By cajoling, and threats of appeal to the military, (a small military force is stationed here as a police,) we got our drunken vagabonds to "load up" and set off by half-past 1 p. m. One of them gave us the slip at the outskirts of the town. The other wished to look him up, or at least to get the key of a tambo where two spare mules belonging to them were locked up; but we would not hear of it; and driving the loaded mules on, he was fain to follow. The deserter joined us at our stopping-place for the night, but on finding the condition of things, he had to return to the Cerro for his missing beasts.
Almost immediately on leaving the Cerro, and ascending the hills that encircled it on the north, we came in sight of the Eastern Andes, which is here a Cordillera, for it has many abrupt and snow-clad peaks. Close at hand, on the left, was a spot of marshy ground, which had some interest for us, as we were not to quit the waters which we saw trickling in tiny streams from it, until, swelled by many others, they pour themselves into the Atlantic by a mouth one hundred and eighty miles broad. This is the source of the Huallaga, one of the head tributaries of the Amazon.
Seven miles in a N. N. E. direction, and passing many haciendas for the grinding of ore, brought us to the village of Quinua, where a mint was established several years ago, but is now abandoned. The machinery for coining is much better than any I have seen in South America. It was made by a Boston man, named Hacket, who also made nearly all the machinery for the sugar-mills near Huanuco. There are gold mines in this neighborhood, but I think they are not worked. This village is just at the point where, leaving the sterility of the Cerro, we fall in with bushes and flowers.
Four miles further we stopped for the night at a hacienda called Chiquirin, which appears once to have been flourishing, but which is now nearly abandoned, being only tenanted by an old man to take care of the house. The bridge, which crossed the stream in front of the house, had had arched gateways at each end; and a respectable-looking church occupied one side of the patio. A field or two of barley is all the cultivation now about it. Indeed, there seemed little room for more, for the hills on each side now began to close in and present the appearance of mountains; and I have no doubt that, though still going down hill, we have begun to cross the second range of the Andes. We could get no supper at this place. I was tired enough to care little about it. Had Ijurra been with us, he would probably have found something; but he was absent, having dropped the compass on the road and ridden back to look for it. The height of Chiquirin, by boiling point, is eleven thousand five hundred and forty-two feet above the level of the sea.
July 14.—We had a pleasant ride down the valley, which opens a little and gives room for some cultivation. There were pinks and holy-hocks in the little gardens adjoining the cottages; also cabbages, lettuce, and onions. We stopped to breakfast at Caxarmarquilla, a village of some eight or ten houses. The cura received me hospitably, and gave me some breakfast. He told me there were one hundred and fifty souls in the Doctrina. I should judge there were about thirty in the village. The rock of this district is red sandstone and conglomerate. At six miles further we passed a hacienda, where there were roses in bloom, and the flowering pea, with wheat on the hill-side, and a grist-mill; also, alfalfa and maize. Immediately afterwards, a valley from the southward and eastward joined the one I was travelling in, bringing its stream of water to swell the Huallaga. Gypsum crops out of the hills on the road-side, making the roads white. Houses here are whitewashed with it. A mile further is the village of Huariaca, a long, straggling place of one, and in some places two streets. It contains about seven or eight hundred inhabitants. I thought I saw more white people and more industry in this place than is common in the small Sierra towns. We met continually mules laden with tobacco, coca, and fruit, going from Huanuco and the Montaña beyond it to the Cerro. We stopped, at half-past five, at San Rafael, an Indian town of some two hundred and fifty souls, with a white lieutenant governor, and put up at his house.
I had my bed made inside, instead of outside the house, which was a mistake, as I was "pigging in" with all the family; and from want of air, and villanous smell, expected to catch tabardillo before morning. The thermometer was at 62° at 7 p. m., and I imagine did not fall lower than 50° during the night; so that I could very well have slept outside, and advise all travellers to do so, providing themselves with warm bed-clothing. Here I was joined by Ijurra, whom I was very glad to see, and the delinquent arriero, with his two mules. The height of San Rafael, by boiling point, is eight thousand five hundred and fifty-one feet above the level of the sea.
Rivero del.
Wagner & McGuigan's Lith. Phila.