With the World's Great Travellers, Volume 2

by Unknown

Our road to the bridge was circuitous and precipitous, leading down the steeper side of the ridge of La Banca, where it seemed hardly possible for a goat to find foothold. It was a succession of abrupt zigzags, here and there interrupted by a stretch of horizontal pathway. To see our cavalcade it was necessary to look up or down, not before or behind. It was like descending the coils of a flattened corkscrew. In places the rocks encroached on the trail so that it was necessary to crouch low on the saddle-bow to pass beneath them, or else throw the weight of the body on the stirrup overhanging the declivity of the mountain, to avoid a collision. The most dangerous parts, however, were where land-slips had occurred, and where it was impossible to construct a pathway not liable at any moment to glide away beneath the feet of our animals. The gorge narrowed as we descended, until it was literally shut in by precipices of stratified rock strangely contorted; while huge masses of stone, rent and splintered as from some terrible convulsion of nature, rose sheer before us, apparently preventing all exit from the sunless and threatening ravine, at the bottom of which a considerable stream struggled, with a hoarse roar, among the black boulders.

There was foothold for neither tree nor shrub, and our mules picked their way warily, with head and ears pointed downward, among the broken and angular masses. The occasional shouts of the arrieros sounded here sharp and percussive, and seemed to smite themselves to death against the adamantine walls. There was no room for echo. Finally the ravine became so narrowed between the precipitous mountain-sides as barely to afford room for the stream and our scant party. Here a roar, deeper, stronger, and sterner than that of the stream which we had followed, reached our ears, and we knew it was the voice of the “Great Speaker.” A little farther on we came in view of the river and two or three low huts built on the circumscribed space where the two streams came close together. Our muleteers were already busy in unloading the baggage, preparatory to its being carried across the bridge on the cicatrized backs of the occupants of the huts.

To the left of the huts, swinging high in a graceful curve, between the precipices on either side, looking wonderfully frail and gossamer-like, was the famed bridge of the Apurimac. A steep, narrow path, following for some distance a natural shelf, formed by the stratification of the rock, and for the rest of the way hewn in its face, led up, for a hundred feet, to a little platform, also cut in the rock, where were fastened the cables supporting the bridge. On the opposite bank was another and rather larger platform, partly roofed by the rock, where was the windlass for making the cables taut, and where, perched like goats on some mountain-shelf, lived the custodians of the bridge. The path could barely be discovered turning sharp around a rocky projection to the left of this perch, then reappearing high above it, and then, after many a zigzag, losing itself in the dark mouth of a tunnel.

My companions and myself lost no time in extracting the measuring tapes and sounding lines from our alforjas, and hurriedly scrambled up the rocky pathway to the bridge. It was in bad condition. The cables had slacked so that the centre of the bridge hung from twelve to fifteen feet lower than its ends, and, then, the cables had not stretched evenly, so that one side was considerably lower than the other. The cables on either hand, intended to answer the double purpose of stays and parapets, had not sunk with the bridge, and were so high up that they could not be reached without difficulty; and many of the lines dropping from them to the floor, originally placed widely apart, had been broken, so that practically they were useful neither for security nor for inspiring confidence.

Travelling in the Andes soon cures one of any nervousness about heights and depths, and is a specific against dizziness. Nevertheless, we all gave a rather apprehensive glance at the frail structure before us, but we had no difficulty in crossing and recrossing—as we did several times—except on approaching the ends, to which our weight transferred the sag of the cables and made the last few yards rather steep. A stiff breeze swept up the cañon of the river, and caused a vibration of the bridge from side to side of at least six feet. The motion, however, inspired no sense of danger.

We carefully measured the length and altitude of the bridge, and found it to be from fastening to fastening one hundred and forty-eight feet long, and at its lowest part one hundred and eighteen feet above the river. Mr. Markham, who crossed it in 1855, estimated the length at ninety feet and the height at three hundred feet. Lieutenant Gibbon, who crossed it in 1857, estimated the length at three hundred and twenty-four feet and the height one hundred and fifty feet. Our measurements, however, are exact. The height may be increased perhaps ten feet when the cables are made taut. They are five in number, twisted from the fibres of the cabuya, or maguey plant, and are about four inches thick. The floor is of small sticks and canes, fastened transversely with raw-hide strings. The Indians coming from Andahuaylas and other districts where the cabuya grows, generally bring a quantity of leaves with them wherewith to pay their toll. These are prepared and made into rope by the custodians of the bridge, who must be glad of some occupation in their lone and lofty eyrie.

Our baggage was carried over the bridge, and the animals were then led across one by one, loaded and started up the mountain. The space is too limited to receive more than two loaded mules at a time, and instances are known of their having been toppled over the precipice from overcrowding. We led our horses over without difficulty except in getting them on the bridge. But once fairly on the swaying structure they were as composed as if moving on the solid ground. Perhaps even to the lowest animal intelligence it must be apparent that the centre of the bridge of the Apurimac is not the place for antics, equine or asinine.

Mounted once more, we commenced our steep and difficult ascent. At one place the sheer precipice presented itself on one side, and a vertical wall on the other; next it was a scramble up a ladder of stairs, partly cut in the rock and partly built up with stones against it; then a sudden turn, with a parapet built around it in a semi-circle, to prevent descending animals from being carried into the abyss below by their own momentum. Our cargo-mules toiled up painfully above us, stopping every few steps to breathe, while the muleteers braced themselves against their haunches to afford them some support and rest.