Upon gaining the top of the Andes, we found the barometer tube had been broken on the way. A hole was cut in the top of our coffee pot, large enough to insert a thermometer, and the height of the mountains determined by boiling water.
The day is pleasant, and we take our last blow and rest; the clouds lift, and while seated on the smooth top of a peak of the Andes, we see afar off to the east the magnificent view we have been anxiously expecting. The rich lowlands are looked down upon from a height of over nine thousand feet. It is like looking upon the ocean; those regular ridges trending northwest and southeast, decreasing in height as they increase in distance, seem like the waves of the sea rolling towards the mountains. The whole surface is covered with a beautiful growth of forest trees, whose foliage appears of a deep-blue color. Looking at the compass, following the direction of the northeast point, we see interruptions in the ridges, where the Madre-de-Dios cuts her way through the rollers towards the Atlantic ocean, striking them at right-angles. Upon looking at our map on the east, the river Beni flows in an easterly direction into the Madeira; and again on the west, as our previous remarks go to show, the Santa Ana empties into the Ucayali. We know that a great river pours from its four mouths a large quantity of water into the Amazon in latitude 4° south, and longitude 61° west, where it is called the river Purus. The geographical position of the Madre-de-Dios forces us to believe it to be the same as the Purus. This is a matter of importance. If it is navigable for steamboats to where we now see, it forms the natural highway to South Peru. All the silver and gold of Peru are not to compare with the undeveloped commercial resources of that beautiful garden. The wealth, strength, and greatness of a nation depends upon a well-cultivated and productive soil and people, aided by commerce and manufactures. Veins of gold or silver run out; without other industry, poverty follows, particularly where the people have been principally schooled in poetry and Latin grammar, as found to be the case on some parts of our route.
Leechler tells me he has not heard his own language spoken for ten years; that he would like much to go with me; "but," said he, "I have a wife and two fine boys in Porcotambo." He has been of so much service and stood by me in my troubles, that I feel inclined to sit still and talk with him in plain English. The cascarilleros have seen islands in the bed of the Madre-de-Dios. During the rainy season the mountain torrents wash away the soil about the roots of large trees; a tree falls into the stream, and is carried away by the waters; that tree is borne rapidly down until it reaches the level country, where the current of the larger river runs slow; there it turns up-side down, the branches sink, and the roots stick out of the water; the branches evidently hold to the bottom of the river, while earth and sand are heaped upon them; drift-wood and vegetable matter catch in the roots or lodge against the trunk. This is work by the laws of the Almighty. A little island is thus built; it grows larger and larger every year; as it increases in size, in the middle of the river, it occupies space which before was covered with water. The same body of water must pass; as it does so, it cuts a deeper channel, while it also caves away the banks, whose earth and growth are carried farther down by the freshets. One channel grows larger than the other; the smaller one probably fills up, and then our island is lost by its attachment to the main land. Should the river be large enough to float a vessel, and there be no falls between it and the sea, that island is the head of navigation. Suppose it is in latitude 12° south, longitude 70° west, of Greenwich, the distance from the island to the mouth of the river Purus is 735 miles; course N. E. ½ E. from the mouth of the Purus down the Amazon to the sea, a straight line is 806 miles; course E. N. E. ¾ E. 735 + 806 = 1541, which distance a steamer can run in six days. Triple this time for turnings and stoppages for fuel, we have eighteen days then from the mouth of the Amazon up to this island.
A ship, loaded with woollen and cotton goods, and with hardware ploughs, and farming utensils—of which there are none, except some miserable old muskets—with corn, rice, buckwheat, hemp, tobacco, all kinds of flower and garden seeds, plants, vines, and shoes, would require twenty-five days to the mouth of the Amazon, eighteen days to the island, and ten days to Cuzco: in all 53 days. On the route travelled at the present day, by Cape Horn to Yslay, on the Pacific—the nearest seaport to Cuzco—the passage would occupy 105 days, and 15 days from there to Cuzco: in all 120 days. Time with merchants is money.
But the great river must be explored from its mouth up. When we swam across the Cosnipata, with our bamboo balsa, I lost my straw hat in the middle of the stream. Should it be found in the mouth of the Purus, I shall hereafter maintain that it is fully entitled to the honor of having decided that the Cosnipata is a tributary of the Purus. The India-rubber trade is increasing every year. It is now the most important export from the Amazon, and is destined to be of much greater value. Few trees are found near us.
The mules being well rested and fed on the mountain grasses, we overtook a red-haired, thin, sallow-complexioned man, slowly walking after an old horse, loaded with Peruvian bark. This was a cascarillero returning from the labors of the season in the forest. He had been sick, and went homeward with a slim reward. He presented a striking contrast to his wife, who met him with the horse. She was a smiling negress, very black, with beautifully-white teeth, who had been a slave, but bought her freedom when her former master died. He left her money, which the cascarillero married and spent for her.
We rode into Porcotambo late by moonlight. An Indian girl took me into the sub-prefect's room, where he and his wife were in bed. I drew back surprised, but not in time to escape being seen. He and his lady called out to come in. I apologized through the door; this was not considered necessary; they both insisted upon my entering. As they sat up in bed, I, in a seat close by, answered their many questions, while the servants prepared supper and bed for me in another room. The amount of fancy-work about a lady's nightcap was becoming to dark hair and eyes. Women, I find, are much interested in steamboat navigation and the productions of other countries. This town is remarkable for beautiful señoras.
At the end of the sixth day, from the head of the Madre-de-Dios, we arrived in Cuzco, after an absence of twenty-one days. Richards was still much reduced, but gaining health. The prefect expressed his regrets at not being authorized to send troops with me, and asked the favor of a written account of my visit to the east, in behalf of the Peruvian government.
CHAPTER III.
College of sciences and arts at Cuzco—Students—Library—Popularity of Fenimore Cooper's works—Convents—Cock-pits—Procession—Condition of the aborigines anterior to the Incas—Manco Capac and his wife—Their language—Antiquities—Inca's fortress—Worship of the planetary bodies—Suspicion of intercourse between ancient civilized Asia and South Peru—Temperature of bull's blood—Reception of the prefect's family—Sham fight among the Quichua Indians—Barley and corn crops—Trade—Loss of Paititi—Thermal springs—Hospitality of a cura—Lampa—Gold mines of Carabaya—Lake Titicaca—Appearance of the Indians—Puno—Military—Niggardly soil.