards of twelve hundred feet above the plain, the crevices and summit clothed with long grass and shrubby queñuas. Birds were whirling in circles at a great height above the rock, which, in the Spanish times, was famous for a fine breed of falcons, which were carefully guarded and regularly supplied with meat. They tell a story at Pucara that one of these birds was sent to the King of Spain, and that it returned of its own accord, being known by the collar.
Pucara means a fortress in Quichua; and here Francisco Hernandez Giron, the rebel who led an insurrection to oppose the abolition of personal service amongst the Indians, was finally defeated in 1554. The town is a little larger than Juliaca, with a handsome church in the same style, and a fountain in the plaza. I dined and passed the evening with the aged cura, Dr. José Faustino Dava, who is famous for his knowledge of the Quichua language, in its purest and most classical form. The fame of Dr. Dava's learning, in all questions connected with the antiquities of the Incas and the Quichua language, had reached me in England, and I was glad to obtain his valuable assistance in looking over a dictionary of the rich and expressive language of the Incas, on which I had been working for some time.
Owing to the diminution of the aboriginal population in Peru, and the constantly increasing corruption of the ancient language, through the substitution of Spanish for Quichua words, the introduction of Spanish modes of expression, and the loss of all purity of style, that language, once so important, which was used by a polished court and civilized people, which was spoken through the extent of a vast empire, and the use of which was spread by careful legislation, is now disappearing. Before long it will be a thing that is past, or perhaps fade away entirely from the memory of living generations. With it will disappear the richest form of all the great American group of languages, no small loss to the student of ethnology. With it will be lost all the traditions which yet remain of the old glory of the Incas, all the elegies, love-songs, and poems which stamp the character of a once powerful, but always gentle and amiable race.