AGUA CALIENTE POSTA, (Peruvian Tavern).
Agua Caliente post-house is the most miserable habitation imaginable, surrounded by a few ruins of small houses. The evening is cold; the tops of the mountains covered with snow. The post-mules pastured on coarse grass in the plain or mountain pass. Our mules are unsaddled and set at liberty to go with them; but they return to the door, and look for their usual supper. The postman, a poor old Indian, was with difficulty persuaded to sell us some barley straw, which José found in one corner of a ruin. Dark cumulus clouds being about us, as the rain, hail, and snow came down from southeast, the mules stood shivering at the door. The scene is wild outside, and miserably dirty and damp within. Five slim, hungry post-dogs came impudently into our house at supper time. One of them went so far as to put his nose into José's saddle-wallets. He at once engaged an Indian to go back to the small town, and look for Paititi during the night.
A short distance from the house a mist was observed rising from a spring amidst the hail-stones. The air was 40°, and spring water 122°. This hot water bubbles up from the earth like boiling water in a pot, and is the head of the river we have been travelling along. The hot water flows northward. This spring appears like a small steam-engine, working with all its might, manufacturing water for one of the branches of the mighty Amazon. The water on the other side of the house flows southward, declining to become Amazonian.
The Cordillera and Ande ranges here cross or come together. The Andes range to the north of this high place is generally lower than the Cordilleras. From here south the order of things is changed. The eastern ridge in Bolivia and Chili is more characteristic of the western chain of Peru and Ecuador. To the south we are told the western range is lower than the eastern.
Our compass dances about so much that it is of no use here; at one time it stands still with the south point down, and then again flies round as though it had lost the north point. The soil is very wet and swampy. The small snow-water lakes are filled with wild ducks, geese, and black divers. We shot a pair of white geese, with tail and ends of wings black, small bills and large heads; the male and female both of the same color.
The town of Santa Rosa has a population of five hundred Indians; it is difficult to tell whence they draw provisions, for not an inch of this part of the country is cultivated, nor do we observe anything particularly agreeable in the climate.
Our hour for starting in the morning is six o'clock; but here the postman and arriero went to prayers; so we waited till 9, when we entered a puna, level as a floor. The mountains dwindled away to hills; sheep are grazing on the plains; as we breakfasted on our roasted goose by the side of the path, a tired Indian came up and told José he was very hungry; with a wing and a biscuit, he followed his drove of eighty llamas more comfortably. I once asked an Indian what he did when he was out of provision? He replied patiently, "Don't eat." Here and there a low ridge crosses the plain east and west; as we rise one of them our view is uninterrupted, except in the distance on the east and west sides, when low ranges of small hills stretch along north and south. At a small stream flowing west we shot a wild duck, and got a crack at a snipe. As the thunder clapped to the northeast, we rode into the town of Ayavire, a puna town. The Indians all look neatly dressed in coarse blue cloth; the houses are clean, but small, with narrow streets. Two tall church steeples run up in the midst of the houses, and a small plaza in front. What we first noticed was the silence; not even the noise of the hoof of a jackass was heard on the paved streets.
We dismounted in the patio of the cura of the town, and met at the door three young ladies. I gave an open letter to the eldest to read; the cura was not at home; the letter was from his son and their brother in Cuzco, and we were welcomed. They had just finished dinner, but we were served. A servant took the letter to the cura, who was dining out. A message came from the governor to invite us to join his party; we brushed the dust off, and the ladies arranged their hair, when we walked with them through the town. At the governor's house we met the old cura, who introduced us to the dinner party. It was after dinner with all; we found them very agreeable. The cura insisted upon our drinking a glass of wine with every lady in the room, which was tough work, as there were quite a number. Music and coffee were introduced in a room on another side of the patio. The cura was a sharp-featured man, tall and very slim, with a most agreeable expression of face. He smoked a paper cigar on an average of every ten minutes during the evening. He was particularly fond of dancing with a pretty young girl of sixteen, though he was about sixty years of age. He kept remarkably good time; was full of life and gayety while with her; but when she was otherwise engaged, he amused the party by falling to sleep in his seat. He received the laughter and remarks of the elder ladies with good humor; lighting his cigar by the candle and looking round the room at the same time, burnt his fingers, which discomposed the musicians, and confused the cotillon. He had drawn hollows in his cheeks by working so much at the tobacco leaf, and forfeited every tooth in his head, which was bald. Yet, his pleasant smile and agreeable manners overcame these particulars, for the girls certainly liked him. His three daughters were handsome persons, and had much of the old cura's gayety about them. One was married to a miner, who she says is doing little.
There are a few silver mines to the northeast of the town, which have been abandoned, except one or two, from which little silver is extracted. In the morning, we visited the church and saw the cura in his clerical robes. To meet him came numbers of Indians, well dressed in blue—their favorite color. Their hats, made of puna grass, and covered with blue cloth, are lined with scarlet. The population here go barefooted. The little town is thickly peopled—about fifteen hundred—but the plain is not, and resembles a desert in many places. Near Ayavire barley grows, but no grain is produced upon it. Potatoes and a little wheat are brought to the plaza, a short distance from the east, and from the valleys among the hills to the west. Corn cannot be raised on these flats. Sheep are the principal animals here; black cattle and horses are very small. The only spontaneous growth is a short, coarse puna grass, which is not in the least green.
November 4, 1851.—At 3 p. m., thermometer, 57°; wet bulb, 52°. About the hill tops there is rain, thunder, and lightning; the rain turns into sleet, and the hills are white, while clouds appear after the rising of the sun. On the puna, the reaper cuts his crop and leaves it on the ground during the dry season; when the rainy season commences, he plants again.