As we step across the totora floating-bridge, we feel grateful for the many hospitable favors the kind people of Peru have extended to us as strangers. We shook hands with the old Indian governor, who was polite enough to introduce us to the custom-house officers and military commander in Bolivia. He laughed when told he was not a good Inca, because he did not believe that the evaporation was great enough to carry off all the surplus water from Titicaca, and that his ancient deity drank the water from this uplifted basin, and kept it from overflowing. He lit his paper cigar, and wanted to know when we were coming back.
There are only three or four government houses in sight on the Bolivian side of the river. The military commandant was very civil; he requested the custom-house officer to let us off easy, saying "they came to serve our country." The baggage was all taken off the backs of the mules; one or two trunks examined. The commander took great interest in our instruments; a woman in her riding dress begged permission to examine a needle and thread case which struck her fancy; she seemed to think it hard that a man had to do his own sewing.
Our road, dusty, rocky, and rough, lay along the southern shore of the lake. On the right were dry, barren hills; on the left, deep blue waters; and ahead, the heavy snow-capped range of the Andes, looked as though their weight was too much for the world to bear. The noonday sun is hot, but the east wind blows in our faces from among the snow peaks, which may be called the South American fan.
The winds from the Atlantic ocean rapidly run through the ravines and gorges of the great mountain range. The eternal glaciers cool the tropical atmosphere. Our animals travel with ease; as they breathe the refreshing breezes, they seem full of life and ready for a long journey, even after their day's work is over. These easterly winds on the table lands of Bolivia meet currents of air from the hills and mountain valleys. The different streams form whirlwinds, which draw the dust under our mules' noses, and run it up to the cumulus clouds above, where the dust seems to float about in the air. Some of these dust columns are of immense height, standing for many minutes, like waterspouts of the ocean. Infusoria, found in the blood, rains, and sea dust of the Cape de Verde islands, resemble that found on the Andes, in Venezuela. A scientific examination of this dusty road may possibly compare with a similar one in the southern parts of Africa. There is a battle-ground not far south of us, where there were left a number of dead, whose dust is carried heavenward by these winds.
Persons have seen hundreds of waterspouts standing on the water of the lake at one time, as though the columns were supporting the weight of the clouds. The Indians' balsas are built with so much beam, and being a bundle of rushes, shaped like a canoe before it is dug out, that the falling of one of the waterspouts only washes the dust off the Indians as they pass through this wonderful phenomenon. We are nearly suffocated at times with the whirling up of the dust all around us.
As we entered the small town of Huaqui, a man in uniform came out into the street, and requested to see my passport. He said he was not the governor, but the military commander. He was informed that we had none; we had not met with his government. As he assured us Peruvian papers were sufficient, they were handed over. Upon being returned, we received a pressing invitation to remain in his house and take coffee; but as José had prepared tea for us in advance, the commander joined us. He was a young man in a soldier's coat, which seemed to have seen service before he was born. It is amusing to see how much uncomfortable time a man can spend in a tight-fitting uniform, on the arrival of strangers. Outward show seems to be the sole object with the creole portion of the population. This man's employment is to read all passports of persons passing through this town, and he seems to be the only active business man in the place. He may be seen, long before the traveller arrives, standing in the street ready to demand, with a bold front, the license to walk or ride about over ground not crowded with population or vegetation. We change mules at Tiahuanaco.
To the northwest of us, and a little south of the centre of Lake Titicaca, is situated the Island of Titicaca, from which Manco Capac and his wife travelled to Cuzco. He was a navigator. The Island of Titicaca is surrounded by the Aymara tribe of Indians, whose language was not understood by José, who spoke Quichua as well as his own. The valley of Cuzco is the first inviting spot to the northwest of this lake, and the road from it to Cuzco is level enough for a railroad. Manco Capac and his wife were carried by east winds, which blow every day across the lake, to the western shore, and travelled on foot the road we took between Cuzco and Puno, according to Indian tradition. Among the scattered stone remains of the ancient edifices of Tiahuanaco, we observed no resemblance to the stone-work of Cuzco, and were surprised to find that, although the ruins were in such a dilapidated state as not to enable us to make out the character of the structure, we could perceive, and were convinced of the higher order of mechanical art over that displayed in Cuzco. The stones, immense in size, were hewn square; one of them had an arched way cut in it large enough to drive a mule through.
The cura of the town told us there were no stone to be found in the neighborhood of the same sort, and that he did not know whence they had been brought. We have reason to believe Manco Capac had nothing to do with the ancient works of Tiahuanaco. Both the hewing of the stone and structure of the language of the people are different from his, though his first appearance was among these people.
We have faith in the peculiarities of the winds to aid the great work of populating distant portions of the earth. The northeast trade-winds of the North Atlantic ocean are fair winds for the emigrants of Europe to North and South America; and the southeast trade-winds in the south Atlantic ocean hasten the passage of the African to Brazil, the West India islands, and the shores of North America. Ships sailing around Cape Horn are headed off sometimes a month by the westerly gales. We are disposed to chart Manco Capac and his wife's track by the instrumentality of winds in the South Pacific ocean, from the far West to the Bay of Arica.
At the gateway, near a Catholic church, was standing two heavy stone idols, with their hands crossed on their navels, as though there had been—as is now—a scarcity of food.