MOUNT PUYPUY.
Pl. 6.
The valley about two miles from Pachachaca is cut across by rocky hills. Here we turned to the northward and eastward. The country at first offered some pasturage, but became more barren as we advanced, only showing, now and then, some patches of barley. We travelled till noon on the left bank of the Yauli stream, when we crossed it by a natural bridge, at a little village of a few huts, called Saco. At half-past two, after a ride over a stony and dusty plain, bordered on each side by rocky mountains, we arrived at the bridge of Oroya. This is a chain suspension bridge, of about fifty yards in length, and two and a half in breadth, flung over the river of Jauxa, which is a tributary of the Ucayali. The Yauli stream, into which emptied the stream from the lakes at Morococha, joins this river here, and this is the connexion that I spoke of between those lakes, near the very summit of the Andes and the Atlantic ocean.
The bridge consisted of four chains, of about a quarter of an inch diameter, stretched horizontally across the river from strong stone-work on each side. These are interlaced with thongs of hide; sticks of about one and a half inch in diameter are laid across them and lashed down, forming a floor. Two other chains are stretched across about four feet above these, and connected with them by thongs of hide; these serve for balustrades, and would prevent a mule from jumping off. The bridge was about fifty feet above the water when we passed. It seemed very light, and rocked and swayed under the motion of the mules in crossing it. The heavy cargoes are taken off and carried over on the shoulders of the bridge-keeper and his assistants. The toll is twelve and a half cents the mule; and the same, the cargo. The bridge-ward seemed astonished, and somewhat annoyed, when I told him that one of the cargoes, which he left on the mule, was the heaviest I had, being a box filled with bags of shot, balls, and powder, together with the specimens of ore and rocks we had collected.
The river at this place turns from its southern course and runs to the eastward, by the village of Oroya, where we camped. This village contains about one hundred inhabitants, though we saw only five or six men; most of the male inhabitants being away to the harvest on the plains above. The women seemed nearly all to be employed in spinning wool; holding the bundle of wool in the left hand and spinning it out by a hanging broach. Very few of them spoke Spanish, but a corrupt Quichua, or language of the Incas. We bought barley straw for the mules, and got a beef chupe, with eggs and roasted potatoes, for ourselves. We saw some small trees within the deserted enclosures where houses had been, bearing a very fragrant flower, something resembling the heliotrope, but much larger, and tinged with a reddish color. We also saw flocks of sheep, but got no mutton for dinner.
June 6.—Got under way at 9 a. m., steering N. N. E., and making a considerable ascent for about two miles. We then rode over a plain, with rolling hills on each side, covered with a short grass, giving pasturage to large flocks of sheep and some cows. The road then rose again, taking our column of mercury in the barometer out of sight, till half-past eleven, when we stood at the head of a ravine leading down to the valley of Tarma. The height of this spot above the level of the sea was eleven thousand two hundred and seventy feet. We rode down this ravine, north, for three-quarters of an hour, and at an angle to the horizon of full thirty degrees. The road was filled with fragments of white calcareous rock, and the rocky hills on each side were pierced with many a cavern. When nearly at the foot, the plants and flowers familiar to us on the other side began to make their appearance, and in such quick succession, that it seemed that an hour's ride carried us over many a mile of the tedious ascent to the westward of the mountains. First appeared the hardy little flowers of the heights above San Mateo; then, the barley; the alfalfa; the Indian corn; beans; turnips; shrubs, becoming bushes; bushes, trees; flowers growing larger and gayer in their colors, (yellow predominating,) till the pretty little city of Tarma, embosomed among the hills, and enveloped in its covering of willows and fruit trees, with its long lawns of alfalfa (the greenest of grasses) stretching out in front, broke upon our view. The ride of to-day was a long and tiresome one, being mostly a bone-shaking descent; and we hailed with pleasure the sight of the little town as a resting place, after the tedious passage of the Cordillera, and felt that one of the inconveniences and perils of the expedition was safely and happily passed.
We arrived at 4 p. m., and rode straight to the house of a gentleman, Don Lorenzo Burgos, to whom I brought a letter of introduction from friend Shepherd, of Morococha; which letter contained the modest request that Don Lorenzo should place his house at my disposal. This he acceded to without hesitation, removing his sick wife, in spite of remonstrance, into another room, and giving us his hall for our baggage, and his chamber for our sleeping room. This I would not have acceded to, except that this is not Don Lorenzo's place of residence, but a new house which he is constructing here, and which he is only staying at for a few days till his wife is able to travel to their regular place of residence. There is no public house in the town, and it is customary to take travellers in. When I (next morning) presented a letter of introduction from the Bishop of Eretria to the Cura of Tarma, his first question was, "Where are you lodged?" And when I told him, he seemed annoyed, and said that I had not treated him properly in not coming to his house. Don Lorenzo gave us some dinner, and we slept well after the fatigues of the day.
Tarma, a town of some seven thousand inhabitants, belonging to the province of Pasco and department of Junin, is beautifully situated in an amphitheatre of mountains, which are clothed nearly to the top with waving fields of barley. The valley in front, about half a mile wide, and two miles long, appears level, and is covered with the greenest and richest pasturage. Its borders are fringed with fruit trees; and the stream which waters it plunges, in a beautiful little cataract, of some thirty feet in height, over a ledge of rocks at the farther end. Its climate is delicious; and it is the resort of sickly people from Lima, and the cold and inclement mining districts, who find comfort and restoration in its pure atmosphere and mild and equable temperature. I was told, although the district contains nearly twenty thousand inhabitants, and its villages are close together, and easily accessible, that it could not, of itself, support a physician, and that the government had to appropriate the tax on spirits, and the surplus revenue of the bridge at Oroya, to this purpose. A young American physician, recently established in Tarma, gave me this account; but said that not even this had been sufficient to keep one here; that the custom had, therefore, fallen into desuetude, and that he was then engaged, with hope of success, in endeavoring to have this appropriation renewed and paid over to him.
I cannot vouch for this story. It has an apocryphal sound to me. I only know that it is a very healthy place, and that my medical friend is a person of repute there. When I proposed to carry him off with me, the ladies of my acquaintance raised a great outcry, and declared that they could not part with their Medico. I think there is no apothecary's shop in Tarma, for I supplied the Doctor with some medicines, those which he had brought from Lima being nearly exhausted. I am satisfied, though there are so few diseases, that a good-looking young graduate of medicine, who would go there with money enough to buy him a horse, might readily marry a pretty girl of influential family, and soon get a practice that would enrich him in ten years. I afterwards knew a young American at Cerro Pasco, who, though not a graduate, and I believe scarcely a student of medicine, was in high repute as a doctor, and had as much practice as he could attend to; but who, like several of our countrymen whom I met abroad, was dissipated and reckless, and, as he himself expressed it, "slept with the pump."
The houses of Tarma are built of adobe; and the better sort are whitewashed within and without; floored with gypsum and tiled. The wood and iron work is of the rudest possible description, although the former, from the Montaña of Chanchamayo, is pretty and good. The doors of the house we are living in very much resemble "birds-eye maple." Some of the houses are partially papered, and carpeted with common Scotch carpeting. Most of them have patios, or enclosed squares, within, and some of them flat roofs, with a parapet around them, where maize, peas, beans, and such things, are placed in the sun to dry.
Sunday is the great market-day, and the market-place is filled with country people, who come in to sell their manufactures of ponchos, blankets, shoes, hats, (made of the vicuña wool,) &c., and to buy coca, cotton goods, and agua diente, as well as to attend mass and get drunk. It is quite a busy and animated scene. The men are generally dressed in tall straw hats, ponchos, breeches, buttoned at the knee, and long woollen stockings; the women, in a blue woollen skirt, tied around the waist, and open in front, to show a white cotton petticoat, the shoulders covered with a mantle consisting of two or three yards of gay-colored plush, called "Bayeta de Castilla," or Spanish baize. Everything foreign in this country is called "de Castilla," (of Castile;) as in Brazil, it is called "da Rainha," (of the Queen.) The skirt of a lady of higher quality consists of a colored print, or mousseline. She rarely, unless dressed for company, takes the trouble to put on the body of her dress, which hangs down behind, and is covered with a gay shawl, passed around the bust, with the end thrown gracefully over the left shoulder. The hair, particularly on Sundays, is in perfect order; parted in the middle, and hanging down in two plaits behind. It is surmounted by a very neat, low-crowned straw-hat, the crown being nearly covered with a broad ribbon; and she is always "bien calzada," (well shod.) The women are generally large and well developed; not very pretty, but with amiable, frank, and agreeable manners; they have, almost invariably, a pleasant smile, with an open and engaging expression of countenance.