For forty years after this event coca-farms and gold-washings were alike abandoned in Marcapata, until in 1828 the cura of the village of that name, Dr. Pedro Flores, again opened a road into the valleys, and, with some associates, established several farms for raising coca and fruit. In 1836 a company was formed by several young adventurers, the chief of whom were José Maria Pacheco of Cuzco and José Maria Ochoa[289] of Huara, with the object of again discovering the long-lost golden hill of Camante. The party assembled at Ocongate, in the cold region of the Andes, whence the distance to Marcapata, at the commencement of the warm valleys, is fourteen leagues over a bad road, which traverses the cordillera of Ausungate and Pirhuayani. From Marcapata the two adventurers Pacheco and Ochoa, both active and intrepid young men, advanced into the forests with fourteen Indians, and a stock of chuñus and dried meat. These explorers penetrated for several leagues, following the course of the Vilca-mayu, but their expedition led to no practical results.[290] In 1851 Colonel Bologenesi became the manager of an expedition for collecting chinchona-bark in the forests of Marcapata, and proceeded to the scene of his labours, accompanied by a young Englishman named George Backhouse. They advanced into the forests until they fell in with parties of wild Chuncho Indians, who were propitiated by presents of knives and other trifles, and induced to assist young Backhouse and his party in collecting bark. Some of the Chunchos, however, who had received knives, neglected to work, which enraged the Indians in Backhouse's service, and a quarrel ensued, ending in the massacre of Backhouse and all his party. Those who were out collecting bark, on discovering what had happened, fled to Colonel Bologenesi; but in their retreat, while fording a river, the Chunchos poured in a volley of arrows amongst them, and killed forty of their number. Bologenesi then collected a military force and advanced into the forests, where he suffered great hardships, fighting with the Chunchos all day, and harassed by alarms during the night. He, however, collected a thousand quintals of bark, at a cost of fifty lives and three hundred thousand dollars. During this expedition indications were met with of the ancient gold-washings.
It will thus be seen that fevers and perilous roads are not the only dangers to be apprehended in a search for chinchona-plants.
Lastly, and extending for a distance of one hundred and eighty miles, from Marcapata to the frontier of Bolivia, is the watershed along that part of the eastern Andes known as the Snowy Range of Caravaya, where the numerous streams take their rise which unite to form the Ynambari. The Madre de Dios, Marcapata, and Ynambari are thus the three great sources of the Purus. The tributaries of the latter drain the province of Caravaya.
The first mention of this region is to be found in the pages of the old Inca historian, Garcilasso de la Vega, who says that "the richest gold-mines in Peru are those of Collahuaya, which the Spaniards call Caravaya, whence they obtain much very fine gold of twenty-four carats, and they still get some, but not in such abundance."[291] The Jesuit Acosta also mentions "the famous gold of Caravaya in Peru."[292] After the final overthrow of the younger Almagro in the battle of Chupas in 1542, some of his followers crossed the snowy range, and descended into the great tropical forests of Caravaya,[293] where they discovered rivers, the sands of which were full of gold. On the banks of these rivers they built the towns of Sandia, San Gavan, and San Juan del Oro; large sums in gold were sent home to Spain, and the last-named settlement received the title of a royal city from Charles V. In 1553 these settlers received a pardon from the Viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza, in consideration of the gold they sent home to the Emperor. It is said that they sent him a nugget weighing four arrobas, in the shape of a bullock's head; and that afterwards another nugget, in the shape of a bullock's tongue, was sent to Philip II., but that the ship which carried it was lost at sea. Eventually the wild Chuncho Indians of the Sirineyri tribe fell upon the gold-washers, and overpowered them. In the following century certain mulattos occupied the gold-washings in Caravaya, and the king, as a reward for their labours in extracting treasure, offered to comply with any request they might make. The mulattos asked to be called Señores, and for the privilege of entering every town on white mules with red trappings, and the bells ringing. The Señores mulattos were finally expelled for knocking the priest of San Juan del Oro on the head while he was saying mass, after a drunken broil. There are many vestiges of washings, bridges, and cuttings made by these mulattos, in different parts of Caravaya.[294]
The Spaniards, however, long continued to extract gold from the rivers of Caravaya, and established coca-farms and coffee-plantations in some of the ravines formed by spurs of the cordillera. Gold, however, was the product for which Caravaya was most famous.
In 1615 the viceroy Marquis of Montes Claros spoke of the rich lavaderos or gold-washings of Caravaya;[295] and his successor, the Prince of Esquilache, wrote a long report upon them in 1620. It appears that, at that period, the richest of the Caravaya mines was called Aporuma, and that it had then been worked for fifteen years by a company of adventurers. These men, the chief of whom were named Quiñones, Frisancho, and Perez, had excavated very extensive works to drain off the water, and they petitioned the Viceroy to grant them a mita of Indians to complete the works, for that thus the royal fifths would be augmented. The Prince of Esquilache wrote a marginal note, which may still be seen on the original petition, ordering Don Pedro de Mercado, the "visitador-general" of Caravaya, to grant them a mita of Indians within a circuit of twenty leagues of the Aporuma mine, with three dollars a month each, besides salt-meat and other provisions.[296] In 1678 the yield of the royal fifths from the Caravaya gold-washings was at the rate of 806 dollars in three months.[297] From this time to the end of the seventeenth century Franciscan missionaries were at work amongst the wild Chunchos in the forests of Caravaya.[298] Towards the end of the last century Caravaya was separated from Peru to form part of the new viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres, and the population of whites and civilised Indians was then only estimated at 6500 souls. Just before that period the town of San Gavan, with four thousand families and a large treasure, had been surprised and entirely destroyed by the Carangas and Suchimanis Chunchos. This calamity took place on the 15th of December, 1767. The viceroy Don Manuel Amat swore vengeance on the Chunchos; but his famous mistress, Mariquita Gallegas, better known as La Perichola, interceded for them, and eventually nothing was done. The other town of San Juan del Oro had been abandoned some time before; and the very sites where they stood are now uncertain.
In the great rebellion of Tupac Amaru the caciques and people of Caravaya took part with the Indians, probably owing to the influence possessed by the Inca, arising from the large coca estate which belonged to him near San Gavan.[299] At the independence Caravaya became a part of the Peruvian department of Puno.
In 1846 Don Pablo Pimentel was appointed Sub-prefect of Caravaya, and he endeavoured, by giving a glowing account of its vast capabilities, to induce the government to make roads and develop the resources of this important province. Shortly afterwards, in 1849, Caravaya attracted notice as a land rich in the precious metal, and it soon became the California of South America. In July of that year two brothers named Poblete, in searching for chinchona-bark, discovered great abundance of gold-dust in the sands of one of the Caravaya rivers, and the news soon spread far and wide. Up to 1852 crowds of adventurers, among whom were many Frenchmen, continued to follow in the footsteps of the Pobletes, but most of them returned empty, and the excitement has now died away. The trade in chinchona-bark, which once was remunerative, and in which many Peruvians displayed extraordinary energy and endurance of fatigue, ceased to exist in 1847, owing to the habit of adulterating the Calisaya bark with inferior kinds, which gave the Caravaya article a bad name in the market, and at length rendered it unsaleable. This adulteration was practised either through fraud or ignorance. If the former, it was certainly very short-sighted; but Don Pablo Pimentel declares that it was done through ignorance, the bark-collectors mistaking the motosolo (C. micrantha) and carhua-carhua (Cascarilla Carua) for the Calisaya bark.[300]
The above meagre notices are all that I have been able to glean respecting the history of Caravaya; and I will now give a brief description of the geographical features of this interesting region.
The province of Caravaya consists of a narrow strip of lofty table-land, bordering on that of Azangaro; the snowy range of the Eastern Andes for a distance of 120 miles; and the boundless tropical forests to the eastward, stretching away towards the frontier of Brazil. It is bounded on the east and south by Bolivia, on the N.W. by the province of Quispicanchi in the department of Cuzco, on the north and N.E. by the illimitable forests, and on the west by Azangaro.