OF THE 
 U N I VER.S ITY 
 Of I LLI NOIS 
 
 From the library of 
 William Spence 
 Robertson 
 
 ver72 
 
Return this book on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books 
 are reasons for disciplinary action and may 
 result in dismissal from the University. 
 University of Illinois Library 
 
 .OP." 1 s 19 
 
 JUL 7- 
 
 L161— O-1096 
 
A JOURNEY 
 
 ACROSS 
 
 SOUTH AMERICA, 
 
 FROM 
 
 THE PACIFIC OCEAN TO THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. 
 
 By PAUL MARCOY. 
 
 Illustrated with Six Hundred Engravings on Wood, and Ten Maps printed in Colours, 
 after Sketches and Drawings by the Author. 
 
 N introducing this important and magnificent Work to the British public, 
 the Publishers are glad to be relieved of the necessity of presenting their own 
 description of it, and to be able to lay before the reader extracts from the 
 remarks made by various journals of high repute, both French and English. The 
 following extract is from the Saturday Review: — ■ 
 
 ' M. Marcoy's splendid record of a recent journey from the Pacific to the Atlantic, through the whole 
 breadth of Peru and Brazil, is a work which must be seen in order to be appreciated. It is impossible 
 by mere analysis or description of their contents to do justice to the two handsome, not to say sumptuous, 
 volumes which transcend even what we are accustomed to consider the normal standard of a Parisian 
 oeuvre de luxe. Almost every page brings before the eye some illustration of the rich scenery of the 
 tropics or some characteristic type of native physique or manners, executed in M. Riou's highest style 
 from the writer's sketches, or engraved directly from M. Marcoy's own drawings. The letterpress, 
 enhanced by paper of the finest tone, forms a triumph of typographical taste and skill. We would, 
 however, by no means be understood to point to M Marcoy's Journey Across South America as simply 
 an ornament for the drawing-room. It is no mere album of the gorgeous landscapes, or of the singular 
 native models, of Brazil or Peru. The author, while keenly alive to all that is picturesque in nature or 
 piquant in humanity, and gifted with the artist's power to set each and all in their most striking phases 
 before the reader's eye, shows himself no less competent as an observer of all that appeals to the reason 
 and arrests the thoughtful attention of the traveller. We find him careful, while delineating the bold 
 outline or dazzling summit of the Cordillera, or catching the wild grace of the semi-savage of the Pampas, 
 to note and generalize the geographical or geological phenomena of those varied regions, as well as to 
 store up and reduce to system the facts, whether of observation or popular tradition, bearing upon the 
 condition, the origin, or the history of their multiform population. The result of his ardent and philo- 
 sophical pursuit of knowledge and adventure is to enrich our literature with a mass of matter imper- 
 fectly, if at all, accessible heretofore, embodied too in a form suited in a peculiar degree to attract and 
 even fascinate every reader who is susceptible of the impressions of art. 
 
2 
 
 "Few countries are less known to the ordinary public than the rich regions of the southern continent 
 of the New World stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic seaboard. . . . We welcome, therefore, 
 whatever means of information can be added to our slender stock, whether by the studies of philologists 
 or by the personal observations of travellers as energetic and intelligent as the writer before us. 
 
 "In no other portion of the globe perhaps is the contrast more strongly marked between the artificial 
 habits and modes of life imported from Europe and the primitive manners of the children of the soil. 
 In Peru, Chili, or Brazil, the traveller has only to pass the city gates to find himself in contact with 
 Indian tribes as rude or quaint in aspect, customs, or belief as those which greeted the gaze of Cortes or 
 Pizarro. It is chiefly with the aboriginal population that M. Marcoy seems to have felt sympathy, and 
 it is with a feeling of relief that he passes from the flimsy conventionalities, the tasteless fashions, or 
 the coarse orgies of the capital, to the free and picturesque life of the Pampa and the teeming banks 
 of the Amazon. Landing from Liverpool at Islay, the port of Arequipa, he gives us a rapid but graphic 
 sketch of that chief city of the earthquake zone, anticipating by a year or so the terrible visitation 
 which has since left its permanent impression upon the whole length of the South Pacific seaboard. . . . 
 
 "From Arequipa to Cuzco the traveller's route lies over the lofty passes and glaciers of the Andes, 
 of which an impressive panorama is given by our artist. Striking near this point the head-waters of 
 the Amazon, he followed downwards the course of that mightiest of rivers to its outfall into the Atlantic. 
 In the terrible drifts and storms of the Sierra Nevada the traveller meets with but rare and rude 
 halting-posts, such as the lonely hut we see figured at Huallata. Often his sole refuge lies in the 
 rude but solidly -wrought tombs of the old Ay maras. . . . 
 
 "M. Marcoy 's stay at the capital of Peru gave him an opportunity not only for the study of the 
 geological features of the country and the varieties of its native types, but also for the pursuit of 
 researches into the anthropology and early conditions of life belonging to those regions. His treatment 
 of these important problems will be found deeply suggestive, as well as marked with careful and critical 
 erudition. . . . The facts collected by M. Marcoy form valuable materials for the ethnologist, while 
 the student of comparative philology will find much to interest and instruct him in the lists of words 
 brought together by him from the principal Indian dialects. These features of the book confer upon it 
 a scientific value far beyond that which we are wont to attach to narratives of travel." 
 
 No book of travels has hitherto been published in this country equal to this 
 Work in splendour and profusion of illustration, and in elegance and luxury of paper 
 and typography. This Translation will be found in every respect — in size, in paper, and 
 in printing — to rival in elegance the original edition in French, so justly lauded by the 
 writer of the above extract. 
 
 \* The Work will be printed on super-royal 4to, and published in Sixteen Divisions, 
 price 4s. each; or in Four Half- volumes, cloth extra, gilt edges, price 21s. each. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 BLACKIE & SON, PATERNOSTER 
 GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH 
 
 BUILDINGS; 
 
EXTRACTS 
 
 FROM 
 
 LITERARY 
 
 NOTICES. 
 
 FROM THE ADDRESS OF 
 
 SiR RODERICK I. MURCHISON, Bart., k.c.b., d.c.l., &c, 
 
 President of the Royal Geographical Society, at the Annual 
 Meeting of that Society held May 23d, 1S70. 
 
 "In our early days, the copiously illustrated quarto books 
 of voyages, which were then the usual form of publication, 
 were the delight of young readers imbued with the spirit of 
 adventure; but the production of this class of works seems of 
 late years to have been abandoned by our English publishers. 
 In France, such books continue to appear, and with a pro- 
 fusion of beautiful engravings and a luxury of type and paper 
 which excite our astonishment, more particularly as they 
 appear intended for, and succeed in obtaining, a wide circula- 
 tion. One of these works is the ' Voyage a travers l'Amerique 
 du Sud,' by M. Paul Marcoy. . . . The illustrations, appa- 
 rently from drawings by the traveller, are to the number of 
 many hundreds, most beautifully engraved and printed, and 
 the landscape views more particularly convey a vivid idea of 
 the wonderful and varied scenery through which the author 
 passed. A work of this nature, in two large quarto volumes, 
 and evidently intended for popular reading, could scarcely be 
 undertaken by an English publisher, although one would 
 think that such books, as conveying much knowledge of dis- 
 tant regions, by the pictorial illustrations alone, would be well 
 received by the British public." 
 
 From, the TIMES. 
 
 "M. Marcoy has a full share of the spirit, vivacity, and 
 garrulity which make a French traveller the most charming 
 of companions in his own book. With sufficient science to 
 write with intelligence and exactness of the flora and fauna 
 of the countries he visits, of the ethnological and idiomatic 
 distinctions which characterize their tribes of Indians, his 
 strongest point and the chief attraction of his work is his 
 great skill as a draughtsman. He sketches nearly everything 
 which he describes, and gives us 600 pictures of the life, 
 manners, and scenery which come under his eye. Such a 
 book is a treat which the English reader does not often get. 
 The patronage of English readers is no less munificent than 
 that of French readers, but it seems to run in different chan- 
 nels. With us such an ceuvre de luxe as this is a venture; it 
 has to be published in half- volumes, for its commercial success 
 can only be secured by laying it very gently on the back of 
 the public. Yet, what better book could we have of the sort ? 
 . . M. Marcoy's pages are a shifting panorama of South 
 American scenery. As we look through them we may light 
 upon a party of sombrero and poncho-clad travellers galloping 
 over the dead level of the Pampas towards the rising sun, 
 their long shadows and the dust streaming behind them, their 
 way marked by the skeletons of mules and horses which have 
 perished in the waste, and on whose white bones perch troops 
 of heavy vultures, scanning the riders with their cruel, withered 
 eyes. On the next page we may reach a roadside cabaret and 
 the Indians who haunt it ; on the next a village of the Sierra, 
 then a town and various illustrations of its holyday and work- 
 a-day aspect, its people, manners, and buildings. Another 
 chapter surrounds us with the dreary solitudes of the Andes; 
 snowy peaks and high table-lands, with cold lakes lying in 
 their hollows, stretch from horizon to horizon, and we are 
 
 glad enough to turn over the leaf and to descend to the vil- 
 lages of Cabana and Cabanilla, deserted by their Indians, who 
 are away searching the rivers and brooks of the neighbour- 
 hood for gold-dust or fragments of silver ore. ... If, which 
 we hope will not prove to be the case, the British public will 
 not believe that there is more sound instruction in such a work 
 as this than in a geographic manual and more amusement 
 than in a novel, we can only say, let him alone." 
 
 From the PALL MALL GAZETTE. 
 
 "This is a superb book in two thick imperial quarto vol- 
 umes, with 600 engravings of the Indian tribes of Peru and 
 Brazil, and of the landscapes, fruits, birds, flowers, animals, 
 plants, and fish of South America. Many of the landscapes 
 are of quarto size, almost all form charming pictures (M. 
 Marcoy, who has travelled twelve years in South America, is 
 his own artist), and there are few engravings in the book that 
 are not executed in the best style of modern art as applied to 
 book illustration. . . . We may safely pronounce this 
 edition de luxe to be a most agreeable book of travel. The 
 style is easy and pleasing, and the engravings fit well into the 
 narrative — no small point." 
 
 From the STANDARD. 
 
 " Messrs. Blackie and Son have ventured on a reproduc- 
 tion from the French of M. Paul Marcoy's magnificent book, 
 'A Journey in South America,' the original edition of which 
 created no small sensation when it was given to the world in 
 Paris some two years ago. The English publishers issue it 
 in four volumes, the book before us being the first of the set. 
 
 . . 'No work of travels has hitherto been produced in this 
 country equal to this work in splendour and profusion of 
 illustration, and in elegance and luxury of paper and typo- 
 graphy,' says the preface, and we can endorse every syllable of 
 the remark. In the complete edition there are six hundred 
 engravings, a fair proportion of them being presented in this 
 volume. Their variety, their excellence, their interest have 
 never been surpassed in a book of the kind. They illustrate 
 manners and customs, natural scenery, accidents of adventure, 
 popular superstitions, methods of sepulture, and we have no 
 room to say what beside. But the interest of the work does 
 not depend on its engravings, profuse and excellent as they 
 are. The narrative is enthralling. Never has there been given 
 to the world such a picture of South America, in its gran- 
 deur and its depravity. . . . Facts, traditions, superstitions, 
 geology, geography, and anthropology, history, botany, and 
 architecture, shoulder each other through the entrancing pages 
 of this imperial quarto, for which European science owes a 
 deep debt of gratitude to M. Marcoy." 
 
 By M. EMILE DARIER, in Le Sieck. 
 
 <: M. Marcoy is a type of the model traveller. No quality, 
 no talent, is wanting to enable him to use, to the best advan- 
 tage, the succession of objects and of picturesque scenes that 
 open to his gaze. A naturalist, he describes with a master's 
 hand the fauna and flora of these countries; an archaeologist, 
 he restores from the ruins they have left the temples and 
 palaces, shattered monuments of the power of the Incas; an 
 ethnologist, he carefully distinguishes each of the Indian 
 tribes through whose territory he passes; a linguist, he gives 
 
4 
 
 a specimen of their idioms, allowing the differences and ana- 
 logies between them; a musician, he notes down their death- 
 songs, their laments, their dauce tunes; a draughtsman, lastly, 
 his album has furnished the originals of the engravings with 
 which, to the number of six hundred, M. Riou has enriched 
 the published account of his journey. His wanderings are 
 enlivened by a good humour that is proof against every 
 mishap, and is heightened by more than one comic incident. 
 Less than this might account for the splendour with which 
 the book has been brought out." 
 
 By M. FAUL DE SAINT VICTOR, in La Liberie. 
 
 " It is no more than the truth to say that this journey is as 
 full of marvels as the imaginary peregrinations of Sinbad in 
 the Arabian Nights. The accompanying engravings bear 
 witness to its truth — if that could be looked on as doubtful. 
 These strange types of humanity, these fairy landscapes, these 
 interiors, and these pictures of eccentric customs, are evidently 
 drawn from the life. Such things may be copied but not 
 invented." 
 
 From the MANCHESTER EXAMINER AND TIMES. 
 
 "A more magnificent specimen of typography, or a more 
 splendidly illustrated book, we have seldom seen, and we may 
 add also that the record of travel which comes before us under 
 such favourable circumstances is by no means unworthy of the 
 brilliant treatment it receives. . . . M. Marcoy gives us an 
 account of his journey across the South American continent. 
 The country through which he travelled is comparatively 
 unknown to the majority of English readers, and his descrip- 
 tions have therefore, to a great extent, the charm of novelty. 
 His vivid style has been so faithfully reflected by his translator 
 that the most prejudiced hater of stories of travel, who will 
 once give ear and eye, must succumb to its charm, and admit 
 that M. Marcoy is a writer who can be copious in detail with- 
 out being either garrulous or diffuse, and who can relate his 
 personal adventures without being either dull or egotistical." 
 
 From the LIVERPOOL MERCURY 
 
 " Seldom indeed has any one journeyed with so agreeable 
 a travelling companion as M. Marcoy. His thorough good 
 sense, his unfailing cheerfulness, and the vein of genuine 
 humour — untinctured with flippancy — that runs through his 
 narrative attract the sympathies of the reader, and afford 
 him a continual source of amusement. He does not, like 
 some travellers, complain of the hardship he has to suffer or 
 abuse everything that is not altogether to his taste, but philo- 
 sophically takes things as they come, and makes the best of 
 them. If he does lose his temper for a moment, it is only a 
 mere superficial ebullition, at which he is himself ready to 
 laugh the next moment, and to admit the reader to the same 
 privilege." 
 
 By M. LOUIS ASSELINE, in La Gironde. 
 
 "M. Marcoy has rendered with a picturesque exactness 
 these varied scenes, these noble landscapes, where plants the 
 most marvellous intertwine with incredible vigour; these 
 immense rivers, carrying down along with lifeless d6bris living 
 alligators; these types, graceful or grotesque, which are 
 fashioned according to patterns quite different from all the 
 well-known models of the human head; . . . these hunting 
 and fishing adventures, as exciting as combats; these flowers 
 and these animals of rare form. This struggle between narrator 
 and artist has produced the most amusing, the most instruc- 
 tive, and the freshest book that could enchant poor people 
 chained to the chimney-corner by destiny, and unable to 
 travel, alas ! except in thought and by the eye." 
 
 From the WESTERN DAILY PRESS (Bristol). 
 
 " This magnificent gilt-edged, super-royal quarto describes 
 a journey across the comparatively unknown countries which 
 lie between the two oceans at the points where they are divided 
 by the widest part of the South American continent. What 
 does the average reader know of the people who reside in this 
 great region; of the history and customs of the civilized inha- 
 bitants, the semi-civilized, and the savage; of the religion, 
 the domestic life, the festivals, amusements, and dress of the 
 different races? How much is known of the geology, or the 
 flora and the fauna, of the geographical aspect of the country, 
 with its glories of tropical vegetation, its sandy deserts, its 
 mountains, lakes, and rivers? To even intelligent readers 
 this vast expanse of territory is almost a terra incognita. . . . 
 
 " In its artistic beauty the work is an album, possessing a 
 continuous and deep interest; while in its literary aspect it pos- 
 sesses merits which are veiy unusual in books of travel, the 
 narrative being full of variety, the description of the scenery 
 graphic, and the personal experiences strange and amusing." 
 
 By M. ANDRE LEFfcVRE, in V Illustration. 
 " On foot, on muleback, in the native piragua, under the 
 snow and over the ices of the Andes, across the Pampas, 
 through the half-civilized towns aud the miserable hamlets 
 of the Conibos, Chontaquiros, aud other Indians, hunting the 
 lamautin, the cayman, the jaguar, the ant-eater, attacked 
 sometimes by legions of fleas, sometimes by troops of pec- 
 caries, with difficulty saving his papers in a dangerous ship- 
 wreck in the unknown rapids of some nameless stream, always 
 cool, sagacious, indefatigable, and fortified with the gaiety of 
 a Frenchman, which gives additional point in his case to a 
 stroke of irony — perhaps of bitterness, — our countryman has 
 explored all Lower Peru in particular, and descended some of 
 the most distant affluents of one of the greatest rivers of the 
 globe. . . . Text and engravings mutually aid each other, 
 and form a book of perpetual enchantment." 
 
 From the DAILY COURIER (Liverpool). 
 " This is a work of great beauty and of deep interest, afford- 
 ing to the reader as it does vivid delineations of an extensive 
 region, varied in aspect, conformation, and productions, both 
 natural and artificial, and but little known among the civilized 
 nations of Europe. . . . The author of the book, M. Paul 
 Marcoy, pursued his travels, observations, and researches in 
 this comparatively unknown region and among its equally 
 unknown people during the long period of twelve years, and 
 in the work now under consideration he has thrown his expe- 
 riences into the form of a narrative of travel and adventure 
 across the continent of South America at its broadest parts. . . . 
 M. Marcoy, an artist and naturalist of a very high order, has 
 gathered into his narrative brilliant as well as vivid descrip- 
 tions of the geological, miueralogical, and metalliferous forma- 
 tions of the vast region, together with an able exposition of its 
 wide-ranging flora and fauna." 
 
 From the NORTH BRITISH DAILY MAIL (Glasgow). 
 " It is a charming narrative of travels through a most 
 interesting portion of South America. . . M. Marcoy 
 has all the gaiety and lightheartedness of his countrymen, 
 without the levity of which they are sometimes accused. His 
 never-failing cheerfulness enabled him easily to put up with 
 all the petty annoyances that a traveller has to endure. He 
 looks as little as possible at the dark side of things; he gene- 
 rally tries to catch their comic aspect so as to get some amuse- 
 ment out of them for himself and his readers. He has, in a 
 marked degree, the happy knack of setting clearly before us 
 what he has to describe, without obtruding himself as the 
 showman." 
 
 BLACKIE & SON: LONDON, GLASGOW, AND EDINBURGH. 
 
A JOURNEY 
 
 ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 FROM 
 
 THE PACIFIC OCEAN TO THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. 
 
PAUL MARCO Y. 
 
A JOURNEY 
 
 ACROSS 
 
 OUTH AMERICA 
 
 FROM THE PACIFIC OCEAN TO THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. 
 
 BY 
 
 PAUL MARCO Y. 
 
 ILLUSTEATED WITH SIX HUNDEED ENGEAVINGS ON WOOD, 
 DEAWN BY E. EIOU, 
 AND TWELVE MAPS, PEINTED IN COLOUES, FEOM DEAWINGS BY THE AUTHOE. 
 
 HALF-VOL. I. 
 
 ILA Y — A RE QUIP A — LAMP A — A CO PI A — CUZCO. 
 
 LONDON: 
 BLACKIE AND SON, PATERNOSTER ROW; 
 GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH. 
 1872. 
 
GLASGOW : 
 \v. c. BLAOKIE AND CO., PRINTERS, 
 VILLAFIELD. 
 
 r. aasAT Britain, 
 
IS7X 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 FIRST STAGE. 
 ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hay and its shores. — The Vicar of Bray. — A bachelor's breakfast. — / pede fausto. — While the muleteers 
 drink, the author gossips. — The Pampas and their bones. — A tampu or hotel bill in the desert. — 
 Bird's-eye view of the valley of Arequipa. — Scientific details in which the general reader will feel 
 but little interest. — Halting-places and peeps of scenery. — A pleasant little prospect from a bridge. 
 — Arequipa and its etymology. — Earthquakes. — An eloquent plea in favour of the volcanic cone 
 Misti. — Churches and convents of Arequipa. — Something about religious people in general, and 
 religious ladies in particular. — The streets, the houses, and the inhabitants of the city. — The fair 
 sex of Arequipa. — Matrimonial traps. — Modes and fashions. — Indian cai'pet-bearers. — Impartial 
 coup-dceil from a fountain. — Pen-and-pencil sketches. — Joys of the carnival. — A capital of 800,000 
 francs represented by egg-shells. — Pleasantries of Shrove Tuesday. — Memento, homo, quia pulvis es. — 
 The author remembers that he has a long journey to go in a short time, 1-65 
 
 SECOND STAGE. 
 
 AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 
 
 The Pampilla and its charcoal-burners. — Station of Apo. — What the traveller finds, and what he 
 experiences on arriving there. — The soroche. — Occasional gossips en route. — Disappointment at Huallata. 
 — A storm 15,000 feet above the sea. — Hospitality in a sepulchre. — Retrospective coup-d'ceil of the 
 Aymara nation. — The Lake of Gold and Lake of Silvei*. — Elegy on a rooster. — A night at Compuerta. 
 — The landscape and other things worth observing. — Cabana and Cabanilla. — A priest, according to the 
 gospel. —About a giant humming-bird and yellow Ranunculi. — Aspect of Lampa at nightfall. — An 
 importer of printed cottons {rouenneries). — Manner of honouring the saints. — Effect produced on the 
 organs of vision by the sharp application of a bit of foie de volatile. — The strawberry of Chili, and its 
 use as a stimulant. — The day after a revel. — The author resumes his journey, reflecting on the past 
 history and the present state of the province of Lampa, 67-110 
 
 THIRD STAGE. 
 LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 
 
 The plain of Llalli. — How to soften the heart of the Indians and procure a dinner. — Affecting history 
 of a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law. — Manibus date lilia plenis. — A royal courier. — If day 
 succeeds day in Peru with little in which they resemble each other, village succeeds village with little 
 in which they differ from each other. — Apachccta, a monument crowned with flowers. — Pucara, its 
 etymology and its fair. — A sick man and a doctor. — A new balsamic preparation recommended to 
 any good wife who has a bully for a husband. — Dith yrambic essay on the subject of streams. — Drunken 
 
iv 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 farewells. — The cure Miranda. — A pastoral with a curious accompaniment of stone-throwing. — 
 Santa Rosa. — A fete in the midst of the snows. — The postmaster of Aguas-C'alientes. — Something 
 that distantly resembles the marriage of Gamache le Riche. — The author discloses in a familiar epistle 
 the blackness and perfidy of his soul. — The temple of Huiracocha. — Two miraculous crucifixes. — 
 Useful notes on the beer of Combapata, and the manner in which it is brewed.— Remarks upon 
 the past history of the Canas and Canchis Indians. — The question arises whether Cyesar shall pass the 
 Rubicon. — At Acopia, 
 
 FOURTH STAGE. 
 
 ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 Dissertation ou the province of QuispicaDchi, which the reader may pass by. — Acopia, its pretended 
 ruins and its tarts. — Compromising hospitality. — The widows Bibiana and Maria Salome. — A demon- 
 stration that if all men are equal in the sight of death, they are not so in the sight of fleas.— 
 A dream of happiness. — The Quebrada of Cuzco. — Andajes and its pistachio-puddings. — The Chingana 
 (or cave) of Qquerohuasi. — A quarry worked in the time of the empress Mama Ocllo Huaco. — 
 A botanical discourse which all the world may comprehend. — The traveller laments his spent 
 youth and lost illusions. — A muleteer may be at once a herbalist and a logician. — Quiquijana 
 and the great stones of its little river. — Something about Urcos, the chief village in the province 
 of Quispicanchi. — The Mohina lake and its lost chain of gold. — Zoology and arboriculture.— Huaro, its 
 steeple, its weather-cock, and its famous organ. — Valleys and villages characterized, en passant, by 
 a word. — The village of Oropesa. — Why called Oropesa the Heroic. — The traveller has another 
 squabble with his guide. — Sketch of San Jeronimo. — San Sebastian, and its noble families. — The 
 tree of adieux. — The convent of La Recoleta, its prior and its monks. — The Corridor-du-Ciel and 
 the Devil's Pulpit. — A monolithic chamber. — Three sorcerers of Goya in a holy- water font. — By 
 what road we ai-rived among the descendants of the Sun. — Silhouette of a capital. — Last words 
 of counsel from the lips of Wisdom in the person of a muleteer. — The author packs his trunks with 
 one hand, while writing his memoirs with the other. — Cuzco, ancient and modern, 
 
BLACKLE & SON. LONDON. GLASGOW & EDINBURGH 
 
BLACKIK Sz SON. LONDON. GLASGOW & EDINBURGH. 
 
B1ACK1F. Sc 30N, LOUDON, GLASGOW & EDINBURGH 
 
FIRST STAGE. 
 
 I L AY TO AREQUIPA 
 
 (PERU) 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 1 
 
POUT AND VILLAGE OP I LAY. 
 
 FIEST STAGE. 
 
 I LAY TO AEEQUIPA. 
 
 Hay and its shores. — The Vicar of Bray. — A bachelor's breakfast. — / path fausto. — "While the muleteers drink, the 
 author gossips. — The Pampas and their bones. — A tampu or hotel bill in the desert. — Bird's-eye view of the valley 
 of Arequipa.— Scientific details in which the general reader will feel but little interest. — Halting-places and peeps 
 of scenery. — A pleasant little prospect from a bridge. — Arequipa and its etymology. — Earthquakes. — An eloquent 
 plea in favour of the volcanic cone Misti. — Churches and convents of Arequipa. — Something about religious people 
 in general, and religious ladies in particular. — The streets, the houses, and the inhabitants of the city. — The fair 
 sex of Arequipa. — Matrimonial traps. — Modes and fashions. — Indian carpet-bearers. — Impartial coup-d'ccil from a 
 fountain. — Pen-and-pencil sketches. — Joys of the carnival.— A capital of 800,000 francs represented by egg-shells. — 
 Pleasantries of Shrove Tuesday. — Memento, homo, quia pulvis es. — The author remembers that he has a long journey 
 to go in a short time. 
 
 Ilay, situated on the coast of Peru, in latitude 17° V south, and longitude 72° 10' west, 
 is the commercial port and headquarters of the customs of the department and town of 
 Arequipa. Its bay, of an irregular outline, may have a circuit of about three miles, and 
 is bounded by a double range of lomas or low hills, of a yellowish tint and dull aspect, 
 disposed in the form of an amphitheatre, and presenting to a third part of their height 
 
4 
 
 PERU. 
 
 a wall of trachytic rocks, forming a natural rampart which prevents the slipping down 
 of the sands and marine deposits. The continued action of the waves, driven 
 furiously against the coast by the south wind, has polished the surface of these 
 rocks, cut perpendicularly in many places like a cliff ; and at their base masses of 
 porphyry, amygdalites and syenite, half submerged, lift here and there their black 
 backs above the water. At the bottom of the bay a great rock, like a ruined 
 tower, is connected with the shore by a complicated arrangement of beams, and 
 planks, and rope-ladders. This rock or artificial construction, call it what you will, 
 serves to the sea-faring population as a wharf or quay, and to the custom-house 
 officers as an observatory. The custom-house itself, represented by a mere shed built 
 of planks, occupies one side of the scaffolding, beyond which a foot-path winding up 
 a steep ascent conducts us in about ten minutes to the village of Hay, built upon the 
 shoulder of a hill at an elevation of some 600 feet above the level of the Pacific 
 Ocean. 
 
 It would be difficult to conceive anything more desolate than the scene which 
 lies at the traveller's feet, when, having reached the summit of this hill, he casts 
 his eye over the surrounding country. From north to south nothing is visible but 
 sand-dunes and craggy cliffs, shores strewed with drift-wood, long stretches of salt- 
 petre and sea-salt, heaps of calcareous deposits, stony islets covered with guano, 1 
 and rocks of all forms and colours. The purity of the air, the intensity of the 
 light, the unalterable blue of sea and sky, bring out in sharp relief all the details of 
 the weird scenery and, leaving none of its features in shadow, impress the beholder 
 with a sense of blinding immensity, of melancholy splendour, and implacable repose. 
 
 The Bay of Hay when viewed from the offing is seen to be of a crescent 
 shape, the points sharp and bent back. Viewed from Cape Cavallo on the north, 
 or from the rocks of Ho to the south, it suggests the idea of an immense half- submerged 
 fish. Myriads of sea-birds, from the bloated pelican to the slender sea-swallow, which 
 all day long hover and wheel, rise on the wing and suddenly redescend in the dazzling 
 sunlight, complete the illusion. One might believe he was gazing on the carcass 
 of some stranded whale, on which these voracious birds had gathered together to 
 feast. 2 
 
 Every year some forty vessels, bound from Europe or North America to Valparaiso 
 and the intermediate ports, coast along the shore, and stay at Ilay a short time to 
 receive the products of the country, which are there collected. On these occasions, 
 for a few days a sort of galvanized life is imparted to the port and its melancholy 
 village; the echoes, accustomed to repeat only the wailings of the wind, the murmur 
 of the waves, and the bellowing of the seals, are awakened by drunken songs and a 
 babble of strange tongues. Soon, however, the ship Aveighs anchor, and the accus- 
 tomed dulness resumes its empire. 
 
 1 Correctly, huano. There is no letter g in the Quichua idiom. 
 
 2 Immense shoals of sardines are every year stranded on these coasts between the 14th and 22d degrees of latitude, 
 and they sometimes draw in their wake an unfortunate whale, which is left dry on the sand, a victim to its voracity. 
 The author himself observed this fact twice in five years. 
 
ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 5 
 
 One tine morning in the month of July — the season of winter in these latitudes — 
 I found myself on board the Vicar of Bray, an honest three-master hailing from 
 Liverpool, in company with the captain of the ship, the English consul at Hay, 
 and a few of the notables of Arequipa. The motive of our gathering was an invitation 
 to lunch with the captain, which was already of fifteen clays' standing. It was 
 nearly eleven o'clock, and the breakfast or lunch, which had been announced for ten 
 sharp, was still delayed, the cook, in all probability, being hindered, like Vatel, by 
 some small detail in his arrangements. The faces and the teeth of the invited 
 
 POINT OE SPIT OF ILAY, FROM THE SEA, LOOKING EAST-NORTH-EAST; DISTANCE FOUR MILES. 
 
 guests grew longer as time sped, nevertheless each tried to look as if he were 
 delighted with the prospect, and cheat his stomach into believing that all was as 
 it should be. While my companions conversed together, and their spirits rose from 
 grave to gay, or fell again from lively to severe, I leaned against the netting, and 
 gazed on the hills of Hay, thinking how the wintry fogs (known in the country 
 as garuas 1 ) would by-and-by clear away and bring to light, for a month or two, grass 
 and flowers, streams of water, birds, insects, and a thousand natural delights, which 
 are there as unknown during two-thirds or more of the year as the melon in the 
 steppes of Siberia. 
 
 At last our general anxiety was ended. One of those long drawn sighs which 
 relieve collectively the bosom of the public when, at a theatre, the curtain is lifted 
 after a long entr'acte, was breathed by our little company, when, at the sound of 
 the bell, the steward was seen to leave the galley and traverse the deck, carefully 
 carrying with both hands a dish, softly reclining in which, on a bed of vegetables, 
 
 1 The garuas resemble the drizzly vapour commonly called a Scotch mist. They prevail on the coast of Peru from 
 May to November, and are followed by an abundant vegetation in the region of lomas or hillocks — the coast country — 
 during the months of July, August, and September. 
 
6 
 
 PERU. 
 
 .appeared a boiled leg of mutton of a most respectable size. With hurried steps we 
 followed this welcome apparition towards the cabin. In a few minutes it would 
 have been difficult to distinguish any other sound than the familiar onomatopoeia 
 of the dinner-table broken by the furious click-click of the knives and forks, 
 each hungry guest being resolutely bent on making up for lost time. Apart from 
 the leg of mutton, which belongs to all countries and epochs, the repast was thoroughly 
 English in its character, consisting of beef and smoked fish, followed by various kinds 
 of puddings, rhubarb -tarts, and other strange preparations. For seasoning we had 
 cayenne-pepper, West Indian cacazouezo, Peruvian orocoto, Indian curry, and 
 Harvey's sauce. These fiery dishes were washed down Avith sherry and port, beer of 
 two kinds, and a very fair or unfair proportion of gin and brandy. Coffee that 
 would have made all the goats of Yemen dance with pleasure was afterwards served 
 to us in little bowls instead of cups. At length, when the sweet fumes of digestion 
 began to mount from the epigastrium to the brain of the revellers, and their richly 
 purpled visages expressed that beatitude peculiar to people when the craving of 
 their stomachs has been satisfied, and cares sit lightly on them, the captain rose 
 to speak: — 
 
 " Senores y amigos" 1 he said, in a rude but intelligible Castilian, "the repast 
 at which you have honoured me with your company is probably the last that we 
 shall enjoy together. To-morrow, at eleven, I weigh anchor and sail for Santa- 
 Maria de Belem do Para, where my marriage with the daughter of one of my consignees 
 is almost decided upon. Once married, I mean to sell my ship, join my father-in-law, 
 and become a shipowner like him. So much for the future. But these events 
 are yet distant, and in the meantime, as the moment has arrived when we must 
 part, you will not wonder if I refer to the wager we have before talked over, in which 
 my conceit alone as a sailor would make me feel interested. Our friend Don Pabloy 
 Marcoy, who while I am speaking is amusing himself, and at the same time wasting 
 a good bit of bread, by modelling a caricature of my ship, has taken it into his head, 
 as you know, to start for the same destination as myself, and has laid a wager that 
 by crossing the continent from south-west to north-east, while I sail round by Cape 
 Horn, he will arrive at the mouth of the Amazon before me. I have accepted the 
 wager, but its amount is not yet determined. What sum shall we say then, 
 senores y amigosV 
 
 " A hundred ounces of gold," said a citizen of Arequipa who had lost his fortune 
 by gambling, and reckoned upon a political revolution to recoup himself 
 
 "Done for a hundred ounces!" said the captain looking at me. 
 
 " One moment," said I ; " when I offered to make the bet, it was with the idea 
 that the sum would not be inconsistent with my resources, but now that it is fixed 
 at a hundred ounces of gold, a sum equal to about 8640 francs, I must withdraw 
 my proposal, I can't shovel up gold like our worthy host." 
 
 "What sum then do you propose?" 
 
 " I will bet five francs." 
 
 1 Gentlemen and friends. 
 
I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 7 
 
 "Five francs! what a melancholy jest!" exclaimed my companions. 
 
 " Gentlemen," I replied, with grave affectation, " there is nothing either melancholy 
 or pleasant in what I propose; if the sum I offer to bet appears to you and to our 
 worthy friend somewhat small, I will add to the amount a box of cigars." 
 
 " Do not add anything, my dear friend," said the captain, and thereupon broke 
 down in the endeavour to hide a grimace. " Keep your five francs, smoke your 
 cigars, and let us give up all idea of profiting by the wager, contenting ourselves 
 with the honour. You say then you mean to start immediately?" 
 
 " I say nothing, captain, but I think that in the circumstances a challenge would be 
 better than a wager. In the first place, the arrangement would be more satisfactory 
 to you, sir, whose family has once given a queen to England, and who in re- 
 membrance of that illustrious past can take but little pleasure in vile lucre. In 
 the next place, it would suit me very much better, who am but a poor devil of a 
 naturalist, deeply interested in that same lucre, but in a position which does not allow 
 me to risk a sum every farthing of which will be needed for the expenses of my 
 journey. Well then, let there be no longer any question of money between us, 
 and as you have well said, let us be satisfied with the honour, pure and simple." 
 
 " May Men, very well, very good, Senor French" said the English consul, " let us 
 say no more about it, and as you do not mean to bet, I propose that we drink." 
 
 The captain made a sign, and the steward removed the empty bowls and substituted 
 for them full bottles. The company then sat in for hard drinking; I should not like to 
 say how much they drank, the thing would appear incredible; but when the sitting came 
 to an end, and the clear light of day had succeeded to the dim illumination of the 
 binnacle lamp, the cabin of the Vicar of Bray presented the appearance of a field of 
 battle after an action. Not one of my jovial companions remained erect. The captain 
 had slipped under the table ; the consul had fallen upon him ; the notables of Arequipa 
 lay here and there sleeping in various postures; the glasses and the bottles had 
 been broken in the engagement, and their fragments, like so many mirrors, multiplied 
 the miniature scene of desolation. At my request the steward, aided by the cook, 
 interred each corpse in one of the berths to await the hour of his resurrection. 
 That done, I went ashore, and returned to my lodging in the house of a seal-fisher. 
 There I felt it necessary to change my linen, which was as thoroughly soaked as 
 if I had been in a bath with my clothes on. The brandy and gin which my 
 companions had pressed me to drink had been poured down the sleeve of my 
 coat instead of my throat, a trick which I had learned of a Limanian doctor, who 
 not being able to take a drop of liquor without feeling its effects, had invented, 
 he said, this mode of imbibition, which had enabled him to defy, glass in hand, 
 the strongest drinkers of the two Americas. 
 
 On the next day I again went on board the vessel, to ascertain how it had 
 fared with my companions. I found them all afoot, active and merry, and having 
 only a confused remembrance of their lethargy of the previous evening. Tea was 
 served upon the poop, while the sailors prepared to weigh anchor. A last toast 
 was proposed by the captain to the success of our journey, which the company 
 
8 
 
 PERU. 
 
 drank with every demonstration of good fellowship. Then followed the usual exchange 
 of hand-shakings and hearty farewells, and the captain having given mo the address 
 at Para of his future father-in-law, the ship's boat conveyed me and my friends to the 
 landing-place, from which we watched the last preparations for departure. A quarter 
 of an hour later the Vicar of Bray, leaning to starboard, and her sails filled with a 
 rattling breeze, once more ploughed the waves of the Pacific. 
 
 Retracing the steep ascent which leads to the village of Hay, we accompanied 
 
 SEAL FISHERMAN WITH HIS BALSEEO : TYPE OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 
 
 the English consul to his house. His wife and daughters, disquieted by his long- 
 absence, expressed, in guttural monosyllables, their joy at his return. After this 
 effusion of tenderness, the ladies graciously invited us to pass the day under their 
 roof and partake of their family dinner. Anxious to continue my journey, I declined 
 the kind offer, and my companions, who would doubtless have accepted it, to judge 
 by the looks of disappointment they exchanged, followed my example. Then the 
 ladies, shocked at the idea of seeing us leave without partaking of refreshment, 
 instantly set themselves to prepare a dish of sandwiches, which a servant offered 
 to us all round. We washed down these edibles with a glass of Devonshire cider, 
 and having thus concluded lunch, the consul's eldest daughter, a charming girl with 
 golden hair, who answered to the sweet name of Stella, seated herself at the piano 
 and gratified the national amour propre of her father's guests by playing the cantata 
 
I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 0 
 
 of Manco-Capac. My friends, the notables of Areqnipa, applauded in a transport 
 of delight. One of them, after having the air encored, began to sing the words, 
 and the others were not slow to join the chorus. This patriotic hymn, little known 
 in Europe, but familiar in Peru, is composed of eighteen strophes, of fourteen verses 
 each, and ten syllables in each line, the rhymes being assonant. The words and 
 music are attributed to an ecclesiastic of the Sagrario of Ayacucho. The air in the 
 minor key, essentially plaintive and melancholy, is in harmony with the poem, in which 
 the author laments, like another Jeremiah, not over the hardness of heart of Jeru- 
 salem, but over the extinct glories of the Children of the Sun. The execution of this 
 national air lasted an hour and a quarter, yet we did not find it tedious: it must be 
 confessed, however, that after every strophe the singers refreshed themselves by 
 drinking a bumper, under the pretext of doing honour to the memory of him who 
 had redeemed Peru from barbarism. As the wine had excited their enthusiasm, and 
 I feared that these children of nature — who never know where to stop when once set 
 going — might take it into their heads to dance a quadrille when the song was finished, 
 I took advantage of the momentary silence which followed the conclusion of the last 
 strophe to rise and bid farewell to the consul and his family. My fellow-travellers 
 had no choice but to yield. Taking up their hats they saluted our host with an 
 awkward air and followed me out, evidently discontented because they could not 
 finish, in their own way, a day which promised to abound in pleasures of every 
 kind. Our mules had been kept ready saddled near at hand. Each selected his 
 own beast and hastened to mount. The muleteers and guides took their places at 
 the head of the party, and we left the consul's hospitable abode, saluted as far as 
 we could be seen by the voices and the waving handkerchiefs of the whole family. 
 It was now about mid-day. A blazing sun inundated the sands with its intense 
 light; every bit of mica, like the mirror of Archimedes, threw a burning ray into 
 our faces. The three rows of wooden houses, roofed with thatch or reeds, which 
 compose the two parallel streets of Hay, were soon left behind us. Reaching the 
 summit of the height we had on our right the village church, a mere shed closed 
 during three-fourths of the year and serving as an asylum for bats. On our left 
 were several inclosures formed by rough stones surmounted by crosses of wood, 
 which at a distance suggested the idea of burial places, but which in fact were 
 nothing but mule-pens. Having passed these points we descended the eastern side 
 of the lomas and entered upon a route equally dreaded by men and beasts. This 
 rough track, which may be correctly described as a wheel-rut cut by some gigantic 
 vehicle, was covered to the depth of a foot with trachytic ashes swarming with 
 fleas. It is known as the Quebrada of Hay. A quebrada be it! but as the gloomy 
 heights which flank it on either side completely intercept the breeze, the tem- 
 perature is like that of an oven, and it is only the literal truth to say that it was 
 with difficulty we could breathe at all. As we plodded on our monotonous way 
 we absolutely panted for fresh air. 
 
 For two hours we traversed the quebrada, marching in Indian file, and keeping a 
 melancholy silence, in strict harmony with the desolate aspect of the place, and imposed 
 
 VOL. I. 2 
 
10 
 
 PERU. 
 
 upon us by the dread we felt of swallowing the dust raised by the beasts we were 
 riding. In the midst of the general lethargy the guides alone exhibited an occasional 
 sign of life by abusing the tardy mules. Their cries, mingled with abusive epithets and 
 blows of the stick, played staccato to the bass of the locusts concealed in the brush- 
 wood which occasionally bordered the road. 
 
 Happy were we to recognize some signs at last that our troubles approached 
 their end — the hills which bordered the horizon northward and southward began to 
 diminish in height, and open out wider and wider expanses, until in fine they sunk 
 to hillocks. Soon we felt the sea breeze on our faces; the rising lands and the 
 road presented a succession of steep ascents, which put us under the necessity almost 
 of climbing. According to the muleteers we were now approaching a place called 
 the Olivar, the natural frontier which separates the quebrada from the pampas, the 
 
 valley from the plain, the belt of ashes from the 
 region of sands. The local Flora, represented by 
 the vanilla-scented heliotrope (He liotr opium aphyl- 
 lurri), with here and there a stunted and twisted olive 
 and a few grasses, looked as if she meant to smile 
 upon us under the mask of dust which hid her vis- 
 age; but the smile had something so mournful in 
 it, that instead of responding we pretended to look 
 elsewhere as we passed along, and the poor goddess 
 of flowers was snubbed for her advances. 
 
 The road continued to rise, and after passing 
 some difficult zigzags, it led us to a little plateau 
 of an irregular form which commanded a view of 
 the surrounding country. An ajoupa, formed of a 
 ragged mat supported by stakes, occupied the centre 
 
 Vanilla-scented Heliotrope of the Lomas in the of the Space. Ullder this tent, SO to Call it, Were 
 Ashy Region of the Quebrada. . . 1*11 i i 
 
 some women in rags, and children m the only 
 clothing furnished them by nature, squatting in the midst of their pots and pans. 
 A low table or stall furnished with broiled fish, ground pimento, and a kind of sea- 
 weed called by the Indians cocha-yuyu (sweetness of the lake), indicated one of 
 those open-air restaurants so common in Peru. These provisions, nicely sprinkled 
 with volcanic ashes, looked far from inviting; 'but muleteers are not, as a rule, dainty 
 folk, and do not trouble themselves about such details. In the roughest manner they 
 demanded of the hostess a double ration of these dusty viands, which they washed 
 down with a jug of chicha. As customary before commencing the journey across 
 the pampas, we stayed a few moments in this place to rest the mules, for which pur- 
 pose we dismounted. While our attendants devoted themselves to their repast, my 
 companions lighted their cigarettes. Leaving them to have their smoke, I went to 
 the edge of the plateau, which, at an elevation of some 5000 or G000 feet, enabled me 
 to look upon the scenes through which we had passed, and which I was now leaving 
 never more to return. 
 
I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 11 
 
 Far as the eye could see, from the foot of the plateau on which we stood to the 
 ocean, was one uniform gray, traversed by irregular veins of a brownish colour; the 
 numerous hills which embossed its surface, resembling at this height and distance those 
 phlyctcence or blisterings of the soil which so frequently occur in the neighbourhood of 
 volcanoes. From the north to the south extended the line of saline hillocks (lomas) 
 which bound the shore between the tenth and the twenty-third degrees of latitude. 
 
 RESTAURANT OF THE QUEBRADA OF ILAY. 
 
 Their summits and flanks presented in places a yellowish tint, which would be 
 changed to bright green by the first fogs of winter — those fertilizing vapours which 
 are formed during the night, and vanish again before the next day's noon. The 
 purity of the atmosphere enabled me to distinguish at an immense distance all the 
 features of that vast landscape. In the south I was able to make out, as a black line 
 traced on the horizon between the double azure of sea and sky, the point of Cola 
 and the rocks of the valley of Tambo, whose river, dry during the summer, rolls in its 
 wintry torrent, and under its muddy waves, enormous masses of rock detached from the 
 mountains. A little in front appeared the coasts of Mejillones and of Cocotca, with 
 their terrace of shelly banks, their beds of guano, and their hill-sides pierced 
 with sepulchres {huacas), in which, sleeping their last sleep, are thousands of mummies. 
 Every point upon which my eye fell recalled a halt, an episode, a discovery. 
 
12 
 
 PERU. 
 
 Here I had lived for weeks in the company of the Llipis Indians of the great desert 
 of Acatama, upon nothing but sea-weed, water-melons, and shell-fish, the only food to 
 be obtained in these regions; there I had witnessed from the height of the dunes, 
 and without the power of aiding but by useless shouts, the shipwreck of the Amer- 
 ican hermaphrodite-brig Susquehanna//. Farther off, in midst of the shifting sands, 
 like a conical islet, the hill of Aymaras was discernible, with its ossuary older than 
 the Spanish conquest, where I had collected so many fine phrenological specimens. 
 
 AYMARA OSSUARY, A FEW MILES SOUTH-SOUTH-EAST OF I L A Y. 
 
 Still farther, in the south-east were the desolate lands of the Arenal, with their deposits 
 of guano composed of fish, 1 unknown till then, and to which I had made it my business 
 to call the attention of the learned. Around these spots • — landmarks which enabled 
 me to appreciate the duration and the occupations of past years — extended craters 
 strewn with the cinders, scoriae, and pumice of the ancient volcanoes which dominated 
 this shore at unknown epochs, and near which Captain Frezier in his survey of the 
 coast in 1713, Alexander Humboldt and Bonpland in 1804, and Monsieur A. d'Orbigny 
 in 1836, passed without discovering that they existed. 
 
 Looking towards the east the picture varies a little in its aspect. A region of 
 dreary sands, diversified with cerros or low rounded hills steeply inclined towards 
 the west, succeeds to the volcanic ashes, and closes the horizon like a barrier. 
 
 1 The stranding of fish, observed in the reign of the first Incas, still occurs every year at fixed periods. The 
 inhabitants of the coasts of Atica, ninety miles north of Hay, and those of Mala and Chilca, under the fourteenth 
 degree of latitude, in former times fertilized their lands with these fish, not possessing, like the people of Hay, a 
 resource in the guano of birds. At present, all make use of the latter compost, even in the Sierra. The thousands of fish 
 stranded on the shores, not being utilized by the inhabitants, infect the air until they are dried by the sun. This 
 ichthyologic detritus has formed deposits a mile and half in extent, and from three to four feet deep. The sand, the 
 shells, the shingle, and the veins of sea-salt with which it is mixed, indicate that the sea must have covered these 
 lauds before the formation of the existing shores. 
 
I LAY TO A RE QUI PA. 
 
 13 
 
 These stony heaps, formed of blocks of a quartzose or silicious grit, and of the 
 debris of volcanic rocks and sediment, rolled, heaped up, and agglomerated by the 
 mighty waters in their retreat from east to west to regain their bed, had often 
 furnished me with curious specimens of the metamorphosis of rocks. Each of these 
 detritic masses is distinguished by some fantastic name, as the "razor," the "dove," 
 the "two friends," &c., which I had not yet had time to forget. At their base, on the 
 edge of some trench or furrow, might be seen perhaps a few ricketty cotton-trees, olives, 
 or figs, of a grayish tint rather than green, and scarcely distinguishable from the rocks 
 themselves but for the shadows which they cast. 
 
 An overwhelming sadness possessed me as I gazed on a scene barren even to 
 nakedness, dried up even to calcination, and which recalled, both by the character of 
 its soil and the form of its mountains, the struggle of the two elements which had 
 successively desolated it. The old and eternal conflict between the Dragon and the 
 Hydra, between fire and water, was inscribed in every possible character upon its melan- 
 choly surface, grotesquely striped with brown, gray, or dingy buff, and everywhere of 
 a cold, forbidding dulness in spite of the torrents of light which the sun, now in its 
 meridian, poured down upon it. In contrast with these dull and dusty hues, which no 
 doubt a geologist Avould have admired, but from which an artist would have turned 
 his eyes in despair, two smiling, luminous colours— the pure blue of the atmosphere and 
 the blue of the sea — could not fail to arrest the eye. At the moment when I turned 
 towards the latter to look a last adieu, two specks might be discerned, though scarcely 
 visible, in its vast extent. The one was a ship running almost due south — it was pro- 
 bably that of our friend the captain — the sails of which at this distance looked like a 
 bit of white down carried away by the wind ; the other was a steam-ship, which, with 
 her prow turned northward, left behind her an almost imperceptible trail of smoke. 
 
 The muleteers having finished their collation, clubbed together to pay the expense, 
 an operation which took up some little time, owing to the slowness with which each 
 reluctantly paid his part. We then remounted our beasts, and turning our backs 
 upon the group of hostesses, directed our steps towards the Pampas of Hay, a sea of 
 sand some 60 miles across and 180 in length, whose waves, so immovable yet so 
 mobile, resembled to the eye those of the ocean which once covered the plain. 
 With the view of crossing the plain in a diagonal direction we had set our faces 
 to the north-east, and given the rein to our steeds in order that they might choose 
 their own pace, it being important above all things to economize their strength. 
 The intelligent creatures profited by the circumstance to break their ranks and re-form 
 in column, a strategic disposition which mules prefer, I know not why, to the square 
 of Ecnomus, the pig's head of Alexander, and even the famous wedge of Gustavus 
 Adolphus. This movement having been effected with remarkable precision, each 
 animal sniffed the air strongly, bent down his ears, stretched out his neck, and fell into 
 step behind his companion, the muleteers simply muttering their discontent. 
 
 A journey across this desert is not without its dangers. The wind of the ocean 
 ploughs its surface, and continually changes its aspect. From morning to evening, 
 from hour to hour, there is no more rest for these sands than for the waves themselves. 
 
14 
 
 PERU. 
 
 Cavities open, hillocks are heaped up, ridges form, only to close, to fall in again, to be 
 dispersed, and succeeded by others like them. In order to steer their course over this 
 uncertain sea, the pilots of the pampas observe the position of the sun by day, and of 
 the stars by night. These are sure guides which never fail them, but their path is also 
 marked out by the bones of animals that have perished in the endeavour to cross the 
 plain. These sad landmarks indicate by their position to the right or to the left, their 
 proximity or their greater distance, that the traveller is more or less in the right track. 
 For this reason they are always descried with satisfaction, notwithstanding the mingled 
 disgust and pity which the sight of them provokes. I am speaking now of disinterested 
 and intelligent travellers. As for the mercenary and hard-hearted muleteers, these 
 bones, recalling so much lost capital, rather provoke their ill-humour than any show 
 of tenderness. 
 
 We had already continued our march a considerable time, often sounding the 
 depths of the pampas with a searching glance without discovering anything that 
 resembled a carcass, when a cry which parodied that of the antique sybil, " The bones, 
 see the bones!" was uttered by a veteran arriero at the head of the column. All 
 turned their eyes towards the point indicated, and southward, at the visual extremity of 
 the plain, it was possible to discern a whitish belt which resembled those veins of salt- 
 petre or of sea-salt so frequently to be found in these latitudes. Acting upon the advice 
 of our leader, who asserted that we ought to pass to windward of these forsaken car- 
 casses, we bent our course to the right, and went to reconnoitre them. 
 
 Grouped in little heaps, and disposed in a single line which lost itself in the 
 horizon, these bones were more or less blanched, more or less polished, according to 
 the lapse of time since the death of the poor animal who had owned them. In a 
 certain symmetry which marked their arrangement I could not foil to recognize the 
 hand of man, although our attendants, when I made the observation, seriously assured 
 me that it was all the work of the wind. When, however, I showed them that some of 
 the heads of the horses and mules were adorned with thigh-bones stuck in the cavities 
 of the eyes or ears, and that there were other grotesque arrangements of the same 
 character, our facetious friends burst into a laugh, from which I concluded that these 
 mournful attentions which they had set down to the account of the wind, were really 
 the work of their own hands, or of comrades like them. 
 
 The further we advanced the more evidence we saw of recent debris added to 
 the old, which at length they entirely covered like an alluvial bed. Some of the 
 bones were still clothed with blackened flesh and dried integuments; some entire 
 skeletons, perfect models of the living form, recalled to my memory the horse ridden 
 by Death in the Apocalypse. Other carcasses still retained their skin, and under the 
 skin, which sounded like a drum, and was as tight as an umbrella, troops of vultures 
 {Percnoj)terus urubu), the accustomed guardians of these solitudes, had taken up their 
 abode. Following the example of the rat of La Fontaine, who made his nest in a 
 Dutch cheese, these rapacious birds, having first eaten the flesh of the beast, make a 
 house of his inside. At the noise caused by our approach they came out from their 
 dens one by one, fixed upon us their cruel, withered eyes, and returned into their holes 
 
I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 15 
 
 when we had passed. The more curious or the more starved among them woidd perch 
 himself upon a rib or thigh-bone, as upon a branch, and with oblique looks seem to 
 watch the pace of our mules, as if speculating on the chance of one being left on the 
 road. If so, their expectations were disappointed ; our poor beasts, although they 
 carried their tails between their legs and their ears bent, were able to continue their 
 journey without accident, to the no small satisfaction of their owners. 
 
 LANDMARKS OF THE ROUTE ACROSS THE PAMPAS TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 No incident occurred during our further progress. The sun, after it had almost 
 grilled our heads and necks, at last went clown behind us, and had almost disappeared 
 when a gentle breeze from the Cordilleras began to blow across the plain. At 
 first our lungs inspired it with delight, but at the end of an hour the light wind 
 became a sharp cutting blast, and we were glad to wrap ourselves in a woollen cloak 
 in addition to the poncho of white cotton which we had worn during the day. 
 We marched thus till ten o'clock, through a deepening obscurity which the " clearness 
 that falls from the stars" changed into twilight. Just then a black mass loomed 
 before us a little in advance, and we recognized the tampu or caravansary of the 
 pampas. Our mules recognized it also, and lengthening their steps soon pulled 
 up at the threshold of that desert hostelry, where it was customary for travellers 
 to halt for the sake of resting their beasts rather than themselves. 
 
16 
 
 PERU. 
 
 The tampu, which the Quichua Indians now improperly call a tambo, 1 is a long 
 low wooden house, divided into several compartments and covered with a roof of 
 boards. The micaceous sand of the plain serves for a flooring, and as that sand 
 is the residence of myriads of microscopic but voracious fleas, the traveller, instead 
 of repose, should he attempt to rest, finds himself on a bed of torture, if we may 
 judge from his cries of rage and his angry movements. Setting this inconvenience 
 aside, the tampu has the merit of forming a central station in the desert which 
 separates the village of Hay from the city of Arequipa, and of standing 3917 feet 
 above the level of the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 The point we had reached gave us the exact measure of the distance we had 
 travelled. From noon till ten o'clock we had got over about thirty-three miles, or half 
 the length of the entire distance. This journey, short as it may seem, had nevertheless 
 pretty well used us up. The heat, the saltness of the atmosphere, the intense 
 reflection of the sands had produced on our persons the most dej)lorable effects. 
 We had red noses, cracked lips, and a pulse as furious as if we were suffering from 
 an attack of fever. An hour longer in that burning sun and we must have been 
 roasted to a nicety. The idea of a halt for only a few minutes gave us an infinite 
 sense of relief. Leaving to the guides the care of unsaddling our mules we entered 
 the inn, and found a profound silence reigning there. An opening in the wall of 
 the building, without a door, led into an apartment in which it was impossible to see 
 anything for the darkness. By beating a tatoo upon the walls we endeavoured to arouse 
 any one who might be sleeping in the place; and in fact, awakened by the noise, the 
 master of the hostelry was not slow to call out. To his questions we replied in 
 two words, "Fire! water!" A moment afterwards the man appeared carrying in 
 one hand a bottle with a lighted candle stuck in it, and in the other a pail of water 
 and a goblet, for the possession of which we almost struggled with one another. 
 Having quenched our thirst, we inquired if the place contained any victuals which 
 would prevent us from dying of starvation. It seemed long now since we had tasted 
 of the consul's sandwiches. Our host replied that his available provisions consisted 
 simply of six chickens, alive indeed, but ready to be sacrificed at a sign from us. 
 We, however, not trusting to his interpretation of any sign we could make, roared 
 our acquiescence in an unmistakable manner. Our host bowed, demanded an hour's 
 respite to awake his wife, light the fire, and kill, pluck, prepare, and serve the 
 chickens with an accompaniment of rice and pimento. We granted his request; and 
 by way of passing the time some of our company thought they could not do better 
 than cut with a knife upon the wooden walls of the tampu, their names, and the 
 date of their visit; while others cooled their faces with fresh water, and, in the 
 absence of cold-cream, anointed them with tallow. 
 
 At the expiration of the appointed time our host reappeared, bearing an earthen 
 dish in which, in the midst of a plentiful supply of clear liquid, floated small morsels 
 of the devoted poultry. A wooden spoon was then given to each of us, and seated 
 
 1 The Quichua idiom, altering by degrees through its contact with the Spanish language, has changed its terminations 
 
 cu, hua, pa, pi, pu, &c, into go, gua, ba, bi, bo, &c. &c. 
 
I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 17 
 
 in a circle round the smoking viands, we scrimmaged our best. Our host, discreetly 
 withdrawing into a shady corner, watched the repast, and no doubt felt his self-love 
 as a culinary artist immensely flattered by the ardour with which we wielded our 
 spoons. When the dish was thoroughly cleaned out we threw down our spoons 
 and asked for the bill. Our host had written it out in chalk upon a piece of wood 
 
 TAMPU, OE HOSTELRY OF THE PAMPAS. 
 
 while we were eating, and he now presented it with an obsequious air. It ran as 
 follows: — Vel-agu, 4-16 — Chup-suma, 60*80. Interpreted thus: — 
 
 Vela (candle), 4 reals. 
 Agua (water), 16 reals. 
 Chupe (soup), 60 reals. 
 
 Suma (total), 80 reals. 
 
 As we had not comprehended this little bill in its abbreviated form, we began 
 laughing, but when our host proceeded to explain the thing we laughed no longer. 
 The tallow candle in the bottle was charged four reals, 1 the pail of water two piastres, 2 
 the chicken-broth represented seven piastres and a half; in a word, the cost of this 
 sumptuous repast amounted to some two pounds sterling. A European unaccustomed 
 to the country would certainly have abused the landlord and made a great noise about 
 the matter; but my companions, born in the country, and myself, resident there for 
 many years, judged the matter differently, and paid without a word, but also without 
 giving the least powboire. Our host appeared by no means hurt by the voluntary 
 omission, but pocketed the sum and went out, improvidently leaving his dish behind 
 him, which Ave carefully buried in the sand. 
 
 While this was passing in the interior of the tampu, our attendants, remaining 
 
 1 The value of a real is about 6}d. 2 The value of a piastre is about 4s. 2d. or 4s. 3d. 
 
 vol. i. 3 
 
18 
 
 PERU. 
 
 outside, had managed to take a comfortable nap winked at by the stars, leaving the 
 mules which they had unsaddled to roll on the ground with their feet in the air, 
 and make up by such gambols for the fodder and water they wanted. We woke 
 the fellows up and made them saddle the beasts, a march through the pampas by 
 night being preferable to one by day, as it enabled them to bear an amount of 
 hunger, thirst, and fatigue which would have been insufferable in the heat of the 
 sun. Our Palforio, who had not yet discovered the loss of his dish, assisted the 
 muleteers in their preparation for departure, and did not return into the house until 
 he had seen us in the saddle. 
 
 On leaving the tampu we headed for the east. The wind no longer blew from 
 the Cordilleras, but the air was fresh and bracing. Our mules, quite restored by 
 their short repose, were in capital spirits, taking advantage of which we made them 
 go at a fair pace. About five o'clock a clear whiteness appeared in the sky, the 
 stars paled their lustre, the day began to break. Soon a ruddy orange tint spread 
 over the soil of the pampas, now become firm and compact. In a few minutes 
 the disc of the sun appeared above the horizon, and as we marched full in the front 
 of the god of day, we found ourselves in the midst of a luminous torrent, which 
 so dazzled and incommoded us that to escape from this new torture we doubled 
 ourselves up like hedgehogs. This anomalous and inconvenient posture rendered 
 us unjust to the claims of the rising sun. Instead of welcoming his appearance with 
 transport, we were inclined to curse him; and in the meantime, notwithstanding 
 my own feeling about the matter, I could not help laughing at my Peruvian attendants, 
 who in so many words sent to the devil the god they worshipped. It was not till 
 eight o'clock that the star of day, now high above the horizon, permitted us to raise 
 our heads. The chain of the snowy Andes rose grandly before us, cut by a zone 
 of cerros, which bounded the pampas eastward. We now pursued, in Indian file, 
 the narrow, sinuous, and difficult path which wound at the base of these singular 
 formations. This barren region presented nothing living to view but tufts of cactus 
 (Cereus and Opuntia) shrivelled and cracked by the drought, with a few gray lizards 
 and a great number of turtle-doves. Of the latter we counted three or four varieties. 
 The turtle, like rats, lice, and fleas, must be reckoned among the plagues of the 
 country. It not only devastates the fields of maize and wheat, but fills the air with 
 its continual lamentations. This melancholy bird lodges and bewails itself indifferently 
 in any corner. One finds it in the midst of the volcanic cinders of the sea-coast, 
 in the quartzose sands inland, among the rocks of the Sierra, beneath the trees of 
 the sultry valleys, and even in the poetry of the Quichua rhapsodists, who, not contented 
 with calling the silly bird urpilla-chay (darling turtle), compare it to the women 
 of their nation, a figure of speech, by the way, of which I do not recognize the 
 propriety. 
 
 The singular region which we were now traversing, and which stretches from seven 
 to eight degrees in length by three miles in breadth at most (if one could fly across 
 it as the turtles do!), cost us the loss of two weary hours, to say nothing of the 
 heat and dust which we had to endure. But we were well repaid for these troubles 
 
1 L AY TO A RE QUI PA. 
 
 10 
 
 by the scene which lay before us when, having rounded the last cerro, we found our- 
 selves upon the esplanade which serves as the floor, if I may so speak, of these 
 mineral formations. At our feet lay the valley of Arequipa, a profound ravine, some 
 500 feet deep, about six miles in breadth, and forty-five miles long in the direction seen 
 from this point. Carpeted with green of various shades, it was dotted at every vantage- 
 point with villages, farms, and country-houses, while through its commingled light and 
 shade meandered two rivers which en- 
 tered the plain from opposite points, ap- 
 proached each other, lovingly wound their 
 way side by side for a certain distance, 
 and at length merged their waters in one 
 full stream. The whole eastern side of 
 the valley was bounded by the first pla- 
 teau of the Western Andes, that vast pile 
 of snowy heights whose higher pathways 
 seemed to scale the heavens. Two sierras, 
 connected with the principal chain of 
 mountains, to which they served as but- 
 tresses, loomed up in front. That on the 
 right named Pichu-pichu, was serrated 
 like a saw, the other on the left, called 
 Chachani, rose perpendicular as a wall. 
 A space of about sixty miles in circuit 
 separated the two masses, and from the 
 centre of that area, sloping from east to 
 west, sprang in all its native majesty and 
 its unrivalled configuration the cone of 
 Misti, 1 one of the finest volcanoes which 
 crown the Andes at various points from 
 Tierra del Fuego to the equator. 
 
 The valley of Arequipa was discov- 
 ered in the commencement of the thir- 
 teenth century by the fourth Inca, Mayta- 
 
 Capac, who, following the example of his predecessors, left his capital Cuzco with a 
 view of extending the bounds of the empire, and of rallying to the worship of the sun 
 the unsubdued tribes who peopled the littoral, and the snowy sierra. After subju- 
 gating the Aymaras of the plateau of Tiahuanacu in higher Peru, he had traversed 
 
 — — j 
 
 CEREUS CANDELARIS AND OPDNTIA. 
 
 1 Modern geographers have mistakenly substituted for the Misti, which rises above the valley and city of Arequipa, 
 the Huayna-Putina, which they call Guaga-Putina, and place on a branch of the Western Andes; while, in fact, this 
 volcano is situated on the main chain, in the valley of Moquehua, above the village of Ornate — that is to say, about 
 ninety miles south-east of Arequipa. Having pointed out this threefold error, I will only add that the Misti, which some 
 travellers have tried to ascend, is forty miles in circumference at its base. Its height above the sea is 15,223 feet; above 
 the Tampu and Pampa of Hay it measures 11,300 feet; and above the central Place of Arequipa, 8/)45 feet. 
 
20 
 
 PERU. 
 
 the double chain of the Andes above the sources of the Apurimac to reduce to servi- 
 tude those of the Aymara nation who lived in the environs of Pari Huanacocha 
 (Flamingo Lake), under the fifteenth degree. These two expeditions having been 
 completed, the Inca was traversing the foot of the Western Cordilleras when he came 
 by chance where the Sierra of Velilla opened to this valley of Arequipa, then unin- 
 habited and called Coripuna (the plain of gold), from the name of a volcano, now 
 
 REGION OF CEKEOS OR RUGGED HILLS NEAR AREQUIPA. 
 
 extinct and covered with snow, which rises on the borders of the provinces of 
 Cailloma and Arequipa. 1 
 
 We are ignorant, and the Spanish chroniclers were as ignorant as ourselves — for 
 they say nothing about it, and are not the people to keep a secret — what aspect that 
 valley presented, deprived of inhabitants and denuded of culture, at the epoch when 
 Mayta-Capac took possession of it in the name of the Sun, his divine ancestor. But 
 the continual rising of its level during the period of volcanic activity of the Huayna- 
 Putina — which, as explained on a previous page, must not be confounded with the Misti 
 
 1 By the side of this volcano, the cone of which is perfectly regular, rises another named the Padre Eterno, now 
 extinct like the Coripuna, and like it covered with snow from the summit to the base during the whole year. They are 
 both situated in the same parallel as the volcano (Misti) of Arequipa at the foot of the chain of the Western Andes. They 
 are distinctly visible from the descent of the Recoleta, near the bridge of Arequipa. 
 
I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 21 
 
 — a period which comprises the eruptions of 1582, 1600, 1G04, 1G09, 1G87, 1725, 1732, 
 and 1738, allows us to suppose that in the thirteenth century the depth of its bed must 
 have been double what it now is, its slope from south to north very slight, its 
 temperature more elevated and more equal ; while as to its flora and fauna, they were 
 the same, with the exception of a few species, as they are at the present day. 1 
 
 The actual physiognomy of the valley is characterized by an inclination of 7113 feet, 
 reckoning from the Sierra de Characato, where it begins, to the vale of Quellca fronting 
 the ocean, where it terminates after a course of ninety-six miles. Its vegetation in 
 a temperature which varies from 39° to 90° Fahrenheit, presents successively barley, rye, 
 and the quinoa (Chenopodium Quinoa) of cold countries, wheat and maize, the fig and 
 
 PEONS OF THE VALLEY OF AREQUIPA. 
 
 the raisin, the olive and the pomegranate of southern Europe, and the sugar-cane and 
 banana of the tropics. To the traveller who arrives panting and covered with dust on 
 the threshold of that region of cerros, this long strip of verdure, sweetly softened by 
 the distance and varying its aspect each league, is like a land of promise, a peep of that 
 fertile Canaan which at length terminates the desert, It rejoices his soul, renews his 
 strength, and has the effect on his sight, scorched by the hot reflection of the sands, of 
 an extended shade of green taffeta. 
 
 This fertile valley, so remarkable on many grounds, so picturesque in its entire 
 aspect and details, has nothing, or next to nothing, to offer to the naturalist. Its 
 flora and its fauna, together with those of the environs of Arequipa, are meagre in 
 the extreme, and the catalogue of plants and animals which they comprise would not 
 take long to draw up. Let us take, hap-hazard, and without troubling ourselves with 
 the methodic order established by science for the classification of families, the speci- 
 mens which present themselves to us in descending from the hills into the plain. 
 
 In the region of cerros, which bounds the valley on its western side, there grow 
 
 1 The Ardea alba, or white heron, and the Phoenicopterus, or flamingo, observed in the time of the first Incas, have 
 long since disappeared from these countries. 
 
22 
 
 PERU. 
 
 two varieties of cactus — the Cereus peruvianus and the candelaris. Every crevice in 
 the rock, every joint between two stones, gives foothold to a bundle of these cacti, 
 powdered with dust or ashes, and the gray rather than green tint of which adds to 
 the sadness with which the aspect of these places impresses us. Here and there 
 clumped at the base of the cerros in the sands a prickly pear (Cactus opuntia), rough 
 and deformed, vegetates in company with a few grasses and a dwarf caryophyllaceous 
 plant of the genus Silene. 
 
 Lower down, the order of the Malvaceae is represented by a single Hibiscus, with 
 a pale lilac flower, and three varieties of the genus Maha, having properties more or less 
 
 medicinal. The large Indian cress (Tropwolum majus) tap- 
 estries the moist rocks and the crumbling remains of old 
 walls. This is the ivy of the valley; its leaves, beautifully 
 green, are almost as large as those of the water-lily (Nymphwa) 
 of Europe. Nothing can be more charming than their foliage 
 when the rain of the night or the dew of the morning has 
 transformed every leaf into a casket of green velvet filled 
 with liquid diamonds. 
 
 The order of the Compositw counts in the valley seven or 
 eight very distinct kinds. At their head figure the chilcas 
 (Vernonia) and the callajas (Baccharis), the thickets of which 
 cover great spaces, and supply the inhabitants with wood for 
 fuel. After these come the genera Onoceris, Actinea, Aster, 
 Helianthus, and Chrysanthemum, represented by poor-looking 
 plants with sea-green almost rigid leaves, and flowers of a 
 more or less lively yellow, growing on the side of the roads. 
 An Onagraria, which the inhabitants call tumbo (Fuchsia gigantea), has a flower eight 
 inches long, of a delicate pink colour, and forms in some places masses of surpassing 
 elegance. In the neighbourhood of this plant, with its pendulous stalks, grows a 
 shrub, of from five to six feet in height, of the family of Papilionacece and the genus 
 Amorpha. Its flowers, growing in loose spikes, are of a bluish lilac, and have only 
 one petal, the standard or vexillum. 
 
 The Mirabilis jalapa (rubra), or belle -of- the -night, is the only individual of the 
 family of Nyctaginacece. In the shallow water on the margins of running streams, and 
 mingled with AUsmacew and some Hydrocharaceoe, grow three varieties of Hydrocotyles 
 — the quinqueloba, the midtiflora, and the gracilis — a celery and a cress, both eatable, 
 and some Juncew or reeds. Some additional specimens increase the catalogue as we 
 descend towards the valleys of Utchumayo and Victor, which continue under other 
 names that of Arequipa as we approach the Pacific. 
 
 The fauna of the valley is scarcely richer than its flora. In the order of Carnivora, 
 family of the Cheiroptera, we only know of an insectivorous bat, very similar to the 
 species in Europe known as the long-eared. It lurks during the day in holes of the 
 walls or under the thatch of roofs, and leaves its den at twilight to commence the 
 chase of its prey. 
 
 Farmer (Chacarero) of the Valley 
 of Arequipa. 
 
I LAY TO AREQUiPA. 
 
 23 
 
 The first group of the digitigrade Carnivora numbers only one individual of the 
 weasel species, which dwells in the crevices of the cerros, from whence in the night 
 its odour spreads far and wide. The country people call it the zorrino, or little 
 fox. I have nothing further to say of this animal, as I have not seen it; but I 
 have smelled it more than once, and feel justified in promptly dismissing it. 
 
 In the order of Rodentia or gnawers, genus Cavea, the guinea-pig figures under 
 the name of coy, and has been famous since the time of the Incas. The natives 
 keep it in their dwellings, as did their ancestors, and eat it with all kinds of sauces. 
 Its flesh is most delicate; its fur, in the wild state, is of a bluish gray, with a 
 touch of white, something like the chinchilla. Other individuals of the order, less 
 appreciated than these by the natives, are the surmulots, or rats of the country. 
 These animals go in bands of ten or a dozen ; their colour is a reddish brown ; their 
 length about ten inches, without reckoning the tail. In a single night they have 
 been known to destroy a whole field of maize, by gnawing through the stalks and 
 wasting the grain. Besides these surmulots we find the true rat, a little larger 
 than our domestic kind, and remarkable for its singular voracity, if I may judge by 
 the fact that one of them began gnawing my thumb when I was asleep, making a 
 wound the scar of which is still visible. 
 
 Passing from quadrupeds to birds, the order of Diurnal Raptores is represented 
 by a vulture, the Percnopterus urubu, which clears the country of carrion and every 
 kind of uncleanness. Next below him is an individual of the falcon tribe, of the 
 sparrow-hawk kind, who wages a war of extermination against young chickens. In 
 the order of Passerinw Conirostres two individuals may be mentioned, a crested sparrow 
 of a dull colour like that of our common sparrow, and not less impudent in its 
 manners, and a warbler with ashen gray plumage, white eyelids, and a black patch 
 on its forehead. The tribe of Dentirostres comprises a blackbird with yellow beak 
 and claws, called by the natives chiliuanco, and the chirote, with a breastplate of fire 
 {Turdus militaris). Of the wren family I have seen but one individual, whose plumage 
 is of a dull olive tint, varied with white and brown spots. 
 
 Two varieties of doves frequent the valley commanded by Areqnipa: one the size 
 of a thrush, the other not bigger than a skylark. The plumage of both is very nearly 
 the same. It is of a bluish ashen colour, with some warmer tones of yellow and a 
 ring of rainbow hues around the neck. The eyelids are azure, the beak and feet 
 of a pinky orange. These birds commit great ravages in the barley-fields; as do 
 the troops of dwarf parrots, whose plumage is of a uniform green. 
 
 From October to February, the beautiful spring days and the heats of summer 
 attract into the valley two varieties of humming-bird (Trochilus) of a greenish-brown 
 colour, and a swallow with a white rump. These birds return to their homes 
 in the Victor, Majes, and Camana valleys, when the first autumn rains and the snows 
 which fall upon the Sierra have cooled the atmosphere. 
 
 In the frozen waters of the rivers and brooks, along the margins of which hops a 
 species of rail {Macrodactyle) , is to be found a gray frog called by the inhabitants sapo- 
 de-agua (water-toad), no doubt to distinguish it from an enormous batrachian found 
 
24 
 
 PERU. 
 
 in the fields, and which they call the land-toad. These waters support, besides, 
 some very fine crayfish, and a single fish of the carp family (Cyprinus), called by the 
 natives peje-rey, the fish-king. 
 
 On coming to the end of this nomenclature, at which perhaps the reader has 
 scarcely deigned to glance, I find that I had almost forgotten the reptiles of the 
 country, and more especially the saurians. Yet the valley of Arequipa possesses 
 two little gray lizards of very lively habits. Their omission, indeed, would not have 
 been a very serious matter, as we do not usually keep a strict reckoning of our 
 friends, and for a long time the lizard has been recognized as the friend of man. 
 
 A narrow path, forming a steep descent, led down into 
 the valley on the left bank of the Tampu, one of the two 
 streams by which it is watered. We crossed by a ford opposite 
 Ocongate, a group of cottages shaded by a species of sallow, 
 pointed in form, and so closely set as to hide with a verdant 
 curtain the base of the hill on the summit of which stand the 
 church and houses of Tiabaya, a small town once renowned 
 for its drinking and dancing festivities. Till now the difficul- 
 ties of the ground had compelled us to march in column ; but 
 on turning a hill we found it possible to deploy into line upon 
 a fine and perfectly level road, bordered by cultivated fields, 
 and the ranchos of the Indians. Henceforth we had to fear 
 neither hunger nor thirst, neither sunstrokes nor shifting sands, 
 and the sense of this relief gave to the conversation of our 
 friends a turn which became more and more sportive. The 
 muleteers, gratified at having brought their cattle in safety 
 through the difficulties of the way, bawled their delight in ear-splitting shouts and 
 melodies. One sang a ballad the subject of which was the delight of revisiting one's 
 family and friends after a long absence, and at each return of the refrain — for this ode 
 to native-land had a refrain — the very mules neighed and threw up their heels, as if 
 they too had a domestic hearth and a family circle awaiting them. In this joyous 
 mood we arrived at the hamlet of Sachaca, composed of less than a score of poor 
 huts built in the sheltered crannies of a trachytic rock which bars the road. It is at 
 Sachaca, so say the legends, that the sorcerers, the goblins, and elves of the environs 
 are wont to assemble on moonlight nights. Unfortunates wearing cravat-wise the 
 rope with which they had been hanged ; others who had been flayed alive, dragging 
 their bloody skins after them; and the decapitated carrying their heads under their 
 arms, figure in these reunions. All that is grotesque and revolting in the world of 
 imagination throng the paths, eat, drink, and dance, play with the bones of the dead 
 upon the gaping coffins, and vanish into thin air at cock-crow. In vain the inhabitants 
 of Sachaca have had recourse to the exorcists of the country to disperse these nocturnal 
 phantoms; in vain they have placed crosses and sacred bushes over their doors. The 
 sorcerers have burned the crosses to cook their broth, transformed the bushes into 
 brooms, and notwithstanding all the enchantments of their rivals in art, have remained 
 
 A Farmer's Wife (Chacarera) of the 
 Valley of Arequipa. 
 
ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 25 
 
 masters of the place. To this day Sachaca is an accursed spot, at the sight of which 
 the good women sign themselves with the cross under pretence of kissing their thumb, 
 and which no man would dare to pass at midnight unless he had drank enough to 
 forget his usual prudence. 
 
 As it was now eleven o'clock in the morning, and sorcerers and owls do not 
 show themselves by daylight, our muleteers halted at Sachaca to drink a jug of the 
 native beer (chieha), which they say is excellent. Our friends, curious to verify the fact, 
 caused some glasses to be served; but notwithstanding their pressing entreaties, I 
 refused to drink, not from any repugnance to that particular beverage, which I prefer 
 to stagnant water, but because I feared — and the reputation of Sachaca sufficiently 
 
 VILLAGES OF OCONGATE, TIABAYA, AND UJfAIiO. 
 
 justifies the fear — that its beer, brewed under a malign influence, might act upon my 
 reason like the juice of the lotus, or the moly of Homer, and detain me for ever in a 
 country which I had arranged to quit on the morrow about this very hour. 
 
 From Sachaca to Yanahuara, three miles distant, the road is admirable, and the 
 country cultivated with great care. Fields of maize, clover, and potatoes, squares of 
 golden grain, streams bordered with well-grown willows, mud-built houses coloured white, 
 blue, or pink, combined to form a landscape upon which the eye rested with pleasure. 
 Here and there, in arbours formed of trailing gourds loaded with their pale yellow 
 fruit, and surmounted with a pennon of the Peruvian colours, the sign of a rural 
 cabaret — town cabarets have only a wisp of straw for their emblem — men and women 
 in many-coloured garments, with complexions like sepia, and hair flowing down 
 upon their shoulders, swallowed their favourite drink, strummed their three-stringed 
 guitar, tootled a cracked pipe, and frisked merrily about, now embracing, now gourman- 
 dizing, now dancing again to the accompaniment of shouts and bursts of laughter, 
 mingled with oaths, and ending in their dropping off to sleep with their heads under the 
 shade of the arbour, and their feet in the sun, in such attitudes as would have sent a 
 painter of genre into ecstasies. These exhibitions of local manners, to which my com- 
 panions paid scarcely the least attention, familiar as they were with them from child- 
 
 \UL. I. 4 
 
26 
 
 PERU. 
 
 hood, gave me, I must confess, the greatest pleasure. My curiosity and my philosophy 
 were alike gratified. Pictures so artistically composed, so rich in colour, so alive with 
 movement, charmed my eyes at the same time that they supplied me with serious 
 subjects for reflection. I found myself surprised into silent disquisitions upon the 
 nature of man in general, and in particular upon that of these indigenes, happy under 
 the shadow of a gourd which served them at once for house, tent, and sunshade. 
 "Happy people!" I said to myself, as I jerked the bridle of my mule, "whose appetite 
 
 HAMLET OF S A C H A C A. 
 
 of hunger is satisfied with a pumpkin; a people worthy of the age of gold, content 
 to dine on a potato roasted in the ashes, to sup on a raw onion, to forget the very 
 necessity of eating, provided they get something to drink, and pass through life to the 
 sweet sounds of the flute and guitar, without disquieting themselves about a battered 
 hat, or a ragged pair of breeches; who regret nothing, and are ambitious of nothing, 
 not even of a new shirt, though it may be the first of January, and the one that has 
 been worn for a year may be dropping off their backs; whose only fault — a very 
 innocent one — is to organize an emeute once a month, and set up a new president of the 
 republic. Alas!" I concluded with a sigh, "to what Nova Zembla, or what Papua, 
 innocent of civilization, would it be necessary to direct one's steps to find a worthy 
 parallel to such a people!" 
 
 Beyond Yanahuara, a little village remarkable for nothing but its name (black 
 breeches) and its springs of sparkling water running in granite channels, the houses are 
 closer together, and border both sides of the road. Drinking places now become 
 
I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 29 
 
 more frequent, their white and red streamers waving in the air like the wings of 
 flamingoes. Troops of llamas laden with dried figs, pimento, charcoal, or rock-salt, 
 mingle in busy contact with convoys of asses and mules. Indians of both sexes pass to 
 and fro chattering with emulous loquacity. As we advance, the crowd and the noise 
 augment; songs, too, are heard in the distance, which, mingling with this tumult, 
 impart to it a joyous and holiday-making aspect. These people throng the approaches 
 of a great city. Suddenly, on turning from the Recoleta — an advanced post of squalid 
 and blackened houses, where the chicha brewers smoke night and day like chimneys — 
 a rapid fall of the ground brings to view, in a perspective of dazzling light and 
 pure azure, the city of Arequipa, lying at the foot of the great volcano Misti, and 
 crowned as with a diadem by the snows of the Sierra. 
 The coup cVoeil is magical. Nothing more beautiful was ever 
 seen at an opera. Mexico in its plain, Santiago du Chili, 
 backed by the Cordillera de Mendoza, could alone for splen- 
 dour of prospect furnish a parallel to it. 
 
 From the Eecoleta we descended towards a bridge of 
 six arches by which it communicates with the city. This 
 bridge, which has somewhat the look of a Roman aqueduct, 
 crosses at the height of more than a hundred feet the bed of 
 the river Chile, the sister stream of the Tampu, which flows 
 by Ocongate. A furious torrent when swelled by the melting 
 of the snows, the Chile during the rest of the year is nothing 
 but a common brook haunted by carp and crayfish, where the 
 washerwomen of the city come to beat their linen, to a noisy 
 
 accompaniment of shouting and singing. As these admired "cholas" wear short 
 petticoats and chemises very loose about their necks, numbers of loungers [aficionados) 
 come every day between the hours of three and six, under pretext of a promenade, 
 to loll upon the parapet of the bridge and watch the women in the river. For three 
 mortal hours these genteel loiterers lean on the parapet ogling the women, and deliver- 
 ing themselves of observations more or less piquant, all the time spitting in the water 
 to make rings. There were none of these gentlemen on the bridge, however, when 
 we passed, nor did a single short-petticoated chola exhibit herself on the banks of the 
 river. This, however, surprised us little: just then all the clocks of the city were 
 sounding the mid-day hour, at which time, when the sun is beginning to glare too 
 fiercely, the citizens take a siesta in their houses, and the washerwomen, leaving their 
 linen and their soap to the care of Providence, go to enjoy a jug of beer under the 
 shade of the cabaret. 
 
 The first street into which we enter after leaving the bridge is the Calle del Pnente, 
 a long narrow avenue of stone buildings, the trade of which chiefly consists in 
 provisions and drink. Every house in the street is a shop where black olives, unctuous 
 cheese, butter put up in bladders, dried fish, fag-ends of salt pork prepared in fat, 
 salads chopped small like minced meat, and fritters soaked in treacle, are exposed 
 to the admiring gaze of the passengers in a state of mingled disorder, which is nothing 
 
 Chola Washerwoman. 
 
30 
 
 PERU. 
 
 less than the effect of art. Leathern bottles of wine and tafia (a kind of rum) here and 
 there showed their rounded forms. The odour which exhales from these dens of 
 indigestion would make a European sick; but the native sniffs it with delight, gifted 
 as he is by nature with a voracious appetite, and a stomach strong enough to digest 
 glass-bottles. 
 
 From the Calle del Puente we hastened with our mules at full gallop to the great 
 square (Plaza Mayor) of Arequipa. Several streets radiate like the spokes of a wheel 
 from this place as a centre. Having to proceed in opposite directions to regain our 
 respective dwellings, we halted at this spot as with common consent, conscious 
 that the hour of separation had at last arrived. The dinner on board the Vicar 
 of Bray rendered quite superfluous a farewell festivity, which, according to the custom 
 of the country, my friends had not been slow to offer me. Under the circumstances 
 they contented themselves with clasping me in their arms, while their eyes were more 
 or less filled with tears according to the degree of affection which existed between 
 us. "Write to us" — "Write to me" — "Yes, I will write" — were the last words which 
 we exchanged. A quarter of an hoivr after this affecting scene the door of my house, 
 situated in the Rue de Huanamara, closed upon me. 
 
 Here I find myself obliged to open a parenthesis to beg the reader's pardon if I do 
 not invite him into my parlour, for I wish it to be understood that I really enjoyed 
 that luxury. It was a vaulted apartment with two holes in the roof for the admission 
 of air and light; the walls, of granite, were three feet thick and were jDainted yellow. 
 The floor was paved in a geometrical pattern with black and blue and white stones. But 
 my parlour, otherwise not unworthy of notice, is at the moment of which I write turned 
 inside out, as the saying is. The furniture is concealed under packages; the floor is 
 encumbered with baskets and boxes, a fine layer of dust covers everything, and the 
 spider, taking advantage of my long absence, has stretched his web from angle to 
 angle of the walls. It being impossible, under these circumstances, to find so much 
 as a chair to offer my reader; and being unwilling to leave him standing in the street 
 till the hour of my departure, I beg permission to escort him through the city, and 
 substituting action for description, give him certain details about Arequipa which he 
 would seek in vain in geographies, itineraries, and guide-books. 
 
 Two Spanish chroniclers of the seventeenth century, Garcilaso de la Vega, and the 
 reverend father Bias Valera, explain the etymology of Arequipa in the following 
 fashion. When the Inca Mayta Capac, says Garcilaso, had discovered the valley of 
 Coripuna, some of the Indians who accompanied him, charmed by the beauty of the 
 sight and the agreeable temperature, expressed their desire to establish themselves here. 
 "Since the place pleases you," said the Inca, " ariqquepay," 1 that is, "by all means 
 remain here." 
 
 Three thousand men, it is said, remained. 
 
 1 Those who are inclined to put faith in this etymology will at least permit me to observe that the woi'd ari-qque*pay, 
 by corruption arequipa, formed from the affirmative particle ari, and from qquepay, the imperative of the verb, may be 
 understood in two distinct senses: the verbs qqueparini (to remain behind), and qquepacani (to contain within certain 
 bounds, understood of capacity or extent), both make qquipay in the imperative. 
 
I LAY TO AREQU I PA. 
 
 33 
 
 Valera simply observes that the word Arequipa signifies "sonorous or loud- 
 sounding trumpet." In the idiom of the children of the Sun quepa does, in fact, mean a 
 trumpet, but the affirmative particle ari does not express any idea of sonorousness. 
 We believe in this etymological guess the least. 
 
 During two centuries, Arequipa, a simple Indian village, like its neighbours 
 Sucahuaya and Paucarpata, which date from the same epoch, was governed by curacas 
 or caciques nominated by the reigning Inca. In 1536, on the 5th of July, Pedro 
 
 THE AUTHOR'S HOUSE AT AREQUIPA. 
 
 Anzurez de Campo Kedondo, one of the adventurers who followed Pizarro into 
 America, destroyed the village, and built a city in its place. Since that period, 
 Arequipa, eight times partially destroyed, and thrice overthrown from its very founda- 
 tions by earthquakes, has twice changed its site. Let me, however, hasten to say, for 
 the honour of the Misti at whose foot the city is built, that this volcano is by no means 
 responsible for the calamities which have befallen the city. The author of all its evils is 
 the Huayna-Putina of the valley of Moquehua, a fire -belching mountain which 
 geographers of robust faith have transported into the valley of Coripuna. 
 
 The most violent eruption of Huayna-Putina took place in 1609. The first signs 
 of the volcanic tempest were hollow rumblings beneath the earth's crust. These 
 subterranean disturbances, accompanied by ear-splitting claps of thunder, were followed 
 by torrents of rain, which continued to fall for fourteen days. Then the volcano began 
 to eject cinders, stones, and sand in such masses, and to such an extent, that the 
 light of the sun was obscured. This frightful tempest continued for forty-five days. 
 The city of Arequipa was completely destroyed, and, as well as its valley, was covered 
 
 VOL. I. " 
 
34 PERU. 
 
 with a thick bed of ashes. The neighbouring rivers, obstructed by sand and stones, 
 changed their course, leaving upon their shores thousands of dead fish, the corruption 
 of which occasioned a pestilence in the country. Beyond Quellca, at the mouth of the 
 valley, the waters of the sea, to a distance of ten miles, were turned to a grayish 
 colour; and Lima, the royal capital, at a distance of more than GOO miles, could count, 
 by the reports which from minute to minute shook the ground, every throe of the 
 agony suffered by Arequipa. 
 
 The present city, occupying an area of about 26,000 square yards, is far from 
 being symmetrically laid out. It is divided into five quarters, which are subdivided 
 into eighty-five blocks {ties or cuadras), giving a total of 2064 houses for a popula- 
 tion of about 17,000 souls. The number of cabarets is 928, a figure which at first 
 may seem very high, but will not be thought extraordinary if we bear in mind the 
 burning thirst of a people who live and multiply over a volcano. The quarters of the 
 city, respectively named Santo Domingo, San Francisco, San Mercedo, San Agustin, 
 and Miraflores, have each a church and a convent for men; besides which, there are 
 three convents for women, a Bdguinage under the protection of St. Francis, and a 
 house of spiritual exercise, where, during the "holy week," the fair sex of Arequipa 
 come to flagellate themselves in remembrance of the passion of our Lord. The idlers 
 of the city, aware of this circumstance, are accustomed at night to station themselves 
 under the windows of this pious abode, to listen to the blows of the whip which the 
 women apply to one another in the darkness, accompanying the operation with sharp 
 cries. 
 
 The churches and convents, constructed for security against earthquakes, present 
 little that is remarkable in architecture. The walls are built of stones to half their 
 height only; all the rest is woodwork, plaster, or loam. The interior arrangement 
 of the convents is always in the form of a square more or less perfect, with a quadri- 
 lateral cloister, from which open the cells. The plan of the churches is that of a 
 capital T, the ancient Tau, or a Latin cross. For the most part they have only a nave 
 without side- aisles. Their vaulted roofs, which rise from forty to fifty feet above the 
 ground, are sometimes strengthened by double arches, and supported by walls, generally 
 smooth, from seven to eight feet thick. In an architectural point of view, the interior 
 of these churches is no doubt a little naked, but that nakedness is more than redeemed 
 by the ornamentation of their facades, where the architect, no longer fearing to 
 compromise the safety of his work, has combined, according to whatever rule he 
 finds most convenient, egg-and tongue mouldings, volutes, cauliflowers and chiccory, 
 fire-pots and balustrades, urns and columns, acroteria and terminals, such as charac- 
 terized the Hispano-Lusitanian taste of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. All 
 these toys, which at a distance one would think were turned rather than sculptured, are 
 whitened with lime-wash, and being placed on the salient points of the straight lines 
 as upon shelves, have the look of those ivory chessmen which are carved by the Chinese 
 and the people of Dieppe. 
 
 If art and taste are at fault in these monuments, they are supplemented by a 
 grand display of wealth. Gold and silver, precious stones and rich draperies, are 
 
ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 35 
 
 lavished with prodigality upon the altars and vestments of the images. The Christs — 
 there are many in the Peruvian calendar, such as the Christ of Earthquakes, of 
 Kemedies, of the Faithful, Dead, &c. — are dressed in skirts of point-lace from England, 
 and have crowns of the Acacia triacantlius, each thorn in which is composed of an 
 emerald five inches long; the nails which fasten the image to the cross have diamond 
 heads, and furrows formed of rubies imitate the blood of the wounds. The blessed 
 Virgins, still more numerous, are dressed in farthingales or hooped petticoats, with 
 court mantles of velvet, brocade, or embroidered satin; head-dresses adorned with 
 streamers; turbans surmounted with feathers, collars of pearls, ear-rings of brilliants, 
 jewelled rings on every finger, watches with chain and charms, 
 brooches and scent -boxes, pocket-handkerchiefs of lace, and 
 fans covered with spangles. 
 
 Seeing such magnificence complacently exposed to the 
 public eye, a stranger who visits the country to seek his for- 
 tune is astonished that the petty thieves of Arequipa — who 
 are as numerous, by the way, as the shop-keepers and coster- 
 mongers themselves — have never yet thought of working this 
 rich mine. One cannot help asking, What scruple or what 
 motive can keep these chevaliers cV Industrie with their hands 
 idly tucked in their pockets? It is simply their wholesome 
 terror of committing any outrage upon Holy Church. As for 
 the huaso, the cholo, or any other ordinary specimen of man- 
 kind, very little would be thought of strangling him, or 
 cutting his throat for the sake of emptying his pockets; but 
 to steal a wax candle from a church is what these conscientious vagabonds would 
 never dare to do, for fear of hell and eternal fire. Such an article of faith, let us 
 admit, is most admirable! Unhappily, sooner or later it is sure to be undermined. 
 The day will come, if it has not already arrived, when these sons of the soil, civilized 
 by contact with packet-boats, steamboats, and transatlantic cables, will seek to rival 
 the pickpockets of Europe, and depend upon it, their first essay will be a master- 
 stroke. 
 
 The churches of Arequipa, often destroyed and rebuilt, are for the most part from 
 two to three centuries old. The cathedral alone, which occupies all one side of the Plaza 
 Mayor, is of quite modern date, having been built to replace the old structure 
 consumed by fire — the work of an incendiary — in 1849. This structure measures 
 about two hundred feet square, and is crowned by two wooden towers with rather squat- 
 looking pyramidal roofs. Eight massive columns of the Roman Ionic order, and many 
 smaller engaged columns, decorate the facade. The central entrance under this is 
 surmounted by a pediment suitably ornamented with an acroterium and other archi- 
 tectural devices. Two porticoes, decorated with numerous Corinthian columns, spring 
 from either extremity of the edifice, which is pierced with numerous windows, and 
 whose total height from the ground to the attic near the apex of the roof may be 
 from forty to fifty feet. This massive structure, square at the base, square at the 
 
36 
 
 PERU. 
 
 roof, virgin white with lime-wash, and glistening with cactus gum, stands out with 
 singular boldness against the ultramarine blue of a sky almost always unclouded. 
 
 Notwithstanding the imposing appearance of the modern cathedral, it is im- 
 possible not to regret the destruction of its predecessor, whose walls of mouse- 
 coloured gray harmonize so well with a style of architectural adornment on which 
 the architect had lavished all his resources of taste. There was no salient point 
 of the old edifice, however slight, which did not support a vase or some other kind 
 of finial. That erection, however, possessed a greater treasure than its wealth of 
 architecture, or the splendours of its sacristy, in its gallery of portraits of bishops, 
 which consisted of nineteen pictures magnificently framed, all destroyed by the 
 fire of 1849. The portraits represented the whole line of bishops who had suc- 
 ceeded to the spiritual government of Arequipa from the year 1614, arranged in 
 chronological order. The figures were of full-length size, painted by native artists, 
 and remarkable for this peculiarity, that the first of the series having served in 
 arrangement, design, and colour as a model for the painter of the second, the 
 subsequent artists had also thought it their duty to follow suit, so that every 
 picture during two centuries had been an exact copy of those which preceded it, 
 and the portraits were so scrupulously alike, so perfectly identical, that one might 
 have supposed only a single picture existed, which was multiplied nineteen times 
 by means of mirrors. While we grieve over the loss of this precious collection of 
 clerical Dromios seated on gilded thrones, all draped in the same fashion, placed in 
 the same attitude, holding the same book, and looking at the same spot, we 
 cannot but lament the indifference of the Peruvian government in regard to dan- 
 ger by fire. Such an institution as firemen are unknown in the great cities of this 
 republic. 
 
 After the churches come the convents, massive and commonplace buildings, which 
 owe nothing to architectural art but the semicircular arches of their galleries. 
 Without the stone cross over their gates, they might be easily mistaken for ordinary 
 private dwellings, their exterior appearance is so poor, cold, and naked. Let me, 
 however, hasten to say that this architectural poverty is not strictly symbolic; all 
 the convents are rich, and they do not conceal the fact. Why should they attempt 
 to do so? every one knows within a few reals the amount of their income, and 
 what profit they derive, one year with another, from the haciendas which they 
 possess in the valleys. 
 
 Besides its wealth in property and hard cash, in the costly ornaments and 
 jewels which adorn its chapels, every convent possesses in its archives and its 
 library, composed of some hundreds of works, often of a rare and precious char- 
 acter, a treasure of which the value is far from being appreciated. The monks, 
 occupied with divers cares, have no time or inclination to bestow a thought on 
 these dusty volumes. They are equally slow to offer any facility to others who 
 would care for them, and it needs a powerful recommendation to be admitted 
 with a view to literary research. By way of compensation, however, the convent 
 cloister is open to all the world. From the hour of six in the morning to six in 
 
I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 39 
 
 the evening any one who pleases may walk up and down in the agreeable shade, 
 and there read or smoke his cigar at pleasure. 
 
 From the containing vessel let us pass to the thing it contains, from the 
 monastery to the monk. Though under the ban in Spain, he enjoys in Peru the 
 highest possible consideration. As in the happiest days of his history, the monk is 
 the adviser of men, the confidant of women, the friend of every house, the welcome 
 guest at every feast. The sight of his frock, so far from inspiring sad and 
 mournful ideas, is the immediate cause of mirth and gaiety. The amiable and 
 tolerant religion of the monk is no hindrance to his enjoyment of the social board 
 or the dance, or of whatever besides that serves to make life pleasant. Like a man 
 of the world (from Avhom he differs only in costume), the monk comes and goes at 
 pleasure, and in all respects enjoys an unlimited liberty of action. Like other 
 people, he has his reception days and his circle of friends. In his cell, transformed 
 into a drawing-room, chocolate, liqueurs, and cakes go the round, politics and 
 music, religion and literature, take their turn; nor are the virtues of the fair sex 
 excluded from the conversation, which is accompanied with a guitar and cigarettes. 
 In a word, one enjoys in the monk's cell every lawful pleasure, though seasoned 
 with I know not what grain of ecclesiastical scruple, which only augments its savour. 
 
 The monastic rule, much more severe in the communities of women, does not 
 permit them under any pretext to cross the threshold of the convent where they 
 have pronounced their vows. Even for a doctor to visit them in case of illness 
 needs a dispensation from the bishop. A gardener is the only male individual 
 whose presence is tolerated in a convent, this happy exception to the general 
 rule not being a man in the eyes of the religiense. Thus secluded beneath the 
 shadow of their lofty walls, these holy women, who one might suppose wearing 
 out their lives in prayers, tears, and mortifying ceremonials, nevertheless pass a 
 sufficiently agreeable time. Their little cell is a thoroughly comfortable apartment, 
 where each nun enjoys as much luxury in drapery and furniture as the for- 
 tune of her family (upon whom the cost of her installation exclusively falls) can 
 afford. Each has her library, her pet birds, her guitar, her little garden of rare flowers, 
 and even her bosom friend, or adopted sister, who shares in her secret ennuis, her 
 pleasures, and her confidences. A friendship of this kind, born in the shade of the 
 cloister, often becomes a passion. From nones to nones there goes on a constant 
 exchange of tender missives, containing endless vows of undying friendship, bouquets 
 of flowers and serenades, sometimes interrupted by a terrible explosion, the cause 
 of which may be a smile, or a slight preference of some kind, shown to a rival. 
 Unconsciously to themselves, these poor recluses play with the profane love which 
 they fancy themselves to have renounced; and who would dream of imputing it to 
 them as a crime? 
 
 Although these devotees cannot leave the convent, they have the privilege of 
 receiving, and even of inviting to lunch, their relations of both sexes, and even the 
 friends of their relatives. The meal on these occasions is served in the parlour — 
 a great vaulted apartment, divided into two by gratings, and the table is placed so 
 
40 
 
 PERU. 
 
 near one of these gratings, that the nun seated at the other side can see and dis- 
 course with her guests. The conversation habitually turns on the recent gossip of 
 the city; every kind of small talk about love-makings, marriages, births and deaths, 
 is mingled with epigrammatic observations and bursts of laughter. When gentle- 
 men are present they do not forget to season their pleasantries with a little of what 
 I may call Attic salt. By merely shutting the eyes one may imagine himself in 
 some ordinary drawing-room in the midst of an animated and fashionable company. 
 
 Sometimes a stranger is invited by the family to one of these monastic but savoury 
 breakfasts. After the ordinary compliments, the nun at once begins to inquire, with 
 an amiable show of interest, as to the birthplace and parentage of her guest. She 
 even questions him as to his orthodoxy and the state of his heart; as to the illusions 
 which time has dispelled, and those which he still cherishes; as to the countries he has 
 visited, and the adventures of which he has been the hero. If the stranger's answers 
 are satisfactory, she makes him promise that when he next passes the convent he will 
 call in to take a glass of sherbet, and exchange a friendly good-day with the desgraciada 
 (unfortunate) who inhabits it: so she styles herself. At the end of the repast, in the 
 general bustle of parting, if the stranger has talked himself into her good graces, a 
 beloved brother, or an influential uncle, undertakes to induce her to raise her vail, 
 that the friend of the family, who has never yet seen her, may carry away her image 
 engraved on his memory. After a little hesitation — for that action so simple is a 
 mortal sin — she yields to their entreaties, not without first assuring herself, by a rapid 
 glance round, that the mother and the sisters have their backs turned. Of course the 
 only way in which a favour of this kind can be acknowledged is to express the most 
 lively admiration, murmuring aside, but so as to be sure that the nun hears, Que faz 
 encantadora ! (What a sweet face !) It may happen that the vestal is snub-nosed, has a 
 jaundiced skin, and but five teeth in her head, but it is the intention she values; and 
 the stranger gains by his harmless flattery the reputation of being a man of taste and 
 a gentleman. 
 
 In a country where pastry-cooks and confectioners have not yet penetrated, these 
 communities of women monopolize the manufacture of sweets, cakes, and ornamental 
 pastry. They supply to order the necessities of every ball, wedding, or other party, 
 sparing no pains to satisfy the public and increase the number of their customers, 
 and this not so much for the love of gain, as for the pleasure of outdoing some other 
 community, because, say they, you may stone us to death for the indiscretion, yet it is 
 undeniable that there exists between the various convents a bitter rivalry, the cause 
 of which is as yet unknown to the physiologist, though the fact is daily attested by the 
 petty annoyances which these religious ladies inflict on each other, and the abuse, 
 nay, blows, which their servants resort to when they meet in the streets. 
 
 Each community is noted for some speciality in cookery, which recommends it 
 to the appreciation of the public. The convent of Ste. Rose has its mazomora au 
 carmin, a preparation of the consistency of pap, and of a reddish colour; it is 
 exposed at night on the convent roof, where the cold imparts some peculiar quality 
 to it. The Ste. Catherine's sisterhood excels in petits -fours (little patties), and in a con- 
 
I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 41 
 
 fiture of chicken stewed in milk of almonds : this is the manjar bianco or blanc-mange 
 of the country. In fine, the Carmelites are proud of their fritters of honey, sprinkled 
 with powder of dried rose-leaves and spangles of gold; and of their imperiaux, or 
 yolks of eggs beaten up with powdered sugar, and curdled by a process unknown 
 to us. Let it be observed that it is not to the community that any particular order is 
 addressed, but to one of the nuns, who, on sending home the cakes, takes care at 
 the same time to send in her bill, as would be done by an ordinary pastry-cook. 
 
 Some of the nuns whose friends cannot afford to assist them, make up a certain 
 amount of income by the sale of their cakes; others, whose friends are wealthy, 
 and who are above profiting in this way, content themselves 
 with making and cooking these dainties from the pure love 
 of the art, and the pleasure they give to their friends and 
 acquaintances. The latter, whom we may call the finer porce- 
 lain of the convent, receive from their friends every Monday 
 enough provisions to last them a week, and which generally 
 consist of a quarter of beef and a whole sheep, to say nothing 
 of tender chickens, choice fish, seasonable game, eggs, fruits, 
 and vegetables. After having selected from these viands the 
 portion they prefer for their own particular cuisine — for our 
 nuns have the privilege of using the pot au feu in their cells 
 whenever they do not wish to go into the refectory — they 
 give the rest to the community, which by this means is enabled 
 to keep its commissariat on a war-footing at small cost. 
 
 Thanks to the troop of cholas, more or less active, more or less acute, that 
 each nun entertains at her cost in the character of domestics, scullions, messengers, 
 and the like, who are in and out of the convent from morning till evening, she 
 knows better than the inhabitants themselves what is going on in the city and 
 suburbs. If a stranger has put up at some tampu, if a citizen has loitered too long 
 opposite some other window than his own, if two drunken senores have fallen foul of 
 each other in the streets instead of singing the office and the Ave Maria, the inhabi- 
 tants of the convent are sure to be the first to hear of the fact, Though she has shut 
 herself up in a tomb, the nun of Arequipa has cleverly kept its roof open to the world. 
 
 Besides the saint day of their convent, which the nuns celebrate by mass with 
 music, and a display of fireworks let off between eleven and twelve in the day 
 according to the custom of the country, there are certain festivals of the church 
 which are solemnized by masquerades, accompanied by songs and dances. Christmas- 
 eve is one of these. Before the episode of the Nativity, theatrically represented 
 by means of painted decorations and pasteboard dolls acting the various parts, 
 the nuns divide themselves into two parties, the one of shepherds, the other of 
 peasants, and carry on a dialogue to the sound of the guitar and accordion, while 
 dancing quadrilles de cir Constance. 1 Eight days previously, such of the nuns as had 
 
 1 Quadrilles for the occasion, in which some appropriate action is introduced: known to some of our readers, perhaps, 
 as "improved quadrilles. " — Tr. 
 
 vol. i. 6 
 
 Chola of Arequipa. 
 
42 
 
 PERU. 
 
 to play in the character of shepherds had borrowed from their relations and friends 
 of the male sex the handsomest articles of their attire, so that they might have 
 time to alter them to their own height, and embellish them with tinsel, ribbons, and other 
 trimmings in the correctest taste. We ourselves remember to have taken on one of 
 these occasions a satin waistcoat, a frock-coat, and a pair of black pantaloons, which 
 had certainly neither a very pastoral nor a very scriptural look, but which, nevertheless, 
 were received with pleasure on account of their elegant French cut. Alas! after 
 Christmas-day we received back our patched garments in a most deplorable condition, 
 
 APPEARANCE OP THE HOUSE-TOPS OF AREQUIPA. 
 
 but as they had been worn by a holy sister, and sanctified by monastic quadrilles, 
 in place of pitching them into the river, as an indifferent or irreligious person would 
 have done, we have preserved them with great care under the name of relics. 
 
 The conventual rule which interdicts the public from admittance into these com- 
 munities of women, the reception-room or parlour excepted, is relaxed in a time of 
 emeute or revolution. In such dreadful times the feminine aristocracy of the city 
 find a welcome and sure asylum in these monasteries, the gates of which are thrown 
 wide open for their reception. It is to them that every family flees for refuge, 
 carrying with them gold and jewels, plate, and whatever precious objects they possess, 
 and leaving the house almost without furniture to the care of a father or a husband 
 who barricades himself in with the customary precautions. After staying a month 
 in a monastery under these circumstances, women have been known to refuse to 
 return under the conjugal roof, captivated by the amiability of the nuns, and the 
 sweetness of intercourse with them. 
 
I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 43 
 
 After death, if the souls of these holy women are borne to heaven on angels' 
 wings, their bodies, which for a long period it was customary to bury in the churches 
 with those of the citizens, are now carried away by men into a vast cemetery, adorned 
 with funereal monuments, at the distance of two leagues southward from Arequipa. 
 Each religious community has in that asylum, which they call an apachecta (place 
 of rest), a special vault. The aristocracy of the city make use of certain parts of the 
 walls, six feet in thickness, pierced with three rows of cells. Each cell is occupied 
 by a single body, the head of which is introduced first as into a sheath, and the 
 entrance of this narrow sepulchre being finally closed with bricks and plaster. As 
 for the Indians of Arequipa, men and women alike are thrown negligently into a 
 great trench, where all the rats of the country come to visit them. 
 
 Now that we have done with the convents of men and women, let us take a 
 stroll through the city hap-hazard, not in the expectation of discovering any remarkable 
 monuments — Arequipa has nothing of the kind — but to get a notion of the arrange- 
 ment of its streets and the aspect of its houses. In general, the streets are broad 
 and well paved, laid out at right angles, with side-walks for foot-passengers, sep- 
 arated from the road by gutters of granite (acequias), in which the torrents of 
 water which pour down from the Cordilleras roll noisily along to the river. The 
 houses resemble each other in all but a few details. They are all built of stone, some- 
 times of gray trachyte, have vaulted roofs, and are pierced with large bay-windows, 
 which are protected by bars of iron, and shutters inside covered with sheet-iron, 
 as a precaution against burglars and the shots of emeutiers. The entrance -gate, 
 generally arched, has two leaves formidably adorned with great S's of iron and heads 
 of nails. Their width is sufficient for two carriages to pass without touching. These 
 houses have only a ground -floor and sometimes one story above, which is nearly 
 always uninhabited, and opens upon a balcony like a long and clumsy chest of carved 
 wood, painted reel, brown, or dark green, and capable of being opened or closed at 
 will by means of movable panels. These balconies, in which the women do not 
 appear except on special occasions, throw deep shadows over the fayades of the 
 buildings. 
 
 The interior of these dwellings is composed of two courts en suite, paved with 
 pebbles, and bordered with broad foot-paths (veredas). The walls of the first court 
 are white-washed, and sometimes ornamented with monochromes in a primitive style, 
 and of a design more primitive still ; representing naval combats, impossible situations, 
 and stations of the cross. The reception-rooms and bedrooms of the family are arranged, 
 in most houses, upon the two lateral faces of this entrance-court, and the bed is 
 placed under the arch of an arcade, which is not less than from four to six feet thick. 
 This peculiar arrangement is a measure of precaution on account of earthquakes. 
 These apartments have no windows, but massive folding-doors, pierced with a judas 
 or a small wicket, which serves to give air and light. Beyond the courts there is 
 generally a garden, bounded by the semicircular arches of a large apartment paved 
 with tiles or flag-stones, which serves as a dining-room. 
 
 It cannot be said that the houses of Arequipa are luxurious abodes. With the 
 
44 PERU. 
 
 exception of those belonging to foreign merchants and distinguished citizens, where 
 paper-hangings are used in the principal rooms, they all have white-washed walls, 
 ornamented with Greek borders, love-knots, and caligraphic flourishes in red ochre 
 or indigo blue. The little furniture they contain is of two kinds: it is either in the 
 Spanish taste, cut out of the solid wood as with a hatchet, coloured white or 
 sky-blue, besprent with roses and china-asters, and relieved by gilded lines; or in 
 
 A BED-ROOM AT AREQUIPA IN THE OLD STYLE. 
 
 the Greek-imperial style, such as Jacob Desmalters was celebrated for manufacturing 
 in 1804; sofas of mahogany (the Indian acajou) with sphinx heads and griffins' feet; 
 chairs with their backs pierced in imitation of a lyre, surmounted with a helmet or 
 a trophy of arms; and all covered with dove-coloured kerseymere, or with silver-gray 
 kerseymere printed a rose pattern. While inspecting these doubtful splendours, the 
 eye discovers here and there, lost in the shade, or dismissed into some obscure 
 corner, a beautifully carved chest, a credence-table of black oak sculptured like lace, 
 an abbatial chair covered with cordovan, of which the floral decorations in cinnabar 
 and gold are nearly obliterated. These articles, which date from the Spanish conquest, 
 seem to protest against the miserable taste of the furniture with which they are found 
 in company. 
 
 A few Parisian lithographs in mahogany frames complete the decorations of the 
 
IL A.Y TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 45 
 
 modern drawing-room in Arequipa. Chief among these works of art shine the Souvenirs 
 and Regrets of Dubuffe; the Poetic Alphabet of GreVedon — ideal representations of 
 Amanda, Bianca, Cecilia, Delia, and so on; the Four Quarters of the World, and the 
 Four Seasons, by the anonymous geniuses of the Kue St. Jacques. In other houses, 
 where civilization has not yet extended its enlightening rays, the walls are embellished 
 with smoke-dried pictures, representing the beheadings, crucifixions and burnings of 
 martyrs. These works of art, painted some half century ago by certain artists of Quito 
 and Cuzco named Tio Nolasco, Bruno Farfan, and Nor Egidio, are in general 
 wretched daubs. Good paintings of the Spanish school, once so common in the 
 country, have now become extremely rare, in consequence of the avidity with which 
 they have been hunted up by connoisseurs and speculators of all nations. At the 
 present time, were one to rummage all the churches and convents of Arequipa, it is 
 very doubtful if ten passable canvases could be found. 
 
 The private life of the Areqnipanians is restricted, in the case of women, to gossip 
 on the politics of the day, or the small-talk of the city, conveyed by cholas, chinas, 
 negresses and chamber-maids, who constitute the always numerous domestic household. 
 Some ladies embroider, prepare sherbet, or play the guitar, but the greater number 
 pass away the week longing for Sunday: first, on account of mass, which is always 
 a pleasant change for these women, afterwards to enjoy the privilege conceded by 
 etiquette of opening on that clay the parlour-windows, and of passing the afternoon 
 squatted upon carpets, and making remarks, more or less charitable, upon persons 
 in the street. In general, the women of Arequipa make few visits, but content 
 themselves with keeping up a verbal communication by means of their chamber- 
 women, and of perpetually exchanging flowers, fruits, and sweets, accompanied by 
 compliments sweeter still. Nothing less than a musical festival, a Palm Sunday, a 
 carnival, or a marriage would be needed to bring together a dozen of the fair sex 
 under one roof in this city. 
 
 The women of Arequipa, whose personal portraiture has been rather neglected 
 by travellers, are for the most part distinguished by that happy roundness of form 
 so favourable to beauty. In this respect they preserve a just medium between the 
 ampler majesty of the Chilians and the impassioned grace of the women of Lima. 
 Though but of middling stature, they carry themselves well, their shoulders are finely 
 formed, their feet small, their movements distinguished by that rhythmic balancing of 
 the hips which the Spaniards call meneo, from the verb menear, and which the French 
 remuer translates with sufficient point. If to these charms we add that of their 
 intelligent and lively looks, features delicate but irregular, black eyes Avhose glances 
 are like winged arrows, their vermilion lips, from which repartees and sparkling 
 conceits, seasoned with a touch of Andalusian salt, are poured out like apples and 
 raisins from the horn of plenty, the reader may form some idea, perhaps, of these 
 charming creatures who are allied to Spain by their ancestors and to Peru by their 
 ancestresses. 
 
 To a taste for perfumes and flowers they unite an equal penchant for music, 
 the song, and the dance. Dainty and disinclined to exertion, they are nevertheless 
 
40 
 
 PERU. 
 
 characterized by a singular restlessness of spirit, and pass at once from the warmest 
 enthusiasm to the most complete indifference. Their religion is neither highly spiritual 
 nor austere; they are devout rather than pious, always ready to prefer pleasure to 
 devotion, in the persuasion that a signing of the cross and a Padre nuestro will 
 compensate for any faults they commit, For these charming women love is not a 
 passion, but an agreeable pastime, a pretext for romancing, a mere something for a 
 change. They have studied it deeply and know all its resources, they take it up and 
 lay it down at pleasure, they invite it or repel it as caprice dictates, and display 
 in all these different manoeuvres the coolness and ability of an old band-master 
 conducting a symphony. 
 
 These love-sports, in which the fair sex of Arequipa show themselves first-rate 
 adepts even by the side of the Limanians, are indulged in by married women only, 
 who, as one does or does not know, enjoy in this country, as in France, absolute 
 liberty. Love is for them the daily game of whist or boston, which diverts their 
 thoughts from the bondage of wedded life. The maidens of the country, confined to 
 their barred chambers, and under the immediate surveillance of their family, never 
 cease, poor turtle-doves, to groan and sigh for a union by which alone they can 
 expect emancipation, and be permitted, in their turn, to taste of the forbidden fruit. 
 This natural desire, transmitted from Eve to all her offspring, and sharpened by 
 the precocious maturity of the girls of Arequipa, causes them to cherish at a very 
 tender age the most vehement matrimonial aspirations. In a cosmopolitan spirit, 
 very flattering to the self-love of Europeans, they prefer foreigners to their own 
 countrymen, with whatever eminent qualities the latter may be gifted. A foreigner, 
 though he may have neither youth nor beauty in his favour, and nothing whatever 
 may be known of his antecedents, instantly throws into a flutter the whole crowd of 
 mammas and marriageable daughters. They dispute possession of him one with 
 another, they snatch at him as at a morsel of the true cross, bouquets and recados 
 (presents) of all kinds, from the toilet-soap of Piver to the silk handkerchiefs of 
 Lyons — such are the tokens of friendship peculiar to these countries — pursue him 
 even to his private apartments. Flasks of eau-de-Cologne, little attentions, flatteries, 
 everything is done to catch in the net of marriage this fine bird from distant Europe, 
 whom innocently cruel hands would pluck alive perhaps soon afterwards. The houses 
 at which he calls are for ever beating to arms, the furniture is relieved of its covers, 
 jewels are taken out of their boxes, the family plate is displayed upon the sideboards 
 and tables, the servants, properly trained, have orders to make themselves agreeable 
 to their future master, the cats are commanded to purr and the dogs to wag their 
 tails when he approaches. From the venerable grandmother to the youngest child 
 in the family, the only question is, who shall show the highest appreciation of the 
 stranger's merits, who shall flatter him the most with sweet words. The claws are 
 hidden in the velvet paw, the lips distil choice honey, the tenderest rose colour and 
 the bluest azure is spread over all, guitars tuned to the hymeneal pitch twang 
 incessantly the happiness of two devoted hearts. Everything, in fine, even to the 
 air impregnated with the perfume of burning pastiles, conspires to charm the soul 
 
ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 47 
 
 and the senses of the stranger. In the midst of this mm en scene, of which our 
 poor prose can hardly convey an idea, the goddess of the fete, the virgin of the hearth, 
 is prepared like a shrine. Seated upon a sofa, her arms supine, her hands modestly 
 crossed, her eyes apparently fixed upon a flower of the Atuncolla carpet, she is in 
 reality devoutly attentive to the effect produced upon the visitor by the marriage- 
 making programme. Some Europeans, whose hearts are cuirassed in that ces triplex 
 of which Horace speaks, come out victorious from these trials; but the greater number 
 succumb, and meekly bowing their shoulders to the conjugal yoke become established 
 in the country, where they presently lose not only their illusions, but their hair and 
 their teeth. 
 
 An account of the manners and customs of the fair sex of Arequipa would be 
 incomplete if we did not relate in what fashion the women dressed their hair and 
 shaped their garments, and of what materials they make choice. We know well 
 enough details of this kind will arouse the anger of classic spirits, and will cause 
 grave men to raise their shoulders with a shrug of disdain; but then their wives and 
 their daughters will be interested, and that is sufficient for me. A French woman, 
 above all a Parisian, is always glad to learn whether a woman abroad surpasses her 
 in beauty or grace, in dress or intelligence, and is equally ready to commiserate or 
 revile her according to circumstances. 
 
 Dressmakers, modistes, and hair-dressers being as yet unknown in Arequipa, 
 it is the ladies themselves who cut out, sew, and trim their garments and fripperies; 
 who disentangle, arrange, and curl their hair. To say that these arrangements are 
 made in exquisite taste, and copied from the engravings of the latest fashion, would 
 be to gloss the severe truth. To speak frankly, there is generally in the cut of the 
 corsage and the sleeve, in the shortness and scantiness of the skirt, that mysterious 
 something which characterized the fashions of the Restoration, and gave to the women 
 of that epoch a certain resemblance to birds of the order of waders. Some fashionable 
 ladies of Arequipa wear, along with the high tortoise-shell comb of the Andalusians, 
 bunches of borrowed ringlets imported from England under the name of anglaises, 
 the shade of which is not always exactly the same as that of their own hair. These 
 lionesses also generally adorn their heads with a bird of paradise, one of those aigrettes 
 of glass-thread made in Germany, or toy butterflies mounted upon a spiral wire, 
 which they name tembleqaes, and which vibrate at every movement. The climate of 
 the country renders the fan almost useless; instead of it the ladies have a silk or 
 velvet bag with steel mountings or chains. This they carry in their hands and balance 
 coquettishly when they make their visits. Some of our matrons whose memories 
 reach back to the fashionable whimsies of the period from 1815 to 1820, will smile at 
 these souvenirs of bygone times. 
 
 The materials most affected in the city and province of Arequipa are plain or 
 figured silks in lively tints, prints with large spots or sprawling flowers, and muslins 
 with broad stripes or flowers of many colours. I ought to add that the prints 
 and the muslins in which the shopkeepers' and farmers' little daughters disport them- 
 selves are only worn at home in neglige by the women of the aristocracy. On great 
 
48 
 
 PERU. 
 
 occasions and gala -days the latter abandon the rebos or mantle of Castilian wool 
 which they carry about with them during the whole year, to display themselves in 
 cuerpo, that is to say, decollete as for a ball, and with bare arms. Those of the women 
 whoso delicacy would suffer from cold or pleurisy after an exhibition of this kind, 
 or those whose shoulder- bones are a little too obtrusive, cover themselves with a 
 light scarf, or a China crape shawl of some striking colour. Their feet, very small 
 and prettily shaped, are always covered with silk stockings and white satin shoes, an 
 
 elegant little detail of dress which gives to their carriage I know not what grace, 
 lightness, or poetry of motion by which the eye and the imagination are equally 
 charmed. 
 
 The presence and the carriage of Peruvian women, that garbo and that meneo which 
 they derive through their fathers from the Spaniards, are but ill-suited to tight stays 
 with steel busks, with hoops and wires, which make the glory and triumph of the 
 women of Paris. The generality of these charming women also — one's hand trembles 
 to write the profane accusation — wear our French fashions very awkwardly; and now 
 that this fatal adverb has escaped us we will even brave the wrath and indignation 
 of the lovable creatures whose monograph we have attempted to write, by avowing 
 that the woman of Arequipa, traversing the street en grande toilette, reticule in hand, 
 and butterflies or crystal feathers fluttering on her head, is by far less charming in our 
 eyes than the same woman en deshabille, with her large comb, her orange or flame coloured 
 
 LADY OF AREQUIPA IN FULL DRESS. 
 
I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 49 
 
 shawl, worn carelessly like a veil, a rose in her hair, and reclining negligently upon a sofa 
 or squatted on a carpet, and puffing the smoke of a cigar heavenwards. Besides their 
 out-door toilets, their neglige costume at home, and their riding-habits— for most of 
 these ladies are good equestrians — they have a church -going costume, invariably 
 black, composed of a jupe of silk and a mantilla of the same stuff trimmed with 
 velvet and lace, which they fold back from their foreheads. This article of apparel, 
 of Spanish origin, suits them to admiration, a fact which they themselves do not 
 
 ■A. 
 
 7t>7 JL^- 
 
 y O H THORNTON. F S THORNTON. 
 
 5 PER CENT INTEREST CHARGED ON OVER-DUE ACCOUNTS. 
 
 WHEN REMITTING PLEASE RETURN Vc. RECEIPTS NOT SENT FOR SUMS UNDER 5/- UNLESS STAMP ENCLOSEC 
 
 BOOKS SENT TO ORDER CANNOT BE RETURNED. 
 
 vVza 
 
 v it off when 
 mown in the 
 vant carrying 
 ipa the very 
 m the Sierra 
 arf should be 
 is designedly 
 lese marmots 
 to five years 
 t taste. The 
 ear upon the 
 tandarme un 
 -is sure to be 
 
 7 
 
48 
 
 PERU. 
 
 occasions and gala -days the latter abandon the rebos or mantle of Castilian wool 
 which they carry about with them during the whole year, to display themselves in 
 cuerpo, that is to say, decollete as for a ball, and with bare arms. Those of the women 
 whose delicacy would suffer from cold or pleurisy after an exhibition of this kind, 
 or those whose shoulder -bones are a little too obtrusive, cover themselves with a 
 light scarf, or a China crape shawl of some striking colour. Their feet, very small 
 and prettily shaped, are always covered with silk stockings and white satin shoes, an 
 
 elegant little 
 lightness, or 
 charmed. 
 
 The pres 
 they derive 1 
 with steel b 
 women of P; 
 to write the 
 that this fat 
 of the lovab 
 that the woi 
 and butterfli 
 eyes than the 
 
I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 49 
 
 shawl, worn carelessly like a veil, a rose in her hair, and reclining negligently upon a sofa 
 or squatted on a carpet, and puffing the smoke of a cigar heavenwards. Besides their 
 out-door toilets, their neglige, costume at home, and their riding-habits — for most of 
 these ladies are good equestrians — they have a church -going costume, invariably 
 black, composed of a jupe of silk and a mantilla of the same stuff trimmed with 
 velvet and lace, which they fold back from their foreheads. This article of apparel, 
 of Spanish origin, suits them to admiration, a fact which they themselves do not 
 
 * 
 
 LADY OF AREQUIPA IN RIDING COSTUME. 
 
 seem to suspect, if we may judge from the haste they are in to throw it off when 
 they return from church. The use of hassocks or prie-dieus being unknown in the 
 churches of Peru, the women are followed at a distance by a young servant carrying 
 a carpet upon which they kneel. For a fashionable woman of Arequipa the very 
 height of bon ton is to have for her carpet -bearer a little Indian from the Sierra 
 Nevada; whether a boy or a girl is of no consequence, but the little dwarf should be 
 as round as a tub, and clothed in the traditional costume, which is designedly 
 exaggerated to render it grotesque. To be followed by a couple of these marmots 
 is the very tiptop of fashion. The gift of a young Indian of from four to five years 
 old is such a present from a man to a woman as shows the very best taste. The 
 sweetest of wheedlings, the most express commands, are brought to bear upon the 
 traveller who leaves home for the Sierra. Villa mia, no se olvide U. Mandarine un 
 Indiecito! (My life, do not forget to bring me a little Indian!) Such is sure to be 
 
 VOL. I. 7 
 
50 
 
 PERU. 
 
 the parting phrase, and if the traveller has no reason to decline compliance, he 
 selects from some family of the Indians one or two children of the required age, 
 whom he purchases from the father for a few piastres and a supply of cocoa and 
 brandy. The mother, who has received nothing, of course raises a great outcry at 
 
 LADY OF AREQUIPA DRESSED FOR CHURCH, ACCOMPANIED BY HER CAR PET - BEARER. 
 
 the idea of parting with the Benjamin of her family, but the traveller consoles her 
 with a new petticoat, and for a little rum even obtains her consent. Possessed of the 
 prize, he profits by the departure of the first caravan to pack him off like luggage 
 to the lady of his heart. The arrival of the young autochthone exites no end of 
 transports; they lift him down from the mule upon which he is perched, they admire 
 him, and laugh over him till they cry. Then he has to be undressed, soaped all 
 over and his skin scraped, nay, almost stripped off ; lastly, lie is clothed in a costume 
 
ILAY TO ARE QUI PA. 51 
 
 with which he is delighted and proud. After a certain amount of indigestion, for 
 the child cannot be expected to change with impunity the poor living of his home 
 for the cakes and other luxuries which he gets among his new friends, his stomach 
 acquires the necessary dilatation, and the little actor plays, to the general satisfaction, 
 his double part of page and lap-dog. 
 
 Unhappily, nothing is stable here below Our little Indian finds this to his cost 
 when he reaches his twelfth year, and his owners finding that his legs have grown 
 too long for the office of carpet-bearer, banish him from the parlour and deprive 
 
 TYPES OF THE VALLET OF AREQUIPA — CARPET-BEARERS OUT OF OFFICE. 
 
 him of his livery. He is then passed on to the kitchen, where the domestics, of 
 whose little secrets he had so long been the tale-bearer, make him pay by many a 
 twitch of the nose for his past indiscretions and prosperity. 
 
 Although these Indians are sold away, or given up by their good parents, and 
 are in some degree brutalized, they are not slaves, for on arriving at age they dispose 
 of themselves as they please, and no one has any claim upon them. Sometimes the 
 young man will remain in the character of domestic in the house where he had 
 grown up, sometimes he quits it and offers his services elsewhere. Women stay 
 voluntarily. In course of time they contract out-door relations of a too temporary 
 character, and the offspring which results, as used to be the case with the negro girls 
 among the planters of the Antilles, increases by so much the number of domestics 
 attached to the house. These children of love, once parted from their mothers, 
 are trained by their mistresses to become carpet-bearers, but they have never the same 
 attraction in their eyes as the little Indian of pure blood from the Sierra Nevada. 
 
 At Arequipa, as in all great cities, the men are more occupied out of doors than 
 
52 
 
 PERU. 
 
 at home; a man is always called away by some business or other. These Arequipanians 
 pass much of their time in going from house to house with political objects in view, 
 in smoking an indefinite number of cigarettes, mingled with games of monte or dice, 
 in taking a siesta, in riding on horseback, in love-making, and in dreaming of the 
 glorious future of the republic. But if, from this manner of passing their time, the 
 reader should infer the want of intelligence or instruction among the natives, he 
 would greatly deceive himself; they have all learned much if they have not retained 
 much, and run through successively the vast fields of theology, jurisprudence, canon 
 
 TYPES OP AREQU IPA — INDIAN OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 
 
 and civil law, and medicine and surgery, these sciences being held in honour at 
 Arequipa and preferred to all others. These men, apparently occupied with trifles, 
 have nevertheless publicly sustained the theses necessary to acquire the diploma 
 of Bachelor of Arts. They have, besides, a great faculty for versification, and are 
 clever in gallant and elegant turns of bouts-rimes, in which they are exercised in- 
 cessantly by their fair friends. If they show themselves indifferent to intellectual 
 pursuits it is not then through ignorance, but the effect of philosophy, of instinct, and 
 from that never-enough-to-be-admired laziness which they have inherited from their 
 fathers, and which they cherish as a sacred fire. Every idea of innovation or of pro- 
 gress which would disturb the quietude which they so much enjoy is antipathetic to 
 them. The moral and physical activity of the European is a phenomenon at which 
 they can only marvel like savages gaping to hear the ticking of a watch, the cause 
 of which they cannot explain. It is necessary to add, that they do not even try — 
 Para que sirve eso? (Of what good is it?) is the unfailing question with which they 
 meet everything that they either disdain or fail to comprehend. 
 
ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 53 
 
 Scientific establishments, colleges, and schools are numerous in Areqnipa. Its 
 faculty of medicine, whose sheet-anchor is bleeding, rivals that of Chuquisaca in Upper 
 Peru. The university of St. Augustin, the two academies, and the college of In- 
 dependence, founded by the great Marshal Gutierez cle la Fuente, enjoys an undisputed 
 
 CHURCH OP SAN FRANCISCO AT AREQUIPA 
 
 celebrity. The public library, which dates from 1821, owes its existence to the zeal 
 of a friend of learning named S>ur Evaristo Gomez Sanchez. It possesses some 2000 
 volumes of theology and jurisprudence, the map of Peru prepared by order of the 
 liberator Simon Bolivar, the atlas of M. Vaugondy, hydrographer to Louis XV., a 
 volume of caricatures by "Gavarni," two theodolites and an armillary sphere, not to 
 forget a librarian and a porter. Let us add to these divers establishments two printing- 
 offices, each publishing a small journal which records the acts of the government 
 
54 
 
 PERU. 
 
 Let us mention also the philanthropic institutions of* the city, the hospital of San Juan 
 dc Dios, a foundling' hospital, a charitable institution, and an office of vaccination; and 
 we shall have completed the list of the charitable, scientific, and literary institutions of 
 the city. 
 
 Aristocracy and commerce, which in America have always lived on the best terms, 
 occupy in Arequipa the seven or eight streets which radiate from its great square 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO STREET IN AREQUIPA. 
 
 {Plaza Mayor) as a centre. This place, of which the cathedral occupies all the north 
 side, is bounded on the other sides by the commercial buildings, galleries or corridors con- 
 structed of stone with vaulted arcades, where calicoes, printed cottons, woollen stuffs, 
 and ribbons are exposed in the open air in festoons and fillets of various colours. In 
 the middle of the square is a bronze fountain with three basins, supported by moulded 
 balustrades. This hydraulic monument, which very much resembles a reel, is crowned 
 with a figure of Glory or Fame — for one cannot decide in a matter so doubtful — the 
 pose, and, above all, the emaciated look of which recalls the classic work of Houdon. 1 
 This allegorical beauty is blowing a trumpet, and looking very stubbornly in the 
 direction of the Calle de San Francisco. It has been shrewdly suggested that the 
 
 1 Oue of this sculptor's most celebrated studies is a figure represented without its skin (the ecorche), which images 
 with wonderful fidelity to nature the muscular structure of the human body. — Tr. 
 
ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 55 
 
 sculptor, by leaving nothing but skin and bones to this figure, and putting a trumpet 
 to its lips, meant to teach his contemporaries and future ages that glory or fame is 
 nothing but an empty phantom, an intangible breath. 
 
 It is in this square, the accustomed scene of public rejoicings, of revolutionary 
 proclamations, and of criminal executions, that for five hours in the middle of every day 
 a market for vegetables is held. The indigenous population which flock thither from 
 all parts of the city and country, offers to the observer but two distinct types, 
 that of the Indian of the Pacific coast, with a round countenance, flattened nose, 
 blubber lips, narrow eyes of a yellow sclerotic hue, oblique and contracted at the 
 
 TYPICAL PORTRAITS OF THE POPULATION OF AREQUIPA — QUICHUA INDIANS. 
 
 corners like those of the Chinese and the Mongol races, 1 and the Quichua type, with an 
 oval face, high cheek-bones, a nose like an eagle's beak, oblique but well-shaped eyes, 
 abundant and soft black hair, seeming to connect them with the great Indian family 
 of the eastern Aryans. From the mixture of these two races of the coast and of the 
 Sierra there has resulted, in course of time, a goodly number of hybrids, whose 
 distinctive trait is that of stupidity and ugliness combined. 
 
 The costume of these indigenes, always of striking colours, recalls at once the 
 Spanish modes of the seventeenth century and the primitive taste of the Incas. With 
 the once fashionable coat with three square skirts, the long -flapped waistcoat, and 
 breeches ornamented at the knees (culottes a canons), the Indians wear their hair in two 
 falling plaits or tresses in the ancient Egyptian manner, and complete their toilet with 
 a loose cloak (llacotta) and sandals of undressed leather. The women add to the 
 tucked petticoat and the round or triangular Spanish hat, the Uiclla, a piece of woollen 
 stuff two feet square, which they wear on their heads like the pschent of the Sphinx, 
 
 1 The Indian of the Pacific coast descends from the Llipis, Changos, Moqnehuas, Quillcas, &c, tribes of one and the 
 same race, who once peopled the littoral between the sixteenth and twenty-fifth degree of latitude. 
 
5G 
 
 PERU. 
 
 or fasten over their shoulders as a kerchief with a pin (tupu) shaped like a spoon, 
 the use of which can be traced to the times of the first Incas. But let us leave a 
 subject which can have no interest except for ethnographers or costumiers, to consider 
 for a moment the strange effect produced, when seen from a distance and from any 
 elevated point, by the accidental mingling of striking colours perpetually in motion. 
 An adept in comparisons and figures of speech, were he by chance to look out from 
 some loophole of the cathedral spire, might without exaggeration compare the great 
 
 TYPES OF THE POPULATION OF A R E Q U I P A — WOMEN OF THE QUICHUA INDIANS. 
 
 square of Arequipa at market time to a prairie studded with gay but common flowers. 
 The cabbages, lettuces, and other kitchen vegetables spread on the ground may be taken 
 for the carpet of grass, upon which the garments of the men and women with their 
 predominant blue, scarlet, and yellow, stand out like corn-flowers, poppies, and dande- 
 lions fluttering in the wind. 
 
 Beyond the great square and the arterial streets branching from it, commence 
 the suburbs and their unpaved alleys, where dwell the metis or mixed caste, and the 
 small shopkeepers, impertinently called people of no account (gens de demi-poil). 
 There flourishes the whole world of small commerce, represented by sellers of groceries 
 and liquors (pulperos), dealers in fried fish, and keepers of cabarets. In Peru the 
 cabarets where chicha is sold are always kept by two or three women, relations 
 or friends. 
 
 We have already described the rustic cabarets; it remains to speak of those in 
 the city of Arequipa. These establishments, frequented only by the Indians and the 
 cholos of both sexes, are dismal and smoky dens, with no opening for air or light but 
 the door, encumbered with jars and pots of various forms, strewn with broken straw, 
 
VOL. I. 
 
I LAY TO AREQUIPA. 
 
 59 
 
 the debris of vegetables, bones, and leavings of animals, which cover the floor with 
 a thick litter. Fowls, chickens, and guinea-pigs cluck, squall, grunt, and have 
 unlimited scratching right in these diggings. Like the country cabarets these poor 
 abodes possess neither chairs, benches, nor stools, so that their customers sit on the 
 ground, holding in one hand the dish of ground pimento which serves as an incentive 
 to drink, and in the other the jug of chicha, that concoction of maize imported into 
 Peru in 1043 by the empress Mama Ocllo lluacco (prooding mother), the sister and 
 wife of the first Inca Manco-Capac. While the company gossip and laugh, or eat 
 
 and drink to their content, fresh chicha is being brewed under their eyes in a corner of 
 the cabaret by a process very simple and inexpensive. Into a hole six feet square 
 and a foot deep a certain quantity of maize has been shaken from the stalks, and 
 being slightly damped is covered with boards loaded with heavy stones. At the end 
 of eight days the heat and moisture combined have determined the germination of 
 the grain, which then takes the name of gunapo. This gunapo is taken from the hole 
 and dried in the sun, and then sent to the mill, where it is crushed small by great 
 stones without being ground. From the mill it comes back to the brewery, where the 
 women throw it into great jars full of water and make it boil for an entire day. In the 
 evening they strain the thick liquid through a cloth, which they wring by holding the 
 two ends; they then leave it to cool until the next day, when it is ready for use. 
 The dregs remaining in the cloth, called afrecho, serve to feed the pigs and poultry. 
 As for the liquor itself I know not what to say, but its colour is like the water of the 
 Seine after a thaw or a fortnight's rain. 
 
 This local brew is not drunk by the common people alone ; the aristocracy of the 
 country, while ostensibly repudiating it as a vile beverage, enjoy it secretly. So our 
 
 TYPES OF AREQUJPA — A CHICHA BREWER. 
 
GO 
 
 PERU. 
 
 white Creoles of the West Indies speak disdainfully of fried cod and pumpkins (calalou 
 de gombauds) and Angola pease as negroes' victuals, yet all the same enjoy them in 
 private. The Peruvian bourgeoisie, more candid than the aristocracy, proclaim openly 
 their decided taste for chicha, which they designate by the elegant diminutive chichita. 
 To hear them talk, life's sweetest and best employed hours are those which are passed 
 under the shadow of the gourds in a rural cabaret between a fritter of turkeys dressed 
 with allspice and an amphora of chicha brewed the day before. 
 
 Arequipa, which modern travellers copy one another in depicting as a flourishing 
 city, enlivened by commerce and industry, by pleasures of all kinds, and by the spirit 
 and gaiety of its inhabitants, is in all these respects only the shadow of its former self. 
 Political revolutions and commercial bankruptcies have reduced the city almost to 
 poverty, and singularly cooled that verve and gaiety with which it is so often credited. 
 The town, which long rivalled Lima the king of cities in pomp and brilliancy, is at 
 the present time no more than a chrysalis inclosed in its humble cocoon awaiting the 
 transformation which the future is to bring about. Its balls, its routs, its much-vaunted 
 cavalcades, its mad orgies at the vol des Poiriers exist only as a tradition. Formerly, 
 any trifle was made a pretext for a lavish expenditure and indulgence in pleasure. 
 Now, an event of the first importance or a great solemnity is needed to unloose the 
 purse-strings of the inhabitants. Hand in hand with poverty has come economy. It 
 would be easy to prove by figures what we now assert, but to do so would be to 
 encroach on the rights of the statistician. Let us therefore confine ourselves to the 
 mere statement of the decaying condition of Arequipa, a setting star which optimist 
 travellers, or those barely acquainted with the facts, have taken for a star in its zenith. 
 
 Further, in order to efface the melancholy impression Avith which our revelations in 
 respect to the commercial, industrial, and financial position of this town are calculated 
 to impress the minds of our readers, we will describe one of the annual festivities, 
 when Arequipa, forgetting for a while its habits of calculation and economy, borrows 
 for a few hours its ancient mask of folly, and, as in the days of its splendour, scatters 
 gold by the handful, certain to regret it on the morrow. 
 
 This solemnity is that of Shrove-Tuesday, in which hens' eggs play so great a part 
 that we feel constrained to devote a parenthesis to the fact. The mathematicians of 
 the country who pass their time in counting the A's, B's and C's repeated in the Old 
 and New Testaments, have calculated that on Shrove-Tuesday 800,000 francs are spent 
 in Arequipa on eggs, an amount the more extravagant considering that the edible por- 
 tion of the eggs has long since disappeared, the shells only remaining. It is of these 
 shells that the religious communities and the greater number of housewives make so 
 good a thing. To do this, they are careful during the whole year to break the eggs, of 
 which the consumption is enormous in Spanish American kitchens, at one end only, 
 and being thus emptied, the shells are carefully preserved in a heap. The week which 
 precedes Carnestolendas is occupied in preparing them. Three women unite in this 
 employment : one of them dilutes in a tubful of water some gamboge, indigo, or 
 carmine, the second fills the egg-shells with this tincture, whilst the third closes the 
 opening by means of little squares of cloth fastened with a liquefied wax which con- 
 
I LAY TO AREQUIPA. • C3 
 
 geals immediately. Thus prepared, these shells are offered for sale at the price of one 
 cuartillo, and even half a real each. Basketfuls of them are exposed at the corners 
 of every street, so that those who engage in the sport can provide themselves with 
 ammunition without difficulty. 
 
 Hardly have the gates of heaven been opened on the morning of Shrove-Tuesday, 
 when the two sexes clothe themselves in white from head to foot. Those who are first 
 up hasten to the bedside of those still asleep to give them the matutinal accolade, which 
 consists, on that day, in the application of three or four eggs of various colours broken 
 on the face of the sleeper, who is immediately sprinkled with flour. The unlucky 
 victim removes his pasty mask as he can, clothes himself in his turn with the white 
 armour of the combat, and supplied with eggs and flour revenges on all around 
 him the affront he has received. The morning is employed in these skirmishes; all 
 alike, the masters in the parlour, the servants in the kitchen, are engaged in bombarding 
 and flouring each other, to the best of their ability. Neither old age nor infancy are 
 excepted from these saturnalias. The egg of Shrove-Tuesday, like the satire of Jean 
 Racine, knows neither sex nor age. His illustrious highness the bishop himself, 
 the autocrat of Spanish towns, is rolled in flour from morn to eve of Carnesto- 
 lendas. 
 
 This memorable day is almost the only one of the year on which the balconies of 
 the houses are opened. After mid-day a battery of syringes is established in each, 
 and the inmates mutually flood each other with water, to the music of the flying eggs 
 and the papers of starch-powder which describe white trajectories in the air. The 
 excitement increases with every succeeding hour. Whilst the aristocracy continue the 
 combat from their housetops and balconies, the bourgeoisie, too much cooped up in their 
 homes, rush about outside like a torrent breaking through its banks. Men and women 
 going in couples and furnished with umbrellas to protect them against the showers from 
 the balconies, traverse the town to the music of guitars, and, over-excited by copious 
 libations, accompany their cries and refrains with the most extravagant grimaces and 
 contortions. This crowd, which one might suppose to be struck with epilepsy, yells 
 and struggles as one man. About three in the afternoon, Arequipa is one immense 
 mouth, from which escapes a continuous roar. 
 
 At this moment troops of horses, decayed, one-eyed, foundered, dropsical, con- 
 sumptive, are brought from the Pampilla, a desert situated to the north of the city, 
 and offered for sale on the Plaza Mayor. There those who want them have them. 
 The price of these Shrove-Tuesday coursers varies from five to twelve francs, according 
 to their degree of vitality. In the twinkling of an eye detachments of cavalry are 
 organized to besiege the enemy in the balconies whose liquid artillery has caused the 
 greatest ravages amongst the crowd. Each cavalier having mounted his jade, takes on 
 his arm a basketful of eggs, which active boys are commissioned to fill again when they 
 are emptied. Then the detachment posts itself before the balcony specified, which is 
 habitually defended by persons of the gentler sex. These armed with pumps and 
 syringes, boldly sustain the assault; to the eggs of the enemy they oppose torrents of 
 water more or less limpid. The combat often lasts more than an hour without victory 
 
G4 
 
 PERU. 
 
 declaring for either of the combatants. The men drenched like Tritons, the women 
 dishevelled like Bacchantes, rival each other in the hardihood and fury with which they 
 hurl defiant epithets one against another, in the true Homeric style. In the heat of the 
 engagement a piercing shriek, issuing from the besieged balcony, rings like the note of a 
 fife in a charivari. This cry, received by the men with a general roar of laughter, 
 comes from some Marfisa, who has been struck in the eye, or otherwise hurt by a pink 
 or blue egg thrown by a vigorous hand, and who falls temporarily into the arms of her 
 companions. This victim of Shrove-Tuesday is conveyed to a safe distance from the 
 
 ENVIRONS OF A I! F, Q II I P A — C H 0 LO OF TINGO. ENVIRONS OF AREQUIPA — CHOLA OF TIABAYA. 
 
 field of battle, and the action, suspended for a moment, is recommenced. But as our 
 Amazons have now to deplore the defeat of a sister and to avenge her hurt, it is not 
 with a gentle shower that they reply to the enemy, but with flower-pots and broken 
 fragments of plates, indeed anything that comes to hand. Under this shower of 
 hardware, which wounds all it touches, and of one-eyed horses makes so many blind 
 ones, the dismayed warriors disband themselves and go to besiege another balcony. 
 
 In the villages near Arequipa the carnival is carried on in a different manner. 
 At Paucarpata, at Tingo, at Sabandia, bands of men and women, whose drunken- 
 ness amounts almost to fury, traverse the country dishevelled and foaming, yelling 
 Carnavo in the maimer of Evohe, and driving before them the leanest ass they can 
 procure; any individual they may meet, of whatever age or sex, is taken possession of 
 bodily, despoiled of his clothes, perched on the angular back-bone of this Al-borak, and 
 driven across the country for an hour. A pot of water occasionally emptied on the 
 shoulders of the victim, combine for him the luxuries of the bath with the pleasures 
 of the promenade. 
 
 The natives of Sachaca and of Tiabaya celebrate Shrove-Tuesday perhaps in a less 
 
ILAY TO AREQUIPA. 65 
 
 ridiculous, though, on the other hand, in a more warlike manner. After having 
 despoiled the apples and wild fig-trees of their green fruit, they fill baskets with them, 
 which they carry on their arms, and scatter themselves along the pathways in quest of 
 adventures. The first face they see serves as a target at which to aim their projectiles. 
 At these times timid people who are terrified at the idea of a wound remain shut up in 
 their dwellings. Those whose curiosity leads them to cross their threshold to see what 
 is going on out of doors, receive in their eye, and at the moment they least expect it, 
 some green fruit the size of a fist. The next day the greater part of the inhabitants of 
 these localities are enveloped about the head with bandages. When they are ques- 
 tioned on the subject, they answer that, while perhaps getting a little mauled, they have 
 so amused themselves that the pain they feel is nothing compared to their enjoyment 
 of the sport. 
 
 In town and village the first stroke of the bell of the evening angelus brings these 
 street orgies to an end. The Shrove-Tuesday revellers all take refuge in their houses, 
 where, with hair disordered and clothes soiled, they continue to drink, to yell, and to 
 fight until daybreak of Ash-Wednesday. At that hour each one hastily doffs his absurd 
 disguise, washes his face and hands, combs his hair a little, and runs to kneel at the 
 feet of a monk, his partner of the evening before, who, after having marked him on the 
 forehead with a gray cross, recalling to him the fact that he is but dust, sends him 
 about his business duly absolved of his folly. 
 
 A chapter on the Mysteries of Arequipa, if we consented to write it, would offer 
 details as piquant and as full of interest even as the Mysteries of Paris and of London. 
 But for one fraction of the European public who might thank us for raising the veil 
 which hides the sores and turpitudes of a society on which weigh heavily the example 
 of past corruption, the population of both sexes of Arequipa would rise en masse to 
 throw the stone at their accuser. We will therefore limit ourselves to this ethno- 
 graphical notice, which completes the good or evil information furnished up to this day 
 by geographers, travellers, and tourists, respecting the city of Pedro Anzurez de Campo 
 Redondo. Further, as our baggage, already made up, has been placed on the backs of 
 the baggage mules, and our arriero is impatient to start, we will close the door of our 
 lodging, return the key to our hostess, mount our animals, and following the cordilleras 
 we will continue our journey across the American continent. 
 
 VOL. I. 9 
 
SECOND STAGE. 
 
 A RE QUIP A TO LAM PA 
 
 (PERU). 
 
GENERAL VIEW OF THE PAMPILLA. 
 
 SECOND STAGE. 
 
 AEEQUIPA TO LAMPA. 
 
 The Pampilla and its charcoal-burners. — Station of Apo. — What the traveller finds, and what he experiences on 
 arriving there. — The soroche. — Occasional gossips en route. — Disappointment at Huallata. — A storm 15,000 feet above 
 the sea. — Hospitality in a sepulchre. — Retrospective coup-d'ceil of the Aymara nation. — The Lake of Gold and Lake 
 of Silver. — Elegy on a rooster. — A night at Compuerta. — The landscape and other things worth observing. — 
 Cabana aud Cabanilla. — A priest, according to the gospel. — About a giant humming-bird and yellow Ranunculi. — 
 Aspect of Lampa at nightfall. — An importer of printed cottons (rouenneries). — Manner of honouring the saints. — 
 Effect produced on the organs of vision by the sharp application of a bit of foie de volatile. — The strawberry of Chili, 
 and its use as a stimulant. — The day after a revel. — The author resumes his journey, reflecting on the past history 
 and the present state of the province of Lampa. 
 
 Northward of the city of Arequipa, at the extremity of its suburb of San Isidro, 
 renowned for its drinking -places, extends a desert of sand called the Pampilla, 
 The Indian charcoal-burners, who pass to and fro between the mountain and the 
 valley, have made this place their camping -ground and erected their huts on it. 
 One might take them for a band of gipsies encamped at the gates of the city, and 
 the more so, because in respect to their idiom, 1 their clothing, and their hair, like 
 
 1 They speak only Quichua, but they understand Spanish. The first of these idioms, which M. Huot, who con- 
 tinued the Annates of Malte-Brun, informs us was the idiom of gallantry and good society at Lima, is not only 
 unused, but is depreciated and turned into ridicule, like all else that relates to the manners and customs of the 
 Sierra. It would not be possible to find five persons either at Lima, Arequipa, or any other city of the coast, 
 moving in good society, able to understand, much less to speak, Quichua, unless they were originally from the 
 Sierra, which they would not care to avow after some years' residence on the coast, but which one discovers without 
 difficulty from their guttural accent and their bad pronunciation of the Spanish. 
 
70 
 
 PERU. 
 
 horse-tails, which gives them a wild aspect, these Indians differ entirely from the 
 mixed caste of Arequipa, with which they always hold some transient relation of a 
 business character. 
 
 A half hour's march at the ordinary pace of a mule sufficed to traverse this 
 desert, at the end of which commenced a zig-zag road leading to the heights. 
 After a slow and troublesome ascent, which afforded time to study the configuration 
 of the volcano (Misti) and the aerial perspective of the villages and cultivated grounds 
 of the valley of Arequipa, we reached the tampu of Cangallo, 10,554 feet above the 
 sea; higher still, 3046 feet, we came to a heap of bones of horses and mules, known 
 in the country by the name of El Alto de los Huesos, and at length arrived, bent 
 with fatigue, with our faces blue from the effects of the air and cold, at the station 
 of Apo, the first halting-place of the Sierra Nevada. 
 
 Here the traveller who stops to pass the night and rest his beasts may admire 
 at leisure the beauties of a hyperborean landscape. Looking northward, the ground 
 is concealed by hard snow, the silent streams sleep under the ice, the waterfalls are 
 only a confused mass of stalactites, the crystals of which taper off at their lower end. 
 From the north-east to the north-west the snowy peaks of the Andes hover round 
 the horizon like white phantoms. The thermometer marked from twenty-one to twenty- 
 five degrees below the freezing-point (Fah). 
 
 This station of Apo, at which I arrived about nightfall, resembles all establish- 
 ments of the kind in Peru, which are nothing but huts, of greater or less size, 
 divided into two or three apartments, and more or less dilapidated according to 
 their remoteness from civilized places. A square space, sub Jove crudo, inclosed by 
 stones piled on one another, serves as stabling for the horses and mules. As for the 
 travellers themselves, they have to manage as well as they can in one of the com- 
 partments of the hut, sleeping on the bare ground if they have neglected to provide 
 themselves with a mattress or a sheep-skin, shivering with cold all the night, and 
 rising as early as possible to fly to the fresh torture which awaits them at the suc- 
 ceeding post. 
 
 On awaking in the morning after having fulfilled the conditions of this pro- 
 gramme, I entreated the arriero, who had accompanied me, and Avho had been my 
 chamber comrade, to saddle our beasts without delay. While he obeyed my orders 
 with the nonchalant activity of his profession, I went into the kitchen of the estab- 
 lishment, Avhere a little fire of llama's dung (takia) was burning, to prepare for 
 myself the cup of chocolate which invariably composes the breakfast of the traveller 
 who crosses the Andes. Nor Medina, my muleteer, finished his task as I swallowed 
 the last mouthful of my beverage. We had only to settle our accounts with the 
 postillions, and to get into the saddle. The sun had risen in a serene sky; the day 
 promised to be a magnificent one. We urged on our mules, and soon left the post 
 of Apo far behind us. 
 
 At the end of an hour's march, during which we had ascended some hundreds 
 of yards, I began to feel a general uneasiness, which I attributed to the insufficiency 
 of the atmospheric pressure. This phenomenon, which the Quichuas of the moun- 
 
AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 
 
 71 
 
 tain heights call the soroche, and from which they do not themselves suffer — having 
 lungs one-third larger than those of the European — is attributed by them to some 
 mephytic gas produced by antimony — in Quichua soroche — even in places where that 
 metal does not exist. A contraction of the diaphragm, a dull pain in the dorsal 
 region, shootings in the head, nausea and giddiness, sometimes followed by faint- 
 ing, are the symptoms of this singular malady. I, however, did not suffer to that 
 
 PART OF THE PAMPILLA OR SANDY DESERT NEAR AREQUIPA. 
 
 degree. Nor Medina, to avert what my livid countenance and my efforts to keep 
 in the saddle betrayed I was suffering, gave me a clove of garlic, and advised 
 me to chew it as I would a sugar-plum. I obeyed, but not without grinding 
 my teeth. This antidote, which my Esculapius pretended to be a specific against 
 the soroche, not having produced any effect, he advised me to make my nose bleed 
 by striking it with my fist, which he said would give me instant relief. This 
 I thought too* heroic a remedy, and preferred to crunch another clove of garlic, 
 notwithstanding the very slight fancy I had for the smell and taste of that species 
 of the Liliacea3. 
 
 About twenty minutes elapsed, and whether it was that the remedy began to 
 operate, or whether my lungs became accustomed by degrees to the rarified air, 
 
72 
 
 PERU. 
 
 I began to feel better. Soon I was able to talk with my companion about the road 
 he had taken to reach Cuzco, the route that I had marked out deviating from the 
 direct line and from the stages which divided it so unequally. The man enumerated 
 the various posts between Arequipa and Cuzco, calculated their respective distances, 
 and concluded by assuring me that the Lampa road which I had chosen in preference 
 to the common route, known in the country as the Carrera real de los Andes, 
 possessed the disadvantage of seven fewer stations and eighty more miles of road, 
 which meant, in other words, that after a hard day's work across a difficult country, 
 the elevation of which varied from 10,000 to 18,000 feet, we should find no other 
 shelter than a shepherd's miserable pascana, 1 where we should be compelled to sleep 
 on the floor, with scarcely room enough to stretch our legs. He ended by asking 
 why I chose to go so far about to obtain my end, when it would have been natural 
 to prefer the straight line and the common road? I told him that as I was about 
 to quit the country never to return, I did not mind lengthening my journey by 
 a few leagues for the purpose of visiting a priest, whom I had heard had been 
 very skilful in cross-breeding certain species of the Camelidae. The arriero looked at 
 me with great astonished eyes. 
 
 "Is it the cure" Cabrera that monsieur means?" he asked. 
 
 "Precisely," said I. "That worthy priest, formerly curate of Macusani in the 
 province of Carabaya, and now domiciled at Cabana, in the province of Lampa." 
 
 " And monsieur will go eighty miles to see an old man who, people say, is 
 a little cracked!" 
 
 " My good fellow," I replied to Nor Medina, " he of whom you speak so lightly 
 is one of those men to whom, in my country, they would long since have erected 
 a statue of bronze, as to a benefactor of the human race. I cannot therefore regret 
 a journey of eighty miles to shake hands with him, especially as I shall easily 
 recover the lost time by shortening my stay at Cuzco." 
 
 " As monsieur pleases," said the muleteer. " A curious idea," he added in a 
 lower tone, yet not so low that I did not hear the remark, though I thought it 
 best to make no reply. 
 
 We continued to push our way through the snows, my companion pinching his 
 nose to warm it, and I breathing on my fingers to prevent them from being numbed. 
 In vain the grandeur of the horizon, the sparkling blue of the heavens, and the 
 sense of liberty which one respires with the air on mountain heights, gave to the 
 landscape I know not what of greatness and sublimity, so calculated to elevate 
 the soul and command enthusiasm. The coldness of the temperature rendered all 
 such emotion impossible to me. To this grand book of earth and heaven opened 
 before my eyes I would have preferred a close chamber and the warmth of a stove. 
 
 The day passed without a single living thing having presented itself except some 
 vultures hovering high in the air, or some vicugnas (a species of llama) on the 
 mountain slopes. At five o'clock we discovered, hidden in the rocks, the station 
 of Pachaca, where I proposed to pass the night. But it is above all when travelling 
 
 1 From the Quichua verb pascani, to feed or pasture. 
 
AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 73 
 
 that " man proposes and God disposes ; " the station was shut and silent, and notwith- 
 standing the outcry we made to announce our arrival no postillion in the national 
 head-band appeared to receive us. We were thus compelled to make two stages, and 
 pushing on to Huallata we arrived there at nine o'clock in the evening. 
 
 Built upon a solitary mamelon surrounded with snows and precipices, besieged 
 by every wind, battered by every tempest, often shrouded in frosty mists, this station 
 of Huallata is one of the most fearful sites in the whole chain of the Andes, from 
 the Tierra del Fuego to the equator. Five times the chances of my life had led 
 me to this wild spot, and each time I regretted that I had not, like Joshua, the power 
 to arrest the sun, in order to prolong the day, and to proceed further. 
 
 The sensation that I now experienced was less disagreeable than formerly. Fatigue, 
 hunger, and above all, the dread of passing the night under the stars, had disposed 
 me to look at the bright side of things. The welcome of the postillions completed the 
 satisfaction with which I submitted to circumstances. When I had supped on my 
 cup of chocolate and toasted bread I entered the apartment kept for travellers, 
 and commenced my nightly toilet, whilst Nor Medina did his best to stop the holes 
 and cracks in the walls. A fire of llama's dung was kindled in the centre of 
 the apartment, and an Indian, for a small remuneration, undertook to watch it, 
 while chattering to himself, during the night. Thanks to the vigilance of our vestal 
 in drawers, we enjoyed a sufficiently pleasant temperature. On the morrow we 
 rruitted the station of Huallata suffering from one of those colds which circle the 
 forehead with a band of iron and provoke an abundant secretion of the lachrymal 
 glands; and leaving on our left the road to Cuzco, marched in the direction of the 
 rising sun. After having descended a succession of rapid slopes we came to the 
 great plain called the Pampa de los Coiifites (Sugar-plum Pampas), on account of 
 
 VOL. I. 10 
 
74 
 
 PERU. 
 
 the ground being strewn with little pebbles rounded by the action of the primitive 
 waters. This plain, which we crossed in two hours, is bounded, from north-east 
 to south-east, by an entanglement of trachytic peaks, rough, sharp, and disordered. 
 Under the snow which partly covers them were discernible long bands of yellow, 
 black, and red, which produced by contrast a singular effect. Had a painter trans- 
 ferred such a scene to his canvas no doubt the critic would have laughed in his 
 face in virtue of that axiom so euphonically formulated by Boileau: " Le vrai peut 
 quelquefois n'etre pas vraisemblable " — The truth may sometimes not be like truth. 
 
 It is possible to cross the chain of the Andes in any season, since I have 
 made the journey some thirty or forty times at various points, and at different 
 periods of the year. Still the most favourable times are the months of April and 
 September. In April the snow has not yet fallen, and only appears in the regions 
 where it is eternal. In September the fallen snow, which from June to August covers 
 the roads, is already melted, and having flooded the torrents and rivers, is bearing 
 away its annual tribute to the two oceans. 
 
 As it was now July, that is to say, the depth of winter, we were in danger of 
 being surprised by one of those tempests which generally burst in the afternoon, unless 
 the heavens — and this was little probable — should show themselves merciful, on our 
 account, for a day or two. At this moment we were traversing a stony and jagged 
 region where, had I relied on my own topographical knowledge, I should most 
 certainly have lost my way; but Nor Medina was an experienced pilot, and the 
 manner in which he manoeuvred to pass the ravines and quagmires banished all 
 fear from my spirit. In narrow and perilous passages he went on before without 
 speaking, and I, following him, imitated his silence. When the breadth of the 
 way permitted us to keep side by side we charmed away the ennui of the journey 
 by talking, not of love and war, like La Mole and the Count de Coconnas, but of 
 the probability of finding at the end of the day an hospitable cabin and something 
 to eat. 
 
 Two hours had passed when some bulging white clouds of the kind which sailors 
 call " cotton -balls," and the learned cirro-cumuli, appeared floating in the air like 
 a flock of doves. In a few instants these clouds increased, closed up their ranks, 
 and at last quite hid the face of the sun. A storm was brewing. We looked 
 round for some kind of shelter, but all was desolation. Even the mountains presented 
 no grotto or crevice in which we could take refuge. Then we hurried on our 
 mules, scarcely knowing in what direction to continue our forced march, moved 
 solely by that apprehension of danger, and the need of escaping from it, common 
 to all living creatures. At the moment when our fast trot had increased to a gallop, 
 the wind began to blow in sudden gusts, so that the clouds were heaped together 
 like floating ice on the breaking up of a river, and grew dark in our faces. Lightning 
 and thunder immediately joining the melee warned us that the storm was near, 
 and had the feet of our beasts been gifted with the swiftness of Achilles they would 
 have tried in vain to outstrip it in speed. 
 
 Nevertheless we continued to flee before the tempest, now and then raising our 
 
AREQUIPA TO LAM PA. 
 
 75 
 
 heads to judge of the state of the atmosphere, but again burying them almost 
 immediately in the immense wrapper called a tapacara, which everyone is obliged 
 to wear in these latitudes. Meanwhile the distant rumblings of the thunder succeeded 
 at more frequent intervals, the lightning traced lines of fire in the heavens, the 
 clouds sinking by their own weight, approached rapidly towards the earth, and a livid 
 light illuminated the landscape, which stood out in bold relief against the deep neutral 
 tint of the horizon. 
 
 HOSPITALITY OF A SEPULCHRE. 
 
 A sudden thunder-clap filled us with fear and made our mules tremble upon 
 their hocks. The clouds bulged like overfilled leathern bottles, and a shower of hail- 
 stones beat upon our heads. To protect ourselves as much as possible we huddled up 
 in our cloaks; our unhappy beasts, unable to follow our example, whined with the 
 pain caused by the rough contact of the projectiles with their poor noses. We quite 
 pitied their condition, and did all we could to excite them by voice, spur, and bridle. 
 The hailstorm was succeeded by a fall of snow, such as one never witnesses but 
 at this elevation. It fell so fast and thick that it was impossible to see ten steps 
 in adA'ance. In an instant the whole landscape was wrapped in one great winding- 
 sheet; the mules profited by the stupefaction we felt to slacken their pace and 
 proceed to their own liking. We had thus felt our way for a quarter of an hour, 
 when a dark mass seemed to cross the moving curtain of snow. "God be praised!" 
 
76 
 
 PERU. 
 
 exclaimed Nor Medina, drawing rein by the side of this construction, of which 1 
 could not yet divine the character. As I approached he cried out to me to dismount. 
 I obeyed with the more promptitude seeing that the door of this lodge was wide 
 open, only it was so low, that to enter I was obliged to go on my knees. In the 
 meanwhile Nor Medina relieved the mules of their harness, which he covered with 
 a waxed cloth (or oil-skin), and gliding through the cat's hole very soon rejoined 
 me. The snow continued to fall like pressed wool. 
 
 The shelter we had found so opportunely was an edifice formed of enormous 
 blocks, and covered in with a single stone. A little window looking eastward, at about 
 a man's height, scarcely lighted the interior. This sepulchre, for such it was, might 
 measure ten feet on each side by eight feet in height. Its walls, sloped in the Egyptian 
 manner, and of tremendous thickness, had probably seen many centuries and endured 
 many tempests. I asked my guide what he thought of this sepulchre, and if any 
 tradition attached to it. But the snow which had soaked through the man's clothes 
 had dried up his habitual loquacity; he replied with a yawn, "It was the work of 
 the heathen Aymaras." I ought to have been satisfied with this reply; but reflecting 
 that it might happen to me, as to so many others, to tell a traveller's story to the 
 public, and reflecting further that the public would not be satisfied with Nor Medina's 
 laconic explanation, I used my flint and steel, lighted a bit of wax-candle, and 
 wrote the following lines : — 
 
 " When the Children of the Sun first appeared in Peru, the great Aymara nation 
 possessed the country which extends from Lampa to the frontiers of Desaguadero, 
 and comprises under the name of Collao the region of the Punas, or plateaux 
 situated eastward of the chain of the Western Andes. In various parts of this country, 
 which is some 270 miles in length and of an average breadth of 90 miles, were 
 temples, palaces, and monuments of various kinds, some intact, some already in 
 ruins, the architecture and statuary of which bore witness to an advanced state of 
 civilization. The Aymaras, who ascribed to these constructions a very remote date, 
 attributed them to the Collahuas, whose descendents they boasted themselves to be. 
 According to them, that nation had come from a far-distant country, situated to the 
 north of Peru, and had occupied different places for a long period before advancing 
 to the region of the Peruvian plateaux, which in memory of them had since borne 
 the name of Collao. These ancestors of the Aymaras, so to speak of them, believed, 
 according to hieroglyphic pictures, of which their chiefs alone possessed the secret, 
 that previous to the sun which gave them light there had been four others which 
 were successively extinguished by a flood, an earthquake, a general break up, and a 
 great tempest which annihilated at the same time all created beings. After the 
 disappearance of the fourth sun the world had been immersed in darkness for twenty- 
 five years. In the midst of that profound night, and ten years before the appearance 
 of a fifth sun, the human race was regenerated. The great Creator, when he formed 
 anew a man and a woman, created also this fifth sun, which had lasted already a 
 thousand years. This astrological fiction, which the Aymaras derived from the 
 Collahuas and which has served as the basis of a particular system of cosmogony, 
 
AREQUIPA TO LAMPA 
 
 77 
 
 was common to the whole group of peoples speaking the same language: the Toltecs, 
 the Cicimecs, the Nahuatlaques, the Acolhues, the Tlascaltecs, the Aztecs, &c., who, 
 about the beginning of our era, inhabited the country of Anahuac in New Spain. 
 These peoples are said to have received their civilization, their architecture, their 
 quipos, 1 and their hieroglyphics from the Olmecs and the Xicalanques, two powerful 
 nations who preceded them, and who themselves boasted of their high antiquity. 
 
 " To return to our Aymaras. The establishment of the Incas in Peru, as it caused 
 a displacement of most of the Andean nations, so it dispossessed this people of 
 the country which it had so long occupied. In the time of the second emperor, 
 Sinchi-Roca, it had abandoned the Condesuyos 2 of Cuzco, and had withdrawn more 
 and more westward to escape from the domination of the Children of the Sun. 
 The third Inca, Lloque-Yupanqui, carried his arms into that part of Collao of which 
 the Lake of Titicaca and its monuments are the historic centre. Occupied in sub- 
 jugating the Aymaras established in the south, he left in peace such of them as lived 
 to the west. Mayta-Capac, his successor, attacked them at two opposite points of 
 their territory. Having subdued the Aymaras of Tiahuanacu in Upper Peru, he 
 marched against those of Parihuanacocha (the Flamingo lake), situated almost under 
 the fifteenth degree, and they also fell under subjection to him. 
 
 "This circle of conquests, successively enlarged by each emperor, and touching at 
 the several points indicated above, had pushed towards the coast of the Pacific 
 the Aymaras who were still free. Some families of that nation were stopped from 
 advancing beyond the entrance of the western valleys, where their relics are still 
 found. 3 Others were driven as far as the sea, where they mixed with the fish-eating 
 tribes who at that epoch inhabited the shores of the ocean between the fourteenth and 
 the twenty-fourth degrees of latitude. 4 In the fifteenth century, the conquests of the 
 Inca Capac-Yupanqui extending even to Chili, and causing the almost total extinction 
 of these peoples, the Aymaras disappeared with them from the littoral; only those 
 individuals of that nation who had previously bent under the yoke of the Incas con- 
 tinued to occupy in the Sierra a part of the ancient territory of their fathers. At 
 present we count about 200,000 of these indigenes spread along the Bolivia-Peruvian 
 frontier, and in the seven departments of Higher Peru. 
 
 "Among the ancient customs of that nation, a custom, so singular that it may assist 
 the ethnographer to recover the traces of its passage across the two continents, was 
 that of deforming the skull at birth, giving it a conical form, by means of boards 
 padded with cotton and compressed by ligatures. The skeletons of Aymaras, found 
 
 1 The quipos, or strands of coloured wool, which the Peruvians used to record their dates and traditions, was not 
 invented by them, as so long supposed. It was used by the Canadians, and was known to the Chinese at a very remote 
 period. It was also used by the nations of Mexico, referred to in the text, by whom it was called nepohualtzitzin. 
 (See Botturini.) 
 
 2 From the Quichua cunti (west) and suyu (direction): one of the four divisions of the empire established by 
 Manco-Capac. 
 
 3 The Ayniara ossuary, the existence of which we are the first to make known, is situated at the distance of a few 
 miles S.S.E. of Hay, in the midst of the zone of trachytic ashes, which extends from that port to the entrance of the 
 valley of Tambo, called the Arenal. 
 
 * The Quellcas (now Quilcas), the Jfoque/tuas, the LUpis, and the Chancus (now Changos). 
 
78 PERU. 
 
 in the neighbourhood of the coast between the sixteenth and eighteenth degrees, are 
 perfectly recognizable by their oblong or egg-shaped heads. An egg, of which one end 
 should form the face, would give an exact idea of their shape. 
 
 "The mode of burial practised by these Indians, at the epoch of their splendour, 
 was also very strange, and unlike anything found among the nations of South America. 
 
 INTERIOR OP AN AYMARA CHULPA. 
 
 Their tombs, called chulpas, have the shape of a truncated pyramid of from twenty 
 to thirty feet high. This pyramid, constructed of unbaked bricks (tapias), was formed 
 in several retreating courses, recalling by its general configuration the Mexican 
 Uocallis, the first idea of which would seem to have been borrowed from the temple 
 of Bel. Sometimes the tombs of the Aymaras were simple monuments of Cyclopean 
 structure covered with a single stone, and forming, in the interior, a square chamber — 
 such as that wherein I write these lines — with a low entrance, and a little window 
 looking to the rising sun. Sometimes, again, these tombs took the form of an obelisk, 
 the elevation of which, from twenty-five to thirty feet, was twice the dimensions 
 of their base. These were covered with an inclined roof, and built of mud. Each 
 tomb of the kind was adapted for the reception of a dozen individuals, whose bodies, 
 embalmed with the Clienopodiiim ambrosioides of the neighbouring valleys, and clothed in 
 their own garments or wrapped in a sack woven with the leaves of the totora, and sloped 
 
AREQUIP A TO LAMPA. 
 
 7n 
 
 off to let the face appear, were seated in a circle, their feet touching one another, 
 resembling the felly of a wheel. Each of the dead had near him, under the pretence 
 of provisions and household utensils, some spikes of maize, a jug of chicha, a bowl, 
 and a spoon. If it was a man, they added to these objects a sling, a macana or club, 
 hunting or fishing implements, and a weft of wool. If a woman, they placed near 
 her a basket made of the stalks of jarava, some balls of llama's wool, and a few 
 shuttles and knitting-needles made of the long black thorns of the Cactus quisco. 1 
 When once this tomb was in possession of the number of guests it was meant to 
 
 AYMARA INDIAN MUMMY. 
 
 contain it was closed up, the window alone being left open, probably with the idea 
 that passers-by might look in and perhaps derive instruction and consolation from 
 
 1 In the hillocks of Cocotea, of Tambo, and of Mejillones, in the neighbourhood of Iquique, in the Morro of Arica, 
 and other places near the coast, are many huacas or burial-places of Chango, Aymara, and Quichua Indians, dating from 
 a period anterior to the Spanish conquest, in which we find objects of the same nature. The nationality of the 
 mummies is apparent at first sight, both from the construction of the huacas in which they are found, and from the 
 position of the bodies. Thus, the huacas of the Changes are as much as eight feet high inside, and the dead are laid 
 upon their backs. Those of the Aymaras are circular cavities, at the bottom of which the corpse, wrapped in a woollen 
 mantle, a mat, or a sack made of rushes, is simply seated. The huacas of the Quichuas, which are scarcely four feet 
 high, are of an ellipsoidal figure, and lined in the interior with small Hat stones. The corpse is placed like a child in 
 its mother's womb ; that is to say, squatting upon its heels, its knees raised to the level of the chin, its elbows resting upon 
 the thighs, and its fingers doubled up against the eyes. 
 
 The garments and the woollen tissues which envelop these mummies, as well as the articles placed near them, are 
 iu all cases very much alike, and are coarsely made. In most of the huacas we have found spikes of maize, and what 
 was once chicha. The grain had become the colour of old mahogany, but it preserved its gloss. The little chicha that 
 remained at the bottom of the cuntaros, made of baked clay and hermetically sealed, had acquired the colour and con- 
 sistency of-treacle. 
 
80 
 
 PERU. 
 
 the calm spectacle of the dead, seated side by side, and, so to speak, regarding each 
 other with hollow eyes. Every morning the rising sun darted a golden ray into the 
 interior of these sepulchres, and warmed for a moment, without reanimating, the 
 yellow parchments which once were men. Some of these chulpas exist still, but 
 empty and desecrated. French, English, Germans, have with one accord broken 
 into these monuments, and the mummies which they inclose, disturbed from the 
 rest of ages, have been transported into the museums of Europe, where they grin in 
 some glazed show-case awaiting the day of resurrection " 
 
 As I finished writing the last word, Nor Medina, who had kept his eye on the 
 weather, told me the snow had ceased falling, and that it was necessary to resume our 
 journey. It was four o'clock. We went to mount our beasts, whose manes, stiffened 
 with frost, recall to mind the horses of Odin Hrimfaxi and Skinfaxi with frozen hair. 
 The poor beasts had not moved from the spot where we left them. My guide patted 
 their flanks to console them for the wretched quarter of an hour they had passed. 
 Then, having saddled and bridled them, we were soon far from the Aymara sepulchre. 
 
 After an hour's march I discovered on my right, hidden b}^ the undulations of the 
 ground, a pretty river winding its joyful way among the rocks which it fringed with 
 a border of foam. I pointed it out to Nor Medina, who told me it was the same 
 thread of water that I had seen bubbling from the hollow of a rock near the station 
 of Apo. A course of sixty miles in the midst of the snows of the Sierra had worked 
 this prodigy. "So are born and so grow societies and empires," said I to my guide; 
 who smiled his approbation. 
 
 The road we were following presently wound along by the river, so that we kept 
 close to its banks. In places destitute of stones, it spread its water deliciously over a 
 bed of quartzose sand, so white, so fine, so pleasant to the eye, that for a moment I 
 was tempted to dismount, to take oft' my shoes, and wade in it to the unknown gulf 
 into which it flowed. The day however, which already drew near its end, prevented me 
 from giving effect to this idea. I contented myself with dipping into it, by the aid of 
 a bit of pack-thread, the tin pot which when travelling served me at once for a glass, a 
 bowl, and a cup, and I drank some draughts of its limpid and icy water. 
 
 As there was no station in the neighbourhood, nor even a shepherd's hut, where we 
 could pass the night, and as the hamlet of Compuerta — the only inhabited place, as 
 my guide said — was still some leagues distant, we urged our beasts to a lively pace. 
 The storm of the afternoon had cleared off, and left no trace in the heavens. Nothing 
 stained the immense vault of azure, save that the setting sun tinged it with an orange 
 purple. Proceeding on our road we came to a lagune, something less than a mile in 
 circumference, on the borders of which grew large-leaved Moras (Juncus peruvianus). 
 That " drop of limpid water which glassed the heavens," as the poet says, served as the 
 home of several kinds of aquatic birds, such as grebes, divers (Colymbidw), and teals, 
 which sported and quacked at each other as they prepared for rest. A sluice at the 
 outlet of this basin allowed its surplus water to Aoav into a ravine which communicated 
 with the river. Two hundred paces from this lagune I discovered another exactly like 
 it, but situated upon the right bank of the watercourse which we were following. Nor 
 
AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 
 
 81 
 
 Medina was particular in explaining to me that beyond these two lagunes — the first of 
 which was called the Lake of Gold (Coricocha), and the second the Lake of Silver 
 (Colquecocha) — the river, which we had seen to take its rise at Apo, and which even 
 then was called the Rio de Cuevilla, took the name of the Rio de Compuerta. I noted 
 the fact, and just as I questioned the man if the hamlet of Compuerta was yet far 
 distant, he showed me, at some bow-shots from the second lagune, a group of ruined 
 
 THE LAKE OP GOLD AND LAKE OF SILVER. 
 
 houses backed by a hill. We crossed the river on a sand-bank, which seemed to be 
 j)laced there expressly to facilitate the passage from one shore to the other, and 
 directed our steps towards these houses, which, from their tumble-down appearance, 
 one could not have supposed to be inhabited, if the thread of smoke which rose from 
 the roof of one of them had not revealed the presence of man. 
 
 At the noise made by our arrival the door of the smoking house opened, and the 
 head of a woman appeared. She regarded us with a scared look, but apparently re- 
 assured by our pacific exterior, asked my guide what good wind had blown him here; 
 as for me, I obtained no more notice than if I had been one of the bags carried by 
 our mules. However, I was accustomed to the manners of the Quichuas, and this 
 indifference did not trouble me. After exchanging a few words with this woman, my 
 guide requested me to dismount, and seek for a room in the house that would suit me. 
 
 VOL. I. 11 
 
82 
 
 PERU. 
 
 I looked at the Indian to judge by her expression if she were agreeable to this or not. 
 As soon as she caught my eye she faced about and turned her back upon me. 
 " Silence gives consent," I said to myself, as I passed her haughtily and entered. 
 
 That which Nor Medina — no doubt from regard for the sex — had called a house 
 was a square space, black, smoky, and sordid. Tattered garments were everywhere 
 hanging from the rafters. The original colour of these rags was hid under a covering 
 
 HAMLET OF COMPUERTA. 
 
 of soot. A fire of llamas' dung was burning in the centre of the place, spreading an 
 odour like musk, which, added to the thick smoke it emitted, offended both sight and 
 smell. A pot placed before the fire indicated that some kind of supper was in pre- 
 paration. I lifted the cover, and saw one of those broths composed of water and the 
 flour of maize, which the Indians highly relish in defect of anything better. To me it 
 seemed but poor stuff. I drew a stool before the fire, and while I reflected, as I 
 stirred up the embers, on the meagre fare which awaited me, a cock which was roosting 
 in a corner of the hut began to crow. I started up at this unusual sound, and signing 
 to Nor Medina, who entered just then followed by the Indian, he came near me. 
 
 " I do not care for Magna" I said in a low tone, showing him the Lacedaemonian 
 broth that was stewing in the pot, "but the cock I heard crow just now is exactly to 
 my mind: is it possible, do you think, to get it for supper?" 
 
AREQU1P A TO LAMPA. 
 
 83 
 
 " Nothing is more easy," he replied, in the same low tone. Then turning to the 
 woman, "Mamita," said he, "go and see if the mules are all right." She went out, 
 and returned in a minute or two to utter a cry of rage at the sight of Nor Medina 
 seated before the fire, his legs wide apart, and in the act of plucking her favourite 
 rooster, whose jugular he had already cut. 
 
 "Mamita," he said, in reply to her cry of rage, "this fowl is very thin." 
 
 "Monster!" she cried in Quichua, "dog of a Metis, thief, murderer! To kill a 
 cock that I myself reared, and that told the time so well by his crowing. What had 
 the poor thing done to you?" And thereupon she began to cry. 
 
 "Silence! woman," said Nor Medina, gravely. "The elagua that you were cooking- 
 is not to the taste of this traveller, and as it was absolutely necessary he should 
 have something to eat, your old rooster will have the honour of satisfying his hunger. 
 Besides we mean to pay you for the skinny brute! How much may it be worth? 
 A real? Two reals?" 
 
 The Indian, accustomed like others of her caste to exactions, often accompanied 
 with violence, from the descendants of the Spaniards, appeared so surprised and 
 delighted at the idea of being reimbursed for what, till then, people had contented 
 themselves with taking from her, that her tears suddenly ceased. Nevertheless, from 
 the singular manner in which she looked at Nor Medina, it was evident she thought the 
 offer was made in derision ; so to end her anxiety, I took from my pocket a piece of 
 four reals, and putting it in her hand, begged her to excuse the rough manners of my 
 guide. She received the money with a sort of doubtful astonishment, turned it over 
 and over, as if to assure herself that it was not bad ; then, convinced of the goodness 
 of the metal, she smiled, and slipped it into the hem of her petticoat. 
 
 "In fact," said she, drying her eyes, "it is better so: the apuhualpacuna [literally, 
 lord of hens] prevented Juan from sleeping, and sooner or later he would have wrung 
 its neck." And to show the muleteer that she bore him no malice, she sat down by 
 his side, took one wing of the fowl, and set to work plucking it, while Nor Medina 
 devoted himself to the other. Thanks to their emulation, the cock was soon despoiled 
 of his coat of many colours, singed, cleaned, dismembered, and thrown into an earthen 
 pan which the woman furnished with the best grace, as she did also some beef-dripping, 
 and some onions which she took out of a hole in the wall that appeared to serve as a 
 larder. A few pleasant words which I addressed to her by way of acknowledgment, 
 and two or three friendly slaps on the back which Nor Medina gave her, restored to 
 the Indian all her good humour. 
 
 While my supper was cooking the sound of voices was heard without, " That is 
 Juan and his friends come from the mine," said the woman. As she finished speaking the 
 door opened, and four Indians enveloped to the eyes in their striped ponchos entered. 
 At the sight of the strangers they could not hide a grimace; but Nor Medina having 
 welcomed them home, and the woman having shown her husband the half-piaster 
 which she had received, their physiognomies, for a moment hostile, brightened, and 
 they smiled in unison. Whilst the Indians took off their cloaks the woman lighted 
 one of those resinous torches, done up in the spathe of the banana-tree, and which 
 
84 
 
 PERU. 
 
 they obtain from the eastern valleys. In its light — though, by the way, it emitted 
 more smoke than flame — the Quichuas, seated on the ground, took from their wallets 
 a wooden porringer, which they handed to the hostess, and which she filled to the 
 brim with smoking elagiia. 
 
 Then commenced a most amusing pantomime, the notion of which would have 
 delighted Pierrot-Debureau. Each Indian, on receiving his full porringer, balanced it 
 on the tips of his five fingers, then making it revolve, began to sup that portion of 
 the soup which had been slightly cooled by its contact with the wood. The dexterous 
 rapidity with which these honest fellows manoeuvred their bowls, the twinkling of their 
 eyes, and the play of physiognomy which accompanied the operation, combined to form 
 a spectacle so new and curious, that while I watched it I quite forgot I had eaten 
 nothing since the morning. 
 
 The fact however was recalled to me by Nor Medina's announcement that supper 
 was ready. He had spread my saddle-cloth on the ground like a table-cloth, and set 
 in the middle of it the earthen dish and its contents, sharpened a piece of wood to 
 serve as a fork, and provided a jug of iced water. I had nothing to do but to fall to 
 work. My repast finished, and observing that my muleteer was disposed to appro- 
 priate all that was left of the supper, I desired him to offer the mistress of the house, 
 as a token of my perfect esteem, a portion of the fowl whose tough flesh had made my 
 jaws ache. The man eagerly obeyed, only instead of a wing or a thigh which I had 
 wished to see him offer my hostess, it was the wreck of the carcass that the rascal gave 
 her, which however she sucked with evident pleasure. 
 
 " Poor apuhualpacuna" said she, as she licked her fingers, " if anything could 
 console it now, it would be to think it had been eaten by a Spanish cavalier!" 
 
 The sitting soon came to an end. The Quichuas, after consulting together in a low 
 tone, disappeared, saluting us with Quedense con Dios — Rest with God! By the 
 rummaging which followed in the adjoining hut, I concluded they had bestowed them- 
 selves there for the night, and had given us entire possession of the apartment we 
 occupied. This was confirmed when the woman, having added some handfuls of fuel 
 to the fire which was on the point of going out, went to rejoin her husband. Left to 
 ourselves, we spread our skin-cloaks at some little distance from the hearth, and threw 
 ourselves upon them with all our clothes on. In five minutes we were sleeping like the 
 blessed. 
 
 At six o'clock in the morning we resumed our journey. The ground fell away 
 rapidly from west to east. The landscape which lay at our feet was concealed by 
 a thick white fog, the borders of which were feebly illumined by the rising sun. 
 In the measure we descended the fog lifted, and very soon all the lower part of 
 the plateau stood out well defined and clear, whilst the heavens were veiled by a 
 thick mass of vapours. After a moment these vapours began to move in masses 
 that rolled over one another, and from opaque white changed to transparent red; 
 then the immense curtain was rent, and we beheld in all their splendour the ethereal 
 blue and the orb of the rising sun. 
 
 The distance from Compuerta to Cabana, which we intended to reach before 
 
AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 
 
 85 
 
 night, is estimated at six leagues; but these six Hispano-American leagues are equal 
 to nine French leagues, or twenty-seven miles. Moreover, the landscape, a very 
 ' unimpressive one, offered nothing to the casual observer but short grass and stones, 
 so that the tourist in search of recreation would more likely have found himself 
 wearied to death with its monotony. Not so, the learned devotee of Flora or of Cybele. 
 For him there was no lack of subjects for delighted admiration. Thanks to the 
 spectacles he habitually wears, which enlarge objects, and occasionally make them 
 appear double, he discovers in the grass beautifully branched fragosas of liliputian 
 size, little stemless flowerets, gentians, wernerias, loasas, lysipomias, lobelias, &c, for 
 the most part white, justifying the local saying, Oro en la costa y plata en la sierra} 
 
 If from the vegetable kingdom the same learned traveller turns to the mineral, 
 where the tourist sees nothing but stones, there is visible to him, always aided by 
 his spectacles, mighty mas*ses of trappean porphyry, composed of nitrous feldspar and 
 amphibolite, in which he recognizes the character of the materials employed by the 
 Incas in their beautiful constructions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 
 
 As it was neither in the character of a savan nor that of a tourist that I was 
 travelling, but as a man occupied with his own affairs, I neither looked for discoveries 
 nor for diversion in the landscape. All my attention was concentrated upon my 
 mule, urging him on by voice and spur, while listening, without replying, to the 
 perpetual chatter of my guide. 
 
 Since leaving Compuerta we had kept steadily along by the river bank, with the 
 view of avoiding the mountains and declivities that lay in the direct line to Cabana. 
 This had been decided on by Nor Medina, not out of consideration for me, as one 
 might have thought, but for the sake of his beasts, who, he said, were almost done up 
 with these perpetual transitions from the nadir to the zenith. Any one else in my 
 place would have remonstrated, and compelled the worthy muleteer to follow the 
 more direct line, especially as the curve of the road we were following lengthened a 
 little the stage. My amour propre, however, prevented me from grumbling. I feared 
 to give the honest man occasion to laugh at a traveller who should complain 
 of a league more or less of road, when he had himself gone eighty miles out of the 
 way to gratify a mere whim. 
 
 The sun rose high ; hour after hour passed by. The river of Compuerta changed its 
 course from south-east to east, and then north. The ground fell away in a more 
 decided slope. At that moment, to speak nautically, we were off Chucuytu, at 
 the distance of forty-five miles from which stretched the immense basin of the Lake of 
 Titicaca, and if there had been a high mountain at hand we might have looked from its 
 summit upon the sacred lagune, the thirteen isles dotted over its surface, and the 
 fourteen rivers which assist to swell its waters. In the impossibility of delighting my 
 eyes with the spectacle of that alpine sea, by turns so calm and so furious, the eleva- 
 tion of which is nearly 12,800 feet above the level of the two oceans, I recalled to 
 
 1 Gold on the coast and silver in the sierra. Almost all the flowers which grow in sight of the Pacific Ocean, and 
 which are of the Aster, Ifelianthus, IJieracium, Actinea, and Chrysanthemum characters, are in fact of a golden-yellow colour ; 
 while those which we meet with in the Sierra are silver-white. 
 
8G 
 
 PERU. 
 
 mind, day by day, the happy time when I wandered without care on these banks, 
 seeking to surprise in their aquatic sports, but never finding them, the "green spider," 
 the "gyrinus" (a species of water-beetle), and the "bearded triton," of which Father 
 Valera speaks in his Histoire Naturelle du Perou. I remembered, too, how vainly I 
 had rummaged among the reeds and rushes to find the Polygonium amphibium, 
 mentioned by the same learned writer; and how, disappointed in my fruitless researches, 
 I had stopped to crunch a biscuit, or make ducks and drakes with the white and black 
 stones on the river side. Alas ! that the memory of the past should bring with it so 
 much that is sad and melancholy. 
 
 At the moment of leaving for ever these elevated regions, about which many closet 
 savans had written so learnedly without having seen them, I felt myself drawn to them 
 by every bond of habit and sympathy. I would gladly have carried in my hand, as 
 Charlemagne carries his globe, this historic country, of which the ancient civilization of 
 India, in its march round the world, had made a centre of light. With what ethnogra- 
 phical fervour, with what archaeological enthusiasm, I could have deposited it in some 
 European museum, under a glass case, in order that our savans, by studying it close 
 at hand, might agree, once for all, as to its origin and history ! 
 
 These memories of the past absorbed me so completely for some hours, that I felt 
 neither the hunger from which I was nevertheless suffering, nor the cold caused by a 
 penetrating wind which blew from the snowy Andes of Crucero, as the sun set behind 
 us. Neither did I remark that at the extremity of the plateau we were crossing, there 
 appeared, like white and black points, the houses of two villages, built opposite each 
 other, and separated by the breadth of the river Compuerta. Nothing less than an 
 exclamation from Nor Medina that we were drawing near the end of our day's march, 
 would have served to dispel my reverie, and overthrow the scaffolding of hypotheses 
 that I had been so busily erecting. 
 
 I had scarcely realized the fact that the villages in sight were those of Cabana 
 and Cabanilla, when my stomach reasserted its long disregarded rights. A moment 
 afterwards we entered the village of Cabana, leaving on our right that of Cabanilla, 
 which a roughly constructed bridge of three arches, built of gray trachyte, unites to its 
 neighbour. 
 
 Cabana, to which the makers of Peruvian statistics, with a modesty which savours 
 of good taste very rare among them, simply allude in their little compilations, without 
 attaching to its name any striking epithet, is neither an illustrious capital, a well-deserv- 
 ing city, nor a heroic town ! It is a cluster of small houses constructed of broken stones 
 and mud, thatched with ichu, the stiff straw of the Cordilleras, and disposed in the 
 form of a Z. The middle of the downward stroke of this letter forms a kind of plaza 
 or square, occupied by the church, a modest structure of mud, with a square belfry, 
 the projecting roof of which, supported by pillars bent with age, is turned up at the 
 edge like the roof of a pagoda. On this little belfry, lit up for a moment by a ray of 
 the setting sun, a dozen black vultures (Percnopterus urubu), like undertakers in feathers, 
 had aligned themselves in that immobility of pose which is the characteristic of this 
 obscene bird. 
 
AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 
 
 89 
 
 Notwithstanding the neighing of our mules, who had scented the stable, and the 
 clamorous manner in which Nor Medina announced our arrival, not a soul appeared at 
 the doors of the houses. The melancholy village seemed to be enchanted, or unpeopled 
 by a pestilence. On remarking this to my guide, he explained that the inhabitants had 
 probably gone to explore the quebradas, rivers, and brooks of the neighbourhood, in 
 search of gold-dust or fragments of silver-ore, with which to pay their dues. 
 
 THE VILLAGES OF CABANA AND CABANILLA. 
 
 "But," I objected to the man, "the abolition of tribute has been decreed, and con- 
 sequently the Indian has no longer anything to pay to the state!" 
 
 "Cabal" (just so!) he replied; "but if the Indian pays no tribute to the state, he has 
 always his little accounts to settle with the sub-prefect of the province, the governor, 
 and the alcalde. I say nothing of the lord-bishop, of the cur6, of the vicar, and of the 
 monks of our convents, holy men, who care so little for silver that they content them- 
 selves with deducting a tithe from the crops of potatoes, chuno, quinoa, oats, or what- 
 ever the Indian may grow. Perhaps he has no crop at all; but his wife has a distaff, and 
 she spins and sends to the tithe-collector (diezmero) a few balls of llama's wool, which 
 are always received with pleasure. In default of wool she has perhaps a guinea-pig, a 
 few eggs, a cake of tallow, or other article: any of these will do, and the little presents 
 she makes serve to keep up a good understanding. Our Indians know this so well, 
 
 VUL. I. 12 
 
90 
 
 PERU. 
 
 that although they may grumble a little, they take care not to neglect these little duties 
 when the time comes to pay court to the civil and religious authorities." 
 "But this is frightfully tyrannical," I exclaimed. 
 
 "It would be unpolite to contradict your lordship," replied the mule-driver, "but 
 assuredly the Indian looks at these things from a different point of view. He may 
 grumble, sometimes, but he does not raise a clamour. Habit counts for much in so 
 many things. I will even venture to say that most Punarunacunas 1 view these 
 excursions into the quebradas as nothing more than a party of pleasure. They would 
 like to enjoy the outing alone, and at liberty; for all are lawfully married, and a 
 married man is never sorry to be free for a moment. But Scripture having ordained 
 that the wife is to cleave to the husband, the Indian wife, caring nothing whether it 
 pleases her lord and master or not, follows in his wake, under the pretext of preparing 
 his food and mending his clothes, but really only to vex him. Then, as the children 
 could hardly live without their mother, and as the dogs would die of ennui without 
 the children, it comes to pass that both man and beast absolutely abandon their 
 village for a time; considerations which will explain to you the complete solitude we 
 have found here. 
 
 "Our Indians will remain ten or twelve days afield. At the end of this time, if 
 they have filled their chuspa with metal, they set apart the few piastres which are due 
 to the superior authorities, and lay out the rest in the purchase of brandy and coca. 
 At home once more, they will dance merrily to the sound of a tin trumpet and a 
 charango; drink, get drunk, and soundly beat their wives, as a lesson not to leave the 
 conjugal roof another time. But this is labour lost. A woman is by nature incor- 
 rigible, and an Indian woman has a taste for being beaten. It flatters her amour 
 propre. A good shower of blows from a stick or a knotted cord, administered now and 
 then by him she calls her palomachay, 2 or "cherished dove," is a better proof to her 
 than any number of protestations and oaths that the man in question has chosen her for 
 his companion, and continues to cherish her above all other women. . . ." 
 
 Here the dissertation of Nor Medina was interrupted by the baying of a dog which 
 seemed to be affected with laryngitis. 
 
 "It is the alcco of the cureV' he said, "a poor animal that has grown as useless as 
 his master." 
 
 At this moment we turned the angle of an almost broken-down wall, and I 
 discovered a miserable house built against the apsis of the church, of which the 
 projecting thatched roof protected it from the north wind as the foliage of a tree 
 protects the nest of a bird. This dwelling, furnished with one window and one door, 
 was so low that a horseman by rising upon his stirrups could rest his elbows upon its 
 summit. 
 
 1 Runa, man ; puna, plateau ; cuna, the ; — the men of the plateau. This is the name given to the indigenes of the 
 region of Collao. 
 
 2 The word paloma, pigeon or dove, is Spanish, this bird not being found in the wild state in South America, but 
 having been naturalized there by the Spaniards. On the other hand, there are seven or eight varieties of turtle-doves, of 
 which the largest is the size of a wood-pigeon, and the smallest that of a common sparrow. The first is called urpi ; the 
 second cuculi. It is the urpi that, under the name of urpi-lla and urpilla-chay, sweet turtle-dove, darling turtle-dove, 
 figures in the greater number of yuravis and poems of the Quichuas. 
 
AREQUIPA TO LAMP A. 
 
 91 
 
 The front of this humble abode was somewhat enlivened by being whitewashed. 
 On the window-sill, in a common earthen pot, but of such a shape as to recall the art 
 of the Etruscans, blossomed one of those alstrcemerias which European horticulturists 
 improperly call the Lily of the Incas, 1 and of which the variety tometitosa, which I 
 recognized at a glance, flourishes in the shady thickets in certain sheltered spots of the 
 Entre-Sierra. The sight of these pretty flowers, with their petals of greenish pink, 
 spotted with a brownish red, gave me much pleasure. They 
 indicated on the part of their possessor a certain delicacy of 
 organization, which seemed a good augury for the refreshment 
 and shelter which I designed to beg of him. As the dog, 
 a miserable cur, toothless, blear-eyed, his hair bristling, re- 
 doubled his noise on seeing us alight, an old woman made 
 her appearance on the threshold, regarding us with an 
 astonished air. 
 
 "Bios bendiga d U. mamita" (God bless you, little mother), 
 cried my guide, in a tone at once respectful and familiar. 
 
 "Alii llamanta Hueracocha" (Good day, signor), the woman 
 answered in the idiom of the Quichuas. 
 
 The manner of the salutation, and the difference of idiom 
 between the two personages, testified not only to a greater alstrdem EKIA , 
 
 Called by mistake the Lily of the Incas. 
 
 degree of civilization in the one than in the other, but the 
 
 title of honour which the woman had accorded to the muleteer in answer to the 
 qualification of "little mother," seemed to imply an inferiority of position, with which I 
 could not help being struck. I had no opportunity of asking my guide about this. 
 The old woman on learning from him that I desired to see the cure* Cabrera, imme- 
 diately invited me to enter the house. I therefore followed her in, leaving Nor Medina 
 to unsaddle our mules. 
 
 Having crossed the first room, which appeared to serve as ante-chamber, kitchen, 
 and dining-room, my conductress stopped and asked me timidly if my business with the 
 cure* was of so pressing a nature as to make it necessary to wake him out of the siesta 
 in which he was just then indulging. 
 
 To this inquiry I courteously replied that it was not necessary to interrupt 
 the holy man's slumber, that I could very well wait, more especially if to wile away 
 the intervening time, my hostess would give me something to eat. Hardly had this 
 sentence escaped me than the cure, who was not, as the good woman believed, 
 asleep, and had heard me through the partition, called out in Quichua, "With 
 whom are you speaking, Veronica?" 
 
 "With a white-skinned Hudracocha, who says he has business with you, my 
 brother, and who asks for something to eat. . . ." 
 
 " For he is faint with hunger," added I, raising my voice, and using purposely the 
 idiom employed by my hosts. 
 
 1 It is the Narcissus amancaes, not the AUtrcemeria, which the natives call Lily of the Incas. 
 
02 
 
 PERU. 
 
 "Eh! my sister, to work quickly," replied the curd: "kill a guinea-pig, beat 
 some eggs and make an omelette; do you not hear that this poor traveller says he 
 is hungry? And you, sir," said he, addressing me, "be so good as to walk in here 
 where we can converse with more comfort." 
 
 I left the good dame Veronica to her culinary preparations and took advantage 
 of the cure's invitation. When I had opened the door which formed the communi- 
 cation between the two apartments, I found myself in a room of some size, though 
 with a low ceiling. A Verenguela stone, transparent like glass and cut square, 
 was fixed between the rafters of the roof and illuminated the room after the manner 
 of an artist's studio. 
 
 The cure* was seated on one of those square blocks of masonry which serve among 
 the common people the purposes of chair, table, and bed. A pile of fleeces, with 
 coarse woollen coverings over them, modified the hardness of this couch. The pastor 
 was saying his rosary, which he suspended to a nail when I entered. Then as I drew 
 near, he stretched towards me in an uncertain manner, as though seeking mine, his 
 two hands. 
 
 "Help me, dear sir," he said with singular sweetness of expression, "I know 
 you are there, but cannot tell your exact position ; four years since God deprived 
 me of the light of the sun, and now I cannot see earthly things except in thought." 
 
 I eagerly took the old man's hands, who drew me towards him and made me 
 sit on his bed. I was so moved by the discovery of an infirmity so unexpected, 
 that I was unable to offer the slightest attempt at consolation, or even a word of 
 politeness to the venerable father. As I stealthily examined him he caressed my 
 hands with an effusion quite juvenile, felt the stuff of which my clothing was made, 
 and seemed to give himself up to a physiological examination of which I could not 
 imagine the aim. 
 
 "You do not belong to this country," he at length said, "you have neither the 
 tone of voice nor the exterior of my countrymen; tell me, dear sir, whence you come, 
 whither you go, and what kindly wind has drifted you to my humble dwelling?" 
 
 "With great willingness," I answered. "I left Hay last week, and I am on my 
 way to Brazil, which I hope to reach before three months are out. My motive in 
 coming to your home is a very simple one. Nearly five years ago, when visiting 
 en amateur one day the museum of Lima, I perceived in a corner of the hall which 
 contains the genealogical tree of the Incas, a portrait of Don Juan Pablo Cabrera, 
 the cure* of Macusani. This portrait, painted in oils, by an artist of the country, was 
 of small value as a painting, and my attention would have been immediately turned 
 from it if I had not read the biography of the original inscribed in a corner of the 
 canvas. I was so impressed by this account of a holy and laborious life that I vowed 
 to myself I would not leave America without seeing the original of the portrait. 
 It is in fulfilment of this determination, reverend father, that instead of taking the 
 road to Cuzco by the Andes I have come by way of Lampa, feeling almost certain 
 that I should find in the village of Cabana him whom I wished to see, and whom 
 I had long loved without knowing." 
 
AREQUIPA TO LA MP A. 
 
 93 
 
 "You have done that for me!" exclaimed the poor priest, raising my hands 
 to his lips with such eagerness that I could not prevent this demonstration of pro- 
 found gratitude and Avonderful humility. "Ah! sir, ah! my child — because I guess 
 from your voice you are young — God will bless you, since you remember those who 
 suffer and are forgotten." 
 
 A thoughtful silence prevailed between us for some minutes. 
 
 " Europe is a noble country and her sons have noble hearts," said the cure\ at 
 length, as if in reply to some anterior meditation. It is to Europe we owe the great 
 
 THE CURE OF MACUSANI, A TEUE PRIEST ACCORDING TO THE GOSPEL. 
 
 ideas that have been disseminated among us. If those ideas have produced nothing, 
 if the good seed has dried up in the ground, or has given but the stubble without 
 the ear, it is because our hearts and our understandings were not prepared to receive 
 it. When I dwelt at Macusani I knew Europeans who were drawn to these 
 countries simply by their love for science. Although my relations with them were 
 of the shortest duration, their memory has been deeply engraved in my heart." 
 
 Whilst the priest spoke I studied his physiognomy and mentally compared it with 
 the horrid portrait I had seen of him. His features presented the type of the Iranian 
 race, but without the projecting cheek-bones and prominent curvature of the nose 
 which characterize that race. A constant habit of thought, instinct with human 
 charity and divine love, seemed to have still more ennobled and refined the contours 
 of a face that was already noble and perfectly formed by nature. The old man's 
 eyes, closed, as he himself had said, to the light of this world, and not communicating 
 to the spirit any reflection from exterior nature, imparted to his face the noble calm- 
 ness of a beautiful antique mask. The Quichna idiom, with its ornate expressions 
 and high-flown metaphors, which he employed in preference to the Spanish when 
 conversing, had added spirituality, so to speak, to that plastic beauty by taking from 
 
94 
 
 PERU. 
 
 his thought I know not what mysterious grace, what sustained elevation, which had 
 nothing in common with the habitual language of men. 
 
 The costume of the priest consisted of a kind of loose gown or wrapper 1 made of 
 bayeta, a coarse cloth manufactured in the country. His shirt was made of unbleached 
 cotton cloth, and a handkerchief of cotton stuff with a square pattern served him for 
 a cravat. As for the room itself, it was, like the old man's garments, simple almost 
 to bareness. Whitewashed walls, a bolster for his head, a linen cloth representing the 
 Virgin Mary des sept douleurs; a holy- water vessel, and a rosary by the side of the 
 image; here and there a few benches and stools, a leathern trunk, and some objects 
 of no value ; on the right side of the chamber, in the shade, a second couch, probably 
 that of the priest's sister Veronica, completed the humble furniture, and brought to my 
 memory these lines of a poet— 
 
 "La croix de bois, 1'autel de pierre, 
 Suffit aux homines comme a Dieu." 
 
 The worthy pastor had been silent for some time when I asked him, with suitable 
 apologies, to relate some details of his past history and the life which he led in this 
 solitude. 
 
 " My child," he replied, with a beautiful smile, " did you not tell me you have read 
 the inscription on my portrait?" 
 
 " That inscription," I replied, " has only told me of the virtues of the priest and 
 the labours of the man. It has told me nothing of his sufferings, and it is of them 
 I wish to hear, because, if I had not gathered as much from your words, I should have 
 divined, on seeing you and hearing you speak, that you had suffered." 
 
 An expression of bitterness passed over the old man's face, as the shadow of a 
 cloud over still water. But he promptly replied: 
 
 " The day is far advanced, and it is fifteen miles to the nearest estancia. Will you 
 give me your company this evening and pass the night under my roof? On that 
 condition I will tell you the story of my life, not as you have read it in the museum 
 at Lima, but as God alone knows it. ..." 
 
 "I will not quit you till to-morrow morning," I replied. 
 
 " Veronica ! " he cried, leaning towards the door of communication, " will it be 
 long before the supper of our guest is ready?" 
 
 "A little patience, brother," replied Veronica; "the couy 2 is only done on one side, 
 and I have still my omelette to make." 
 
 As I apologized to the cure* for the embarrassment and trouble I had occasioned 
 to his sister with these preparations for a meal, when a morsel of bread and cheese 
 would have sufficed: 
 
 "Oh!" he said, "we are not in Lent and to-day is not Friday, that you should be 
 half-starved ; I am only vexed that there should be any delay in serving you. The fact 
 is, Veronica has no one but herself in the house. Our sister Epifania is gone to Lampa 
 
 1 Houppdande in French ; it has neither a collar nor sleeves fitted to the figure, and is generally wadded. — Tr. 
 
 2 The Quichua name of the guinea-pig (Cavia minima). 
 
AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 
 
 95 
 
 to sell the wool which the poor girls have spun together during the past week, and I do 
 not expect her back till the evening." 
 
 "That is a journey of six leagues" (eighteen miles), I observed. 
 
 "Six there and six back," replied the cure; "making twelve leagues (thirty-six 
 miles) that our sister will have to walk to-day, so that she will return thoroughly 
 tired. Thank God the river of Lampa will not be flooded, for Epifania will have 
 to cross it by a ford, and the current is very strong. . . . 
 
 "With a good mule she has nothing to fear," I remarked. 
 
 "Alas!" said the priest, "we have neither horses nor mules, and our sister is 
 obliged to go afoot. This is one of my greatest troubles. My poor sisters, whom I 
 would willingly surround with every comfort in their old age to recompense them for 
 their past labours. . . . But God will know how to reward them in my place. ..." 
 This conversation was interrupted by Dame Veronica, who called out that supper was 
 ready. 
 
 " Give me your arm," said the cure, " and let us go to the table. Whilst you eat 
 I will finish saying my rosary." 
 
 After I had satisfied my hunger, and Nor Medina had also had his wants supplied, 
 the cure" proposed that we should walk out to enjoy for a moment the evening air. 
 As we left the house a joyous chime of bells struck up in the direction of Cabanilla. 
 "Already the oracion!" said the priest. Dame Veronica, who had followed us to the 
 door, looked at the summit of the hills, which were reddened by the last rays of 
 the setting sun. " My brother," she said without hesitation, " it is six o'clock. I will 
 put back my watch: it makes three minutes past six." " That woman," I said to myself, 
 "is a veritable chronometer." 
 
 The cure having passed his arm within mine, we walked through the village, all the 
 houses of which were closed, and out on the plain. A silence unbroken by the voice 
 of man, the song of bird, or the chirp of an insect, reigned around. The sun had 
 sunk to rest in a winding-sheet of violet, fringed with purple and gold; in these lati- 
 tudes, where there is no twilight, night follows day suddenly. Already the distance 
 was gathering darkness, vapours ascended from the bottom of the ravines and rose 
 in the air like smoke from the tripods of antiquity. The nearer cerros grew dark as we 
 gazed, the stars began to twinkle, yet daylight had not completely disappeared. A 
 vague and charming glimmer of rose-coloured light, reflected from the purple of the 
 setting sun, tinged the snows of the Crucero which bounded the horizon in the east. 
 These snows so delicately coloured and so life-like in the midst of the dull, gray, sleepy 
 landscape, might be compared to the smile which lingers upon the mouth of a beautiful 
 woman whose eyes have already closed in sleep. In presence of this calm and radiant 
 spectacle of the earth hushing its noises and heaven kindling its stars — a spectacle 
 which God gives every evening to his creatures, and which it was my privilege 
 to contemplate — I felt a sense of inexpressible pity for the poor priest to whom for 
 four years all this glory had been but a memory. 
 
 We continued our walk in silence. From time to time my companion dropped 
 a short sentence, to which I replied in the same laconic manner, and then we again 
 
9G 
 
 PERU. 
 
 relapsed into meditation. We continued to walk thus, purposeless, dreaming rather 
 than talking, until the night grew cold, when the old man manifested his intention 
 to return home. Half an hour afterwards we were seated on his bed. Dame Veronica 
 had taken her distaff, and, squatted on a bit of carpet a few steps from us, was 
 occupied in spinning by the smoky flame of a lamp. 
 
 "The moment has arrived," said the cure, "to tell you that part of my history 
 of which men are ignorant and God alone knows. I was born at Canima, a small 
 village in the department of Puno, and not at Macusani, as my biographers have said. 
 I was a priest at twenty-five, officiating in the cure of Macusani, in the province 
 of Carabaya. My two sisters, Veronica and Epifania, left alone after the death of 
 our parents, had come to live with me. Impressed with the greatness of my office, 
 and thoroughly alive to the obligations it imposed on me, I had resolved to raise from 
 the brute-like condition to which they were reduced the wretched Indians whom God 
 had given me for my flock. To open the eyes of their spirit to the true light, to bring 
 hope to their withered hearts, to make of the poor slaves, whom fear of the whip kept 
 in subjection to their masters, freemen, brothers in Jesus Christ united indissolubly 
 by the bonds of affection and devotedness, such was the dream which I had cherished 
 before taking orders, such was the idea to which, when I became a priest, I resolved to 
 consecrate my life. 
 
 "After a first year passed in the exercise of my functions, and during which I 
 rebuilt, by the aid of my own money, the church of Macusani, which had fallen to 
 decay, I realized all the difficulty of my apostolic mission, of which I had previously 
 regarded only the end without embarrassing myself with the means. Brutalized by 
 the oppression of three centuries, the men who surrounded me were incredulous or 
 indifferent to my words. They saw nothing in the future but a fatal continuation of 
 the past. Accustomed to seek oblivion of their sorrows in the fumes of drunkenness, 
 they did not comprehend that it might be found in the renunciation of self and devotion 
 to others; in love, charity, and fraternity; in a word, in the soul's life. 
 
 " For a long time I studied these unhappy beings, degraded by long suffering and 
 abject fear, seeking a vulnerable place where the sword of the Word might penetrate. 
 But I gave up the study in despair, as I recognized its utter inutility. No longer 
 hoping to convince them by reason, I substituted sentiment for logic, and gave them 
 the evidence of a life absolutely devoted to their welfare. In acting thus I expected 
 to awake their gratitude, to draw their affection to myself, and to reach their spirit 
 through their hearts. But in this again I was cruelly deceived. In return for all my 
 efforts in their behalf I met only with doubt and suspicion, often irony, malice, or 
 falsehood, almost always baseness under apparent mildness. Ten years of the best 
 part of my life were devoted to this thankless work — ten years, which fell into the gulf 
 of the past, without having caused to grow a single blade of grass upon its borders. 
 
 "Oh, my child! how disenchanted, how wearisome life appeared to me when thus 
 thoroughly convinced that my idea of regenerating this degraded race proved to be a 
 chimera, in the pursuit of which I had laboured in vain ! During a considerable period, 
 the exact duration of which I cannot fix, I felt thrown back upon myself and indifferent 
 
AREQUIPA TO LAMPA 
 
 97 
 
 to everything. If I was sustained in this trial, it was by the loving care of my poor 
 sisters, who sympathized with my sorrows without understanding the cause. 
 
 " Cast down by the loss of my illusions, hurt in my dearest sympathies, yet without 
 anger or hatred for the men to whom I had opened my arms and my heart only to be 
 repulsed, I gave myself up to the study of nature, expecting to find a cure for my 
 sorrows, and at the same time food for my thoughts. I trusted that the contemplation 
 of the Infinite, by exciting a new order of ideas, would draw me away from the troubles 
 of this world and open to my sight the glories of heaven. I became an observer of the 
 wonders of creation, trying to follow nature in her various transformations and to 
 penetrate her secrets. I listened in ecstacy to her capricious harmonies, I tried to 
 penetrate their hidden sense, I was filled with enthusiasm for the order and beauty 
 of the universe and the regularity of the laws which govern it. After having thus 
 marked effects, I tried to ascend to causes, I aspired to know the thought which had 
 presided at the creation, and often uttered a fervent prayer to God that he would 
 satisfy my longing. By-and-bye I perceived that this constant strain of admiration 
 exhausted my powers, without recruiting them. My spirit floated with no guiding 
 hand in this immensity, like a vessel without oars and without a compass, and my eyes, 
 blinded by the light of the stars, closed in very lassitude. I understood then by the 
 strange void which opened in me that I was not meant for a contemplative life. To 
 enjoy instinctively these serene and mysterious scenes, an organization more poetic 
 than mine had been necessary; to study the mechanism of these spheres, and explain 
 in a satisfactory manner the laws and affinities which govern them, had needed an 
 intelligence matured by studies of a more substantial kind than those which are 
 customary with us. 
 
 "Again I was thrown back upon myself, and felt anew my soul crushed by the 
 weight of ennui. The study of nature, which had smiled upon me for a moment, had 
 become hateful. For months, for years, I lived this sad and languid life, doing 
 scrupulously all my duties as a priest and a Christian, but never finding that inward 
 satisfaction that is given by the certainty of a duty accomplished. The errors and the 
 evils for which I had been unable to find a remedy were like so many phantoms which 
 still pursued me when I was awake, and still returned to trouble me in my sleep. 
 
 "The revolution of 1824 broke out. Eoyalty had to yield to the republic. 
 Great institutions were shaken in a day, the ruins of which encumbered every 
 path. For a moment I hoped that something great and useful would result from 
 this political and social catastrophe — that a happy era had commenced with our 
 populations. But my hope was of short duration. The word 'Liberty' emblazoned 
 on the banner of Simon Bolivar labelled the new power with a lie. As in the past, 
 despotism reigned without control. Instead of viceroys there were presidents, and 
 that was all. The people remained as they were, and as you see them at this 
 moment, miserable, ignorant, brutalized, and, what is worse, either satisfied with 
 their condition, or consoling themselves with drunkenness. This is a phase of my 
 life which you do not read of in the inscription on my portrait, because men are 
 ignorant of it. If I have concealed it from them with the solicitude that one con- 
 
 VOL. I. 13 
 
9S PERU. 
 
 ceals certain private afflictions, it is because it would only have excited their incre- 
 dulity, irony, or indifference, instead of the sympathy which I had a right to expect. 
 
 "I now come to a circumstance of my life which has caused my name to he 
 widely spoken of, and gained for me the honour of a place in the museum of Lima 
 as one of the benefactors of Peruvian industry. The facts are these. When strolling 
 about one day in the hilly region which separates Macusani from the first valleys of 
 Carabaya, I found in the hollow of a rock a male alpaca just born; the mother, who 
 was cropping the grass a few steps off, fled at my approach. I brought away the 
 little creature in my cassock, and on arriving at home gave it to my sisters to 
 bring up. The alpaca grew in company with a vicugna which we had domesticated. 
 At the end of fifteen months these animals presented us with a kid, of which the 
 wool was remarkably fine. A specimen of it having been sent to the merchants of 
 the province attracted so much attention that my sisters saw in the crossing of the 
 pacocha and vicugna breeds a means of recovering the little fortune of which San 
 Martin and the Independents had deprived us. 1 I assisted the poor girls in the exe- 
 cution of their project rather from affection for them than for anything I cared for 
 the fortune. With much trouble we succeeded in procuring several alpacas and 
 vicugnas, and at the end of seven years our flock of hybrids numbered sixty heads. 
 But what pains we had taken to arrive at that result! 
 
 "Meanwhile the news of our enterprise had spread to Lima. The president of 
 the republic, impressed by the advantages which might accrue from it to the com- 
 merce and industry of the country, interested himself in our success. He conde- 
 scended to write me a flattering letter, and as a proof of his particular esteem he 
 wished to place my portrait in the museum of Lima, and to strike a golden medal 
 in my honour, besides giving me the choice of any living I preferred in the depart- 
 ment of Cuzco. That offer I declined. For thirty years I had lived at Macusani, 
 and should have felt it too painful to remove elsewhere. Subsequently, how- 
 ever, circumstances compelled me to beg the bishop of the province to allow me to 
 remove. The favour of the great had excited a feeling of hatred against us in the 
 country; people who had hitherto regarded our enterprise with indifference grew 
 jealous, and as they dared not lay hands on us personally, they attacked our poor 
 beasts, and poisoned them one by one. My sisters, deeply affected by their loss, 
 and not knowing where the malice of our enemies would stop, entreated me to 
 abandon Macusani. In fine, we established ourselves at Cabana, of which Ca- 
 banilla, the neighbouring village, was then an adjunct. We had lived here two 
 years when the hand of God was again heavy upon me. I lost my sight. As I 
 could not fulfil my ministerial duties, the bishop transferred the seat of this cure 
 to Cabanilla, and sent a priest there to supply my place. Left without resources, 
 I addressed a memorial to the government, which concluded with a statement of the 
 distress to which we were reduced, and begged, in place of the honours which the 
 chief of the state had offered me, that he would allow to each of my sisters a 
 
 1 Don Jose de San Martin commanded the liberating army of Peru, and assumed the title of Protector, 
 August 3d, 1821.— Tit. 
 
A REQU1PA TO LAM PA. 
 
 99 
 
 piastre a day to assist us to live. My petition had the honour of being presented 
 to the Chamber, where the deputies made it the text of many fine speeches; but 
 time passed, and no reply came. As we had no means of living, my sisters, with 
 their own hands, cultivated a small field; besides which, we bred chickens and 
 guinea-pigs, and thus obtained food and the means of barter with our neighbours. 
 By-and-bye my sisters conceived the idea of spinning and knitting for the charitable 
 people of Lampa, who recompensed them suitably for their work. Little by little 
 we enlarged our resources, and without rising above poverty succeeded in getting 
 enough to keep us alive. For four years we have lived 
 thus, one consoling the other, and drawing closer the bonds 
 of our mutual affection in the degree that we approach 
 the time when death will unravel them." 
 
 The cure" ceased to speak; his head slowly inclined as 
 if some thought, brooding in secret, had caused a stupor. 
 Perhaps the recital of his history had been too much for 
 his strength. I looked at Dame Veronica, who continued 
 to spin. Her countenance expressed nothing but a serene im- 
 passibility. Had the habit of suffering blunted the sensibility 
 of the poor old soul, or had she learned from her brother's 
 example to bear her cross patiently? I know not; but her 
 whole attention seemed to be concentrated upon her spinning, 
 as from time to time she examined the thread by the lamp- 
 light, as if to assure herself that it was of equal thickness. 
 
 The hour had come to retire; the good priest desired them to make my bed in his 
 chamber. Some sheepskins, which his sister spread on the ground, formed a soft 
 couch. As Nor Medina brought in my saddle, which was to serve me for a pillow, the 
 dog outside began to bark and the voice of a woman replied. "God be praised!" 
 exclaimed the priest, "that is our poor Epifania returned from Lampa!" Dame 
 Veronica went out to meet her sister, and an instant afterwards the two women 
 reappeared together. Epifania took her brother's hand, kissed it, and placed it on her 
 head according to the ancient custom of the Quichuas. "God bless you, my sister, as I 
 bless you!" he murmured. 
 
 "You must be very tired after such a journey,'" I said to the poor woman, whose 
 dusty feet were cased in sandals of untanned leather, such as are worn by the common 
 people of the country. 
 
 "Bah! I shall sleep all the better for it," she replied gaily; and then placed in her 
 brother's hand some pieces of silver, no doubt the produce of the sale of her work, 
 which the old man slipped under his pillow; then the two women hastily collected 
 some fleeces and woollen coverlets and left the room, closing the door behind them. 
 I was thus left alone with the cure, who having wished me good night and desired 
 me to extinguish the lamp, turned round to the wall. For a moment I heard him 
 praying in a low voice, and sighs were mingled with his prayer. Then my eyes closed, 
 and I fell into a profound sleep. 
 
100 
 
 PERU. 
 
 I was up early in the morning, but not before the two sisters had prepared a bowl 
 of porridge made of the flour of maize, of which they insisted I should eat some 
 spoonfuls as a protection against the morning damp. While I was supping my 
 breakfast Nor Medina came to announce that the mules were saddled. I gave him my 
 porringer, half full, that he might finish it, which he did in three mouthfuls. My host 
 and his sisters came to the door to witness our departure. I took the hands of the old 
 priest in both mine 
 
 "Reverend father," I said, "I have nothing to offer you in exchange for your cordial 
 welcome and touching confidence. I am about to quit this country, never to return ; 
 but I have at Lima, at Arequipa, and at Cuzco influential friends, who I am certain 
 would receive favourably any request that I might address to them in your behalf. Tell 
 me what they can do that would be agreeable to you?" 
 
 "Absolutely nothing," he replied; "my time upon earth is too short for any- 
 thing that men can do to be available. Go, my dear child, and may God guide 
 you! You will be remembered in the prayers of the old man whom you have 
 come so far to see." The venerable priest folded me in his arms, and the two 
 women shook hands with me as if I were an old acquaintance. 
 
 At the moment of quitting for ever these unfortunate but noble souls, I felt my 
 heart swell and the tears come into my eyes. " Good-bye," I said abruptly 
 as I jumped into the saddle. "Good-bye, and bon voyage," replied all three. Nor 
 Medina was already mounted. " Vamos!" he cried, urging on his mule, whom mine 
 immediately followed. In five minutes afterwards the villages of Cabana and Ca- 
 banilla, and the three-arched bridge which tied the one to the other, had vanished 
 behind us. 
 
 I was too completely absorbed with the remembrance of my hosts to interest 
 myself in the locality we were traversing, or in the always glorious spectacle of a 
 sunrise in the Cordillera. Nor Medina, while respecting my silence, appeared desirous 
 of ending it by making occasional remarks in a high voice. Now it was the girth 
 of my mule which appeared too loose; now my saddle-cloth which hung too much 
 on one side; or, again, he had something to say about the distance to Lampa. 
 I let him talk without replying. When he saw that his indirect endeavours produced 
 no result, he adopted another method, aiming straight at the mark. 
 
 "Was not monsieur pleased with his reception at Cabana?" he asked with an 
 obsequious air. 
 
 "Why that question?" said I. 
 
 "Because monsieur has not opened his mouth since we started, and his silence 
 makes me suppose he is discontented. However, I told you that old Cabrera was 
 a little cracked, and if he has wearied you it is not my fault." 
 
 At these irreverent words I rose in my saddle, and standing in my stirrups in 
 order to crush my interlocutor with the whole height of my stature and my scorn, — 
 
 " Nor Medina," I said, looking like thunder at him, "you are, and you will 
 never be anything else than a — muleteer!" 
 
 "Indeed, I hope so, monsieur!" he replied, raising his hat to show how he 
 
AREQUIPA TO LAM PA. 
 
 101 
 
 respected himself; "my grandfather was a muleteer, my father was a muleteer, 
 and I have succeeded my father, as my boy will succeed me some day. Muleteer, 
 caramba! is it not the finest thing in the world?" 
 
 Before such a profession of enthusiastic faith, it was impossible to remain serious. 
 The wrath which had been boiling in my veins exploded in a burst of laughter. 
 The ice was broken. Seeing me laugh, my guide laughed also; and becoming good 
 friends on the spot, we recommenced our gossip of the evening before just where 
 we had broken off. After following for two hours the course of the river of Cabana, 
 which now ran with a gentle current, now hurried on its course, according to the ever- 
 varying level, we left it flowing eastward, and took the northward direction to Lampa. 
 The sky was beautifully serene, the landscape was lighted up by a glorious sun; 
 but in about two hours all this glory was hidden behind a curtain of dark clouds. 
 These dense vapours, of the nimbus kind, looked as if they would burst in thunder, 
 hail, and snow, and we had prepared ourselves to receive the shock as philosophically 
 as possible, when Providence took pity on us. The black whirlwind passed like a 
 waterspout over our heads, satisfied with having filled our eyes, nose, and ears 
 with dust, and swept along to burst in storm over the Titicaca, to the great terror 
 of the web-footed inhabitants of the sacred lake. An instant afterwards, the sky 
 resumed its serene azure, and the sun shone brilliantly over our heads. 
 
 It was four o'clock when we crossed the shoulder of a hill, over which were 
 scattered fragments of a blackish green obsidian, so sparkling that it pained our 
 eyes. Here and there were erratic blocks of a rectangular shape, and of enormous 
 dimensions, looking like the ruined walls of some fallen edifice. As we passed within 
 a few steps of these masses I noticed a bush of the tolas kind [Baccharis obtusifolia) , 
 with stiff and dark -looking foliage. It grows in spots sheltered from the north 
 wind. Round about it, half hidden in the fine shiny grass, some dwarf eranthis 
 (herbaceous Ranunculacese, known as winter- aconite) peculiar to these latitudes, 
 . opened their white petals. I was about to dismount and collect a bouquet of these 
 alpine flowers, which recalled to my memory the golden-hearted daisies that April 
 scatters over the green sward of Europe, when a bird, coming from I know not 
 where, darted like an arrow upon them, and without letting his feet touch the 
 ground, passed from one to another, dipping in their chalice his curved and sharp 
 beak, which was of an extraordinary length. In the buzzing flight of this bird, in 
 his quick and jerky movements, and his peculiar configuration, I recognized an 
 individual of the humming-bird species {Trochilus). But a humming-bird of this 
 size, measuring almost a foot from tip to tip of its expanded wings, appeared to me 
 so prodigious that for a moment I doubted the evidence of my eyes, which opened 
 wide with wonder. However, it was impossible to doubt that this was truly a 
 humming-bird, though a giant one, compared with which other individuals of his 
 species was as the sparrow to the dinornis, if the dinornis still exists. 
 
 While the humming-bird balanced himself for a few moments over every flower, 
 which he tore with strokes of his beak when he could obtain nothing from it, I 
 fancy I remarked that the plumage of his back and wings was of a blackish green, 
 
102 
 
 PERU. 
 
 having a metallic glitter, and that his breast was of a blue or blackish gray, 
 passing to a dirty white on reaching the belly. His repast of honey finished, the 
 bird disappeared by a movement of the wings which reminded me of the whirling 
 flight of dried leaves which an autumn storm carries far away from the woods. 
 
 As I had nothing better to do I took out my note-book and wrote the fol- 
 lowing lines in pencil, now so nearly obliterated that I am obliged to use a mag- 
 nifying-glass to decipher them. 
 
 "This day, July 7th, the festival of San Firmin, Bishop of Pampeluna, who lived 
 
 B ACCH ARTS OBTUSIFOLIA. 
 
 in the fourteenth century, I observed between Cabana and Lampa, at an altitude 
 of about 12,000 feet, a humming-bird of extraordinary size. This humming-bird, 
 brought by the wind, was also carried away by it. The naturalist Tschudi has already 
 established the fact that humming-birds have been found seeking their food at an 
 elevation of 13,700 feet above the sea. But he has said nothing of the flowers which 
 the bird sucks at that altitude. Now the humming-bird which I have this day 
 accidentally seen sucked the honey from an Eranthis gracilis, the nectarium of which, 
 or the petalloid scale which serves as a nectary, can contain nothing but an acrid juice 
 of venomous properties like that of the Ranunculaceae. Submit to the judgment of the 
 first savant I meet this curious case, as it seems to me, of humming-birds flying- 
 above the limit of perpetual snow and feeding on poisons." 
 
 An hour after the appearance of the humming-bird, which my guide had taken for 
 a swallow, we crossed by a ford the river of Lampa, a stream of no importance in 
 the dry season, but which becomes a furious torrent on the melting of the snows. 
 Already the sun had sensibly declined; the atmosphere, of wonderful purity, seemed 
 to be saturated with gold-dust. The lichens and the lepraria which covered certain 
 rocks took from the reflection of the declining sun tones of reddish brown like the 
 
AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 103 
 
 iridescent hues of a dove's neck. The eastern hills assumed a bluish hue, and as 
 evening approached were shrouded in an atmosphere like gauze; while those of the 
 west, coloured like ochre and bitumen, stood out with surprising boldness against the 
 purple back-ground of the heavens. At the instant when the sun disappeared a dark 
 and serrated line barred the horizon before us. We were approaching the end of our 
 day's journey ; that line was formed by the houses of Lampa. We pushed resolutely 
 forward, and in half an hour more were crossing the stone bridge of three arches which 
 spans the river of that city. 
 
 This bridge, which has been built some fifteen years, replaces an old one of miiribres, 
 the invention of which is attributed to the Incas. The present chief of the state, 
 feeling that a mere swing of osiers recalled injudiciously the past barbarism of the 
 province, had it taken down and replaced by a bridge of stone. This was very speedily 
 done, thanks to an extraordinary contribution of 5000 piastres (about £1000 sterling) 
 which the Lampehos, anxious to beautify their river and to please their president, 
 heroically imposed on themselves. 
 
 Having crossed the bridge I found myself surrounded with low houses grouped 
 without the least order. A pulperia or liquor and grocery store, of the most dilapi- 
 dated aspect, its interior walls covered with soot, threw a livid light upon their squalid 
 facades. I shivered from head to foot without knowing why. A profound silence 
 increased the depression caused by the gloomy aspect of the place. The town seemed 
 to have lost all its inhabitants. Nevertheless as we advanced further I could just 
 distinguish some passengers gliding along by the walls like shadows, and here and there 
 a ray of light shone through the cracks of the shutters. This was little enough, yet it 
 was something, and I felt a renewal of hope. At last we came to the grand square 
 occupied by houses tolerably well built. The heavy mass of a church with square 
 towers loomed above their roofs. A few shops badly lighted, but still open, proclaimed 
 that this was the commercial centre of the place, which counted about 2300 souls. 
 I pulled rein at one of these liendas or tradesman's stalls, the proprietor of which was 
 busy taking in piles of plates, salad bowls, and other articles of crockery, which had 
 been exposed at his door, and begged him to direct me to the house of a certain 
 Sehor Don Firmin de Vara y Pancorbo, a trader in printed cottons, to whom I had 
 a letter of introduction. The man pointed out at the further end of the plaza a 
 house with a wooden balcony, its well-lighted windows contrasting cheerfully with 
 the darkness of the neighbouring dwellings: "You will find the company very merry," 
 he said. 
 
 I thanked the crockery merchant for his information without dreaming of asking 
 for an explanation of his words. On arriving before the house I heard a noise of voices 
 and laughter. My guide and I dismounted. The door was opened by a pongo, whom 
 I sent to inform his master of my arrival. An instant afterwards the wooden staircase 
 of the house creaked under the foot of a man who threw himself down rather than 
 came to meet me. "I am Don Firmin!" he cried on perceiving me, ''and you, senor, 
 who are you, and what do you want with me?" From the singularity of this reception, 
 and the flushed face of the draper, I concluded that I had interrupted him in his 
 
104 
 
 PERU. 
 
 worship of the " divine bottle," to quote Rabelais. But as his brusqueness appeared 
 to be kindly meant I did not stand on ceremony, but took a letter from my pocket-book, 
 containing a few lines which recommended me to his attention, and presented it to 
 him with a smile. 
 
 " You are welcome," he said, after having read it, " my house is at your service 
 as long as you choose to stay. I am a bachelor. To-day is the festival of San Firmin, 
 and I have invited a few of my friends, merchants like myself, and some charming 
 women. You will assist us to keep the festival of my blessed patron." 
 
 Without waiting for my acknowledgments the merchant took my arm and walked 
 
 VIEW OF LAMPA. 
 
 me upstairs. Arrived on the landing he opened a door and ushered me into a large 
 apartment, slenderly furnished but brilliantly lighted, where I judged there were some 
 fifteen persons of both sexes seated round a table. The dirty cloth, the disarranged 
 viands, and the empty or overturned bottles, indicated that precise moment of a 
 Peruvian entertainment when the hunger of the company is completely satisfied, but 
 their thirst is only just beginning to enforce its demands. On seeing me enter arm in 
 arm with the amphitryon of the feast, men and women set up a loud hurra, which the 
 passengers in the streets— if there were any — must have heard to the extremity of the 
 city. When this sudden excess of enthusiasm had calmed down, each began shoulder- 
 ing his neighbour aside to make room for me. I squeezed in between two lovely 
 women, a little passe, but charmingly decollete, who with that graceful assiduity 
 which is the exclusive privilege of their sex, devoted themselves to my comfort; one 
 loading my plate with various kinds of eatables, the other urging me to drink. While 
 doing full justice to these viands, for I was as hungry as a dog, I did my best to answer 
 the questions which these straightforward people at once plied me with. By my dusty 
 and dishevelled costume, and the clank of my Chilian spurs, the gentlemen had judged 
 that I had arrived on horseback, and they wished to know whence I had come, whither 
 I was going, whether I was wholesale or retail, and what articles I traded in. When 
 I told them that I was travelling through America with nothing but an album and a 
 
AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 
 
 105 
 
 few crayons, for the purpose of sketching anything remarkable that I might discover, 
 these Philistines looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes and bit their 
 lips to avoid laughing. I saw that I had failed in my intended effect, but I consoled 
 myself by eating all the faster. 
 
 However, if the avowal I had made had alienated from me the sympathies of the 
 men, it had piqued the curiosity of the women, as I judged from the singular glances 
 they directed towards me. The sweeter half of the human race loves the mysterious 
 and the unintelligible. In this respect a woman is like a child. Anything odd or out 
 of the way pleases her, the complicated charms her, the obscure and incomprehensible 
 takes her whole soul captive. It was sufficient that the beauties who surrounded me 
 could not understand why a man should cross America with no other baggage than 
 an album, to be instantly interested in him. At least I judged so from the toasts 
 which these charming women proposed to what they called "my journey en desliabilW 
 I acknowledged the favour with becoming warmth by raising my glass to the height 
 of my shoulder, passing it from right to left, and, according to the custom of the 
 country, drinking to her who had so honoured me, after having expressed a wish that 
 she might live a hundred years longer. 
 
 This exchange of courtesies with ladies evidently younger than themselves was not 
 very pleasing to my companions. I was made aware of this fact by two rather sharp 
 nudges of the elbow which they gave me simultaneously. Women of a certain age 
 have strange manners sometimes! However I bore the shock bravely; seeing which, 
 the ladies quickly filled their glasses to drink with me, and counterbalance if possible 
 the rising influence of their companions. In addition to this polite attention, they 
 thought it the right thing to ply me with bocaditos, or choice little morsels of food 
 which they put in my mouth with their forks, or more often with their fingers. All 
 this kindness was mingled with arch looks and flattering remarks whispered in soft 
 tones close to my face. From regard for their sex, rather than respect for their 
 experience of the world, I allowed them to have their way. At last they grew so eager 
 in their rivalry that I was at a loss which to attend to; the one invariably interrupting 
 me at the very moment I was about to speak to the other. As I drank a glass of wine 
 with my Clotho — I had given this mythologic name to the lady on my right, not 
 knowing what she was really called — the lady on my left, whom I called my Lachesis, 
 whispered in my ear, " Sweet friend, this last mouthful for the love of me," and, turning 
 quickly round, I received the said mouthful, which I afterwards found to be a bit of 
 fowl's liver, in my eye instead of my mouth. As it had previously been peppered with 
 ground pimento I felt as if a thousand needles had been thrust in my eye. At the 
 howl I set up all the company laughed, and every one wanted to know what the joke 
 was. The author of my mischance told the simple fact. Her calm manner, while I 
 was suffering the most dreadful torment, completed my exasperation. At that moment 
 I felt the fury of Othello, and could have strangled the silly woman! 
 
 Meanwhile the burning and inflammation caused by the pimento had become 
 worse. Unable to remain in my chair, I rushed across the room, with my napkin 
 to my eye. A mozo (man-servant) brought some cold water, in which a woman — an 
 
 VOL. I. 14 
 
IOC 
 
 PERU. 
 
 angel in comparison with the society in which she was — beat up the white of an egg, 
 and dipping her cambric handkerchief in this salve, she applied it to my burn like 
 a compress. I soon felt quite revived; and by repeated applications the irritation 
 was so much lessened that at the end of ten minutes I was able to open my eye 
 and direct a look of thunder at the abominable woman who had done the mischief. 
 
 The humour of the company, damped by this incident, resumed all its hilarity. 
 The servants carried away the remains of the repast, removed the cloth, and set on 
 the table one of those huge cut-glass tumblers, as big as a pail, which are manu- 
 factured in Germany and imported into this country. Our amphitryon emptied into 
 it six bottles of Bordeaux, four of sherry, and two of rum, sweetening and season- 
 ing the whole with sugar and nutmeg. Into this fiery amalgam, called cardinal, 
 he threw a strawberry, 1 which sunk and disappeared, but rose again to the surface 
 of the liquid. Then each of the company, taking from their host the gigantic 
 tumbler, and dipping his lips in the beverage, tried to drink up the strawberry, 
 either by suddenly snatching at it, or by drawing it into his mouth with the help 
 of a perfidious eddy. The little strawberry, however, knew its business, and turning 
 on itself, disappeared every time that an open mouth approached too near it. 
 After several vain attempts, and the absorption, voluntary or otherwise, of copious 
 mouthfuls of liquor, the poor victim passed the glass to his neighbour, who fol- 
 lowed the same tactics with no better success. This pleasant pastime, called "fish- 
 ing the strawberry," of which a bishop, Melchior cle la Nava, who lived at Cuzco 
 in the beginning of the eighteenth century, is said to have been the inventor, is for 
 the Peruvians of the Sierra merely an honest pretext to drink. The poorer classes 
 fish the strawberry in a great glass of chicha (the local beer already described), 
 the rich make a heterogeneous and expensive mixture of fine liqueurs and foreign 
 wines. The means, as one sees, may differ, but the result is always the same. 
 Drunkenness is the port at which these strawberry fishers all alike fatally arrive. 
 
 When the glass reached me in its round, I was obliged, whether I liked it or not, 
 to dip my lips and pretend to catch the strawberry. But I was careful to keep my 
 teeth so close shut that no drop of the liquid, in which so many indigenous mouths 
 had dabbled, could get down my throat. This local amusement lasted as long as any 
 liquor remained in the vessel. Then the strawberry, which had settled at the bottom 
 of the glass, was eaten by one of the drinkers. 
 
 Under the inspiration of the traitorous drink, which soon fermented in their brains, 
 all the company rose. The guitars strummed a triumphant razgo; the women attended 
 
 1 Fraga reniformis, one of the five varieties of strawberries cultivated in Chili and Peru. It is not a native of 
 these countries, as our horticulturists still believe, but was imported from Spain about the end of the seventeenth 
 century, as other plants, which botanists call after Chili and Peru, were also originally brought from Europe ; such 
 are the Scilla, or Peruvian hyacinth, the Pancratium ringens and P. latifolium, the Crinum urceolatum, and the 
 Amaryllis aurea and A. flammea, originally found in the Azores and the Philippines, but naturalized in Europe by 
 the Portuguese. Some plants of the F. reniformis variety, taken from the island of Mocha or Conception, on the 
 coast of Chili, by Captain Frezier, to whom we owe an account of his visit to these countries, were carried by him 
 to France in 1712. As the reader may be surprised to find strawberries in the midst of the snows of Collao, it is 
 necessary to state that twice a week convoys of asses and mules provision the markets of the principal cities of the 
 Sierra with European and tropical fruits. 
 
AREQUIPA TO LAMPA. 107 
 
 for a moment to the flying frippery of their garments; the men flourished their hand- 
 kerchiefs; the zamacueca called on the dancers. A couple renowned for the agility 
 of their movements opened the ball with one of those character dances which the 
 Spaniards call simply troche y moche, but at the sight of which a Parisian sergent de 
 ville would hide his face for shame. Instead of the enormous glass tumbler, they 
 now produced a leathern bottle of brandy,, a bacchic bagpipe, from which each in turn 
 
 AN ENTERTAINMENT AT LAM PA — PREPARATION OF THE CARDINAL. 
 
 drew sweet sounds. The orgie now assumed the proportions of a Babel, and I 
 watched my opportunity to slip out of the room. On the landing I found a mozo, 
 whom I collared in a friendly way, and drew into a corner. "Listen," said I, "it is 
 necessary that I should leave here early in the morning, and I want to get a little 
 sleep ; show me into a room where, to make all safe, you can lock me up, and take care 
 of the key. If by any chance the master asks for me, tell him I am gone. Take this 
 pourboire and be discreet," I added, slipping into his hand a piastre; "for if you tell 
 where I am, the muleteer who accompanies me will not fail, under some pretext or 
 other, to give you a thrashing before we leave the house." The mozo was sharp 
 enough to understand. "Come, monsieur," he said, pocketing the money, "this is 
 the festival of San Firmin, and the master will not dream of going to bed. I will 
 therefore put you in his own room, and if he should want to go in, I will tell him 
 the key is lost." 
 
108 
 
 PERU. 
 
 A moment afterwards I was comfortably stretched between two white sheets which 
 the mozo had substituted for those of his master, an attention which I took kindly of 
 him. The worthy mozo presently left me to my reflections, taking away the key 
 as I wished. At first it appeared strange to be occupying the chamber and bed 
 of a man whom I had not known at sunset, and without his knowledge; but this 
 scruple, if I may call it one, soon vanished. I considered the thing philosophically, 
 and admiring the secret ways by which Providence supplies the birds of the air with 
 food, and the benighted traveller with rest, I laid my head on the pillow, and at the 
 end of five minutes, notwithstanding the roaring of the human tempest a few steps 
 from me, I was fast asleep. 
 
 I had not awoke in the morning when my careful jailer came to open the door. 
 "Your mules are saddled," he said, "and the arriero awaits you in the street." I 
 sprang out of bed, and while dressing asked the mozo if the night had been a bois- 
 terous one. "You shall judge for yourself before you leave," he said. When I had 
 finished my toilet I was going to rejoin my guide, but as I passed the chamber where 
 the banquet and the ball of San Firmin had been held, the mozo who preceded me 
 opened the door. "See!" said he. I put my head in, and a sorry spectacle presented 
 itself. The whole company of the previous evening, then so gay, so noisy, so full of life 
 and health, were lying one over another on the ground. The faces of the women had 
 assumed a greenish hue, while those of the men were purpled. Some, with their mouths 
 open, showed their teeth. Broken chairs, stringless guitars, empty leathern bottles, here 
 and there articles of clothing and objects of the toilet, a net of false hair, a tumbled 
 head-dress, formed the accessories of this picture. A ray of sunlight entering by the 
 window enabled me to see more clearly; but it did not revive these bodies, chilled and 
 stiffened by drunkenness. "Horrible, O horrible, most horrible!" I exclaimed like 
 Macbeth, as I shut the door and sprang down the staircase four steps at a time. 
 Nor Medina was waiting at the door. The mozo who had followed me held the 
 stirrup while I settled myself in the saddle. "Give my compliments to your master 
 when he awakes," I said to the honest gargon : " I will not fail," he replied, laughing. 
 
 As we passed the last houses of Lampa, northward, I recalled to mind that the 
 episodes of the evening had caused me to neglect entering in my diary certain details 
 relative to the commerce, the industry, and the inhabitants of the province. I im- 
 mediately filled up this lacuna, not so much from a love for statistics, or to put myself 
 en regie in respect to learned societies, as to deprive travellers present and to come, 
 commissioned by the latter, of all pretext for dazzling the public by a pompous display 
 of authentic documents, official evidence, and accurate figures. 
 
 The province of Lampa, inclosed by those of Arequipa, Chucuytu, Puno, Azangaro, 
 and Canas y Canchis, occupies an area of about 4000 square miles. In this extent of 
 country, completely denuded of trees and shrubs, but diversified with hill and dale, 
 with ravines and gullies, and furrowed by three rapid streams, 1 are contained one 
 capital city — the town we have just left — forty-three villages — read hamlets of the most 
 
 1 The Pucara-Ayaviri, the rivers of Lampa aud Cabanilla, and some streams of less importance. The three first 
 named debouch in the Lake of Titicaca. 
 
AEEQUIPA TO LAM PA. 
 
 109 
 
 wretched description — and 108 pascanas or shepherds' huts. The population of 
 the province is about 57,000 souls, and the number of sheep about 400,000. Thanks 
 to the vast deserts carpeted with moss and yarava, interspersed with lagunes of 
 stagnant water from one to three leagues in circumference, which characterize the 
 provinces of Collao in general, and that of Lampa in particular, sheep, cattle, and 
 Camelidse cross and multiply marvellously. Butter in bladders, cheeses shaped like 
 
 THE MORNING AFTER THE FESTIVAL OF SAINT FIRMIN. 
 
 grayere, smoked mutton (sessina), the beef of oxen and llamas cut into strips {cJiarqui), 
 candied batatas 1 (chuno) — of which we count three varieties, the tunta. the moraya, 
 and the mosco — form the most important branch of the commerce of Lampa with the 
 neighbouring provinces. As for their external trade, the annual shearing of sheep and 
 alpacas, whose wool is bought on the spot by two or three speculators from Arequipa, 
 and by them sent into Europe, enables the Lampenos to boast that their commercial 
 relations extend to the two ends of the world. 
 
 Mining, from which the country once derived large revenues, has decreased year 
 by year. A number of productive mines have been abandoned, others have been 
 submerged by incessant infiltrations from the Andean lakes. Among those which are 
 still worked may be mentioned the eight socabons or galleries of the Cerro of Pomasi, 
 
 1 Batatas are the "sweet potatoes" that were commonly used m England three centuries ago, not only as pot-herbs, 
 but candied, and made into sweatmeats. — Tr. 
 
110 
 
 PERU. 
 
 the annual produce of which has decreased from 35,000 marks at the commencement 
 of this century to 8000. This enormous difference in the result is not occasioned, as 
 one might suppose, by the exhaustion of the metallic deposits, but simply by a 
 parsimonious application of the means of working. For a long time labour and capital 
 have both been wanting. Where they once employed entire populations and large 
 sums of money, they are now contented with spending a few hundreds of piastres, and 
 employing a very few labourers. As to the surface workings of minerals, so celebrated 
 in the financial records of the country, when virgin gold and silver were obtained by 
 the simple operation of a chisel or 'pick, it is now only a thing of memory. Those 
 splendid bolsons, nevertheless, abound in the mountainous parts of Collao; only the 
 Indians who discover them by chance, or who know of them by hearsay, do not care to 
 reveal their existence to the descendants of the Spaniards. Knowing by tradition all 
 that their ancestors had to suffer from the insatiable greed of their conquerors, and 
 fearing to be employed like them in the labour of the mines, they keep their knowledge 
 to themselves. 
 
 The commerce of Lampa, as we have seen, is very limited. Its industry is 
 confined to the fabrification of the coarser kind of pottery, and hair rugs or coverlets, 
 of which the village of Atuncolla has had the monopoly some two centuries. As 
 to the vegetable products of the soil, they owe nothing to botanical science nor even 
 to culture. In this rigid climate two kinds of potato, the sweet and bitter {papa 
 franca and p>apa lisa), grow with difficulty. The country also produces a variety of 
 oats, and very poor barley which does not develop spikelets, but is eaten by horses 
 and mules as grass; two Chenopodiums — the one sweet, called quinua real, 1 the other 
 bitter, called canahua, the grains of which are eaten by the indigenes in their soups, 
 and the leaves in their chupe. 
 
 The statistics I have been able to give, if in all respects trustworthy, are not 
 very flattering; one might even, speaking with strictness, pronounce the account 
 a beggarly one. Yet notwithstanding this poorness of the country, or perhaps by 
 very reason of it, Lampa is of all the sixty-three provinces of Peru, that in which 
 the indigene is best satisfied with his lot and does not count the hours as they roll 
 by. Without ambition and without desires impossible of fulfilment — exempt from 
 cares and disquietudes, disdaining sickness and laughing at death — he lives from 
 day to day in a philosophic calm. In vain insects devour him, and oppression crushes 
 him; in vain his natural masters, the presidents, the bishops, the cur^s, the sub- 
 prefects, the governors, and the alcaldes, squeeze him like a lemon, — all in vain the 
 military despoil him, and citizens abuse him; he consoles himself for all by a fresh 
 draught of chicha and brandy; by fishing the strawberry and dancing the zapateo. 
 Some pessimist or badly informed travellers have mistaken this quietude of spirit 
 which characterize the Lampenos for brutishness; I avow that it has always appeared 
 to me the highest result of worldly wisdom, and therefore as the height of carnal 
 felicity. If some Jerome Paturot, in his search for happiness, were to travel the whole 
 world over, it is in the province of Lampa that he would certainly find it. 
 
 1 By corruption quinoa. 
 
THIRD STAGE. 
 
 LAM PA TO ACOPIA 
 
 (PERU). 
 
THE PUNA OR PLAIN OF L L A L L I. 
 
 THIRD STAGE. 
 
 LAMP A TO ACOPIA. 
 
 The plain of Llalli. — How to soften the heart of the Indians and procure a dinner. — Affecting history of a mother- 
 in-law and a daughter-in-law. — Manibus date lilia plenis. — A royal courier. — If day succeeds day in Peru with 
 little in which they resemble each other, village succeeds village with little in which they differ from each other. — 
 Apachecta, a monument crowned with flowers. — Pucara, its etymology and its fair. — A sick man and a! doctor. — 
 A new balsamic preparation recommended to any good wife who has a bully for a husband. — Dithyrambic essay 
 on the subject of streams. — Drunken farewells. — The cure Miranda. — A pastoral with a curious accompaniment 
 of stone-throwing. — Santa- Rosa. — A fete in the midst of the snows. — The postmaster of Aguas-Calientes. — Something 
 that distantly resembles the marriage of Gamache le Riehe. — The author discloses in a familiar epistle the blackness 
 and perfidy of his soul. — The temple of Huiracocha. — Two miraculous crucifixes. — Useful notes on the beer of 
 Combapata, and the manner in which it is brewed.— Remarks upon the past history of the Canas and Canchis 
 Indians. — The question arises whether Caesar shall pass the Rubicon. — At Acopia. 
 
 If the town of Lampa looks dull when we enter it at nightfall by the pampas of 
 Cabana, it does not present a more brilliant aspect when one leaves it at sunrise 
 by the puna of Llalli. Such was the judgment I formed as the last houses of that 
 capital disappeared from my view, and the two cerros, or low hills, behind them 
 sank in the horizon. 
 
 The puna of Llalli, which we now prepared to cross from south to north, is a vast 
 and gently undulating surface, carpeted with moss and short grass, and with a few small 
 sheets of water interspersed, on the margins of which grow thin, rigid, and blackish 
 looking rushes. A silence like that of death reigns in this plain, which is bounded 
 on the west by the first snowy ridges of the Cuesta de la Ivinconada, 1 and on the east 
 by the rapid stream of Pucara. T should remark that, journeying as we did through 
 the middle of the desert, we could discover neither watercourse nor mountain, and 
 
 1 Recoin, nook or corner: that is to say, the nodus formed by the reunion of the Sierras of Cailloma and Huilcanota 
 and the chain of the Western Andes. Junctions of this kind are called porco by the people of the country. 
 VOL. i. 15 
 
114 
 
 PERU. 
 
 that the landscape as far as we could see embraced nothing but a greenish and far 
 from attractive horizon. Twice or thrice Nor Medina, disquieted by my dulness, 
 had spoken to me, but as all conversation is antipathetic to a fasting man, I had 
 taken no notice of his questions, and the poor fellow, repelled by my obstinacy, 
 began to whistle an air of the country. 
 
 From Lampa to Llalli, the first stage of our route, was about nine miles. We 
 arrived there between eleven and twelve o'clock. Llalli is a little nest of hovels, 
 eight in number, constructed of fragments of stone cemented with mud. The door 
 of one only was open. When we pulled up at the threshold Nor Medina wished to 
 enter alone, fearing that the apparition of a Hueracocha 1 like me would frighten the 
 inmates and deprive us of whatever little chance there was to get a dinner. I let him 
 have his way. A murmur of voices greeted his entrance, and as I listened attentively, 
 thinking them of bad presage, two cries rang in my ears, which I knew to be 
 the cries of women. Forgetting Nor Medina's advice, I sprang from my mule, and 
 entering the house saw indeed two women, one old, the other still young. The old 
 woman, scared and trembling, was hastily closing a sack, in which something was 
 crammed, whilst the younger, with arms extended and flashing eyes, seemed to be 
 saying to Nor Medina, "Stir another step if you dare!" 
 
 " What is the matter?" I demanded of him. 
 
 "The matter is," he replied in Quichua, that the mistresses of the house might 
 understand him, " how to compel these two devilish women here to give us something 
 to eat, and I see no better way," he continued, with an assumed air of severity, " than 
 to tickle their shoulders with my lasso." 
 
 "Wretch, dare to touch either of these women!" I exclaimed, stepping before 
 the arriero, and menacing him with my clenched fist. 
 
 "Don't you see that I am joking!" he said in Spanish, that the women might not 
 understand him. " I know well enough that a man who deserves the name should 
 never beat any woman but his own, and what I said was only meant to frighten the 
 good old souls and make them agreeable. Already our tigresses have drawn in their 
 claws ; see if they have not ! " 
 
 The old woman, in fact, was leaning comfortably with her elbows on her sack, 
 and the arms of the younger had fallen supine by her side, whilst the expression 
 of her face had considerably softened. 
 
 "O sovereign law of the whip!" I murmured aside; "dura lex, sed lex; here are 
 two women who, a moment ago, were on the point of flying in our faces like wild 
 cats, suddenly become affable, and almost smiling on us. After all, as La Fontaine 
 has remarked, the reason of the strongest is the best." 
 
 Seeing the happy result of his little comedy, Nor Medina advanced to the old 
 Indian, and opening the sack took from it successively a smoked shoulder of mutton, 
 
 1 This name, say the chroniclers, was at one time given by the Indians of Peru to their Spanish coriquerors, 
 whom they believed to have come from the sea like their ships. Huera in the Quichua idiom signifies foam, and 
 cocha or atun-cocha the great lake. This expression, diverted from its original meaning, is now a title of nobility 
 given to the first comers (and their descendants), and equivalent to caballcro in Spanish. 
 
LAM PA TO ACOPIA 
 
 115 
 
 some onions, some dried pimento, and some handfuls of frozen potatoes, 1 which the 
 honest woman had tried to hide from us. Now that the pot of roses was discovered 2 
 it was useless to feign any longer, and the threat of the lasso made resistance next 
 to impossible. The two women, therefore, neither pretended nor resisted ; but yielding 
 to the situation, acted their part with something like graciousness. One of them 
 knelt before the fire and revived the embers, whilst the other filled an earthen pot 
 with water and threw into it pell-mell the various ingredients which compose a Peruvian 
 soup (chupe). To the sentiment of repulsion which our appearance had provoked 
 in the two serranas (mountaineers) soon succeeded a touching confidence. Whilst 
 
 A MOTHER-IN-LAW AND HER DAUGHTER-IN-LAW — QUICHUA INDIANS. 
 
 the chupe" was in preparation they ingenuously told us all their little affairs. The 
 old woman had been long a widow, and longer still a spinster! From morning to 
 night she was employed in spinning the wool of the brown sheep, which she sometimes 
 sold to the inexperienced for llama's wool. Each ball of this caytu-Uama, weighing 
 a pound, brought her four reals. With this money she would buy at Lampa — it might 
 be maize to make acca — the chicha of the moderns — or it might be brandy, thirty- 
 six degrees above proof. A handful of coca leaves and a few glasses of alcohol 
 restored, for a moment to the poor woman, her past youth and her lost illusions. 
 Speaking in her figurative language, it was, she said, " like pale flowers that she 
 threw upon the setting 3 of her sad life." While listening to her the date lilia of Virgil 4 
 came into my mind and awakened a feeling of tenderness. 
 
 1 Potatoes slightly crushed and exposed for some nights to the frost. Boiled with cheese they are much relished 
 by the inhabitants of the Sierra. 
 
 2 An allusion to a French proverb: decouvrir le pot aux roses, is to find out a secret. Its equivalent in English 
 is to let the cat out of the bag. — Tit. 
 
 3 The French couchant, used figuratively for the decline of life, cannot be rendered in correct English without 
 spoiling the pathetic beauty of the old woman's expression. — Tr. 
 
 4 jEneid. vi. 883. Manibus date lilia plenis — give me lilies in handfuls. — Tr. 
 
11G 
 
 PERU. 
 
 In her turn the younger woman told us that she was the daughter-in-law of the 
 elder; that like her she passed her time in spinning, and also shared in her peculiar 
 tastes. The produce of their labour, which the two women alike devoted to the 
 purchase of Erythroxylum Com and strong liqueurs in place of sending it, the one to 
 her son the other to her husband, who demanded it to get drunk with himself, was 
 made by him an occasion of quarrelling with them. As a respectful and obedient son 
 
 THE "ROYAL COURIER." 
 
 he did not dare to abuse his mother, but made no scruple of beating his wife with 
 his clenched fists. Setting aside these occasional storms in the heaven of Hymen, the 
 young woman assured us that she had nothing to complain of in the behaviour of her 
 lord and master. These local details, which I penned in my note-book at the time, in 
 addition to some philosophical reflections which the circumstances inspired, besides 
 sketching the portraits of the two women, helped to pass away the three-quarters of 
 an hour occupied by the preparation of our dinner. At the end of that time it was 
 served up in an earthenware plate, and we ate it with our fingers. That done, I settled 
 my account with the ladies, and we resumed our journey, followed by their thanks 
 and blessings. 
 
 We had not ridden many yards when the sound of a Pandean pipe was heard. 
 I turned my head in the direction of this harmonious noise, and saw a chasqui coming 
 
LAM FA TO ACOPIA. 117 
 
 towards us at a pace called in military language the pas gymnastique. He held by the 
 halter a bony horse, on whose back was a leathern trunk containing the postal 
 despatches. 
 
 "This is the correo real (royal courier), who goes from Puno to Cuzco," said my 
 guide. 
 
 " Say correo national," I replied. "The word royal is erased, as seditious, from the 
 dictionary of a republic." 
 
 The arriero looked at me with a surprised air, and was probably about to ask for 
 an explanation of my words when the chasqui came up, and having saluted us by 
 raising his hat and giving a flourish on his mouth-organ, he inquired, in a gracious tone 
 for a courier, whence we came, and whether we were going to Cuzco. My guide 
 
 PAMPA OF LLALLI — VILLAGES OF CUPI AND D'OCUVIRI. 
 
 answered these questions, and the two men began to chat in a friendly way about the 
 snow and the frost, the break-neck route of the Sierra and the lack of provisions — 
 things which I had long been familiar with. When they had exhausted these conver- 
 sational topics, finding nothing more to say, they parted, each recommending the other 
 to God, and civilly exchanging a few coca-leaves, as two snuff-takers in Europe might 
 offer each other their snuff-boxes. The courier, losing no more time than was necessary 
 to exchange his old chew for a more juicy one, and saluting us by whistling the scale 
 up and down on his mouth-organ, trotted off with his hair streaming in the wind. 
 
 Two hours after this rencontre we were passing between Cupi and Ocuviri, two 
 groups of cabins, highly distinguished by the name of villages, and so exactly alike, 
 that it was easy to make a mistake at night, and dismount in the one instead of the 
 other. By daylight their situation in relation to the road assisted the traveller going 
 northward to distinguish them, Ocuviri being on his right and Cupi on his left. My 
 companion, to whom I pointed out the singular sameness of these mole-hill hamlets, 
 in which every door was shut, admitted that they had a family likeness, but then, he 
 added, this similarity with which I appeared to make merry, was precisely that which 
 gave to the cities and villages of Peru a special stamp unlike anything in the neigh- 
 
I IS 
 
 PERU. 
 
 bouring republics. No doubt tlie man had a fine classic taste and a love for the 
 unities, without which it is said there is no such thing as perfect beauty. I did not 
 contradict him. 
 
 The same day we roused successively the hamlets of Macarb and Umachiri, as 
 silent and close as those we had left behind us, and, like them, of singular ugliness. 
 A league from Umachiri we passed before an apachecta, which an Indian and a woman 
 who accompanied him in charge of a troop of llamas, had just then approached for 
 the purpose of spitting out, by way of an offering, the cud of coca they had been 
 chewing. This fashion of thanking Pachacamac, the omnipotent, for having arrived 
 safely at the end of a journey, always appeared to me no less original than disgusting. 
 After all, however, as every country has its customs, which are either respectable or 
 ought to be respected, we will not criticize this act of worship, but, passing from the 
 effect to the cause, consider the character of the monument itself. 
 
 The word apachecta, which is easier to translate than to analyze, signifies in the 
 Quichua idiom a place of halting or repose. The cemeteries which the Spaniards 
 sometimes call pantheon and sometimes campo-santo, bear among the Indians the 
 name of apachecta. As to the monument in question, it is composed at first of 
 a handful of stones, that a chasqui, an arriero, or a llama packman, who had rested 
 there a moment, deposited at the road-side, as a tribute of gratitude paid ostensibly 
 to Pachacamac the Creator and Lord of the universe. Days and even months might 
 roll on before a second Indian by chance passing the same place, and seeing the 
 stones collected by his predecessor, adds a few to the heap. In time the handful of 
 stones becomes a pyramid of from eight to ten feet in height, which the passers-by, 
 as it increases in size, cement with mud if it happens to be a rainy day. When 
 the work is thus finished, some unknown hand places on its summit the sign of 
 salvation; another adds a bouquet of flowers; the flowers wither and are renewed 
 by successive worshippers ; their degree of freshness indicating that the route is 
 a more or less frequented one. 
 
 Often I have stopped before these monuments, not to worship Pachacamac — a god 
 of whom I know nothing— but to examine the flowers placed on their summit. These 
 flowers were white lilies, Heliconias, Erythrinse (coral -trees) of a reddish purple, and 
 red Amaryllides with green strise, which grow under the shadow of the shrubs in the 
 eastern valleys. From the place where they were taken to the apachecta where I 
 have found them, the distance, approximately estimated, was from 90 to 120 miles. 
 
 These monuments, which a learned European took off-hand for tumuli, and an 
 employe of the survey for milestones, arrest attention not so much by their architectural 
 character, as by the singular appearance of the greenish splashes, with which they are 
 literally covered from the base to the summit. These splashes or blotches are caused 
 by the number of Indians who have passed by, and who thought they were performing 
 a religious act by spitting against the monument the coca they were chewing. 
 
 Hearing us approach, the Indian and his wife, who had resumed their journey, 
 halted a moment to see us pass. While looking at us with a wondering air, they did 
 not forget to salute us with an alii llamanta, at the same time raising their hats. The 
 
LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 119 
 
 llamas had halted also like their masters, but, less polite than the latter, they were 
 contented to gaze upon us with their soft unimpassioned eyes, without honouring us 
 with any salute whatever. By nightfall we arrived at Pucara, having travelled nine 
 Spanish leagues, equal to twelve French leagues or thirty-six miles, across the Puna.. 
 
 Pucara was once an isolated point of the territory occupied by the Ayaviri Indians. 
 About the close of the twelfth century Lloqui Yupanqui, the third emperor of Peru, 
 
 APACHECTA, OR WAYSIDE ORATORY OF THE QUICHUA INDIANS. 
 
 having subjugated these natives after a bloody struggle, built a fortress here, in which 
 he placed a garrison to keep them in awe. Four centuries later, in the partisan wars 
 provoked of the Spaniards, this same Pucara witnessed the defeat of the Spanish 
 captain Francisco Hernandez Giron. 
 
 The site of the old Pucara is now occupied by a dull village of that name, con- 
 taining about a hundred dwellings built half of mud, half of unburned bricks (tapias), and 
 covered with that stubble of the Cordillera which the Indians call ichu, and botanists 
 jarava. The village has no other claim to attention than its comparatively large 
 church, characterized by two square towers with a triangular pediment of wood and 
 mud; its river, which for want of a bridge one has to cross when it is flooded by 
 using bundles of rushes as stepping-stones; and its fair, which is held every year 
 in December. This fair, like that of Vilqua, is one of the most important in Peru. 
 
120 
 
 PERU. 
 
 Great numbers of mules nearly in a wild state are brought there from all parts of 
 the country; but the dealer breaks them in on the spot before delivering them to 
 the buyer. Under temporary sheds and screens, or covered waggons transformed 
 into shops, decorated Avith coloured calico and cut paper, all manner of true and 
 false jewelry, porcelain and crockery, glass and stone ware, cloths and silks, woollen 
 and cotton goods, articles of cutlery and ironmongery, toy-ware, and other products 
 of European industry, are displayed in the most attractive manner to dazzle the eyes 
 of the natives. 
 
 In the midst of this vast bazaar — a commercial and industrial Babel, to the building 
 of which all the nations of the globe had contributed their quota and furnished their 
 stone — a stone of stumbling, it is true — tables for monU, nine-pins, bowls, marionnettes 
 (fantoccini shows), conjurers, mountebanks whose grotesque artifices were transparent 
 enough, drew around them the knowing ones from the towns, and made the Indians 
 of the Sierras gape with admiration. Vendors of cakes, fruits, and sherbets, and sellers 
 of fried fish, were stationed in the most frequented places, or pushed their way through 
 the crowd, shouting, gesticulating, and proclaiming in loud tones the quality of their 
 wares, and occasionally wiping with their shirt-tails the tray or the table upon which 
 those wares were displayed. Every cottage in the village, every petty cabaret and 
 eating-house, was transformed at night into a ball-room with the simplicity and rapidity 
 of a change in a pantomime. They removed the tables, stuck a couple of tallow-candles 
 against the walls, substituted a guitar for the porridge-pot, and all was ready for the 
 dance, which went on merrily till the morning. 
 
 During the fifteen days that this fair lasts, the echoes of the Puna, accustomed to 
 repeat only the lowing of herds and the sighs of the wind, resound with the rolling 
 of drums, the tooting of tin trumpets, the hollow roaring of jnitntus (horns of Amnion), 
 the melodious notes of the queyna and of the pincullu (two kinds of flutes or flageolets), 
 and the strumming of the charango, the national three-stringed guitar, made by the 
 Indians themselves with the half of a calabash, to which they attach a handle, and 
 strung with catgut. The roaring of the crowd, the barking of dogs, the neighing of 
 horses and mules, the hissing of frying-pans, and the crackling of fires kindled in the 
 open air, form the bass of the wild concert. The amount of beef, mutton, llama's flesh, 
 chickens, and guinea-pigs, devoured during the fifteen days of the fair, would serve to 
 provision a German duchy for a year. As for the quantity of brandy consumed, it is 
 not possible to be exact, but we shall not be far wrong in believing that it would suffice 
 to supply three rations a clay to the crew of a fleet during its circumnavigation of 
 the globe. 
 
 Nothing of this kind was to be seen on our visit. It was the 8th of July, and 
 the period of these alien saturnalias was yet distant. Some holes in which the poles 
 had been erected, beef and mutton bones picked clean by poultry, here and there the 
 blackened traces left by the fires, alone marked out the scene of the last annual fete. 
 The crowd and the noise had vanished like a dream, and silence had resumed pos- 
 session of the locality. Sic transit gloria mundi, I said to myself, as I dismounted 
 at the door of the post-station where we had to pass the night. 
 
LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 
 
 123 
 
 With little difficulty we obtained, by paying for it, a little dried beef (char qui) and 
 some frozen batatas. The water of the river sufficed to quench our thirst. After 
 supper, one of the Indians seeing me scribble in my note-book, imagined I could be 
 nothing less than a savant and brujo (sorcerer), for with this simple people science 
 and sorcery are synonymous. He asked me if I did not possess in my bag of charms 
 a remedy which would heal or relieve the postmaster, who was lying ill in the 
 next room. I learned the nature of the complaint from which he was suffering by 
 a species of pantomime. The Indian, not knowing what to call it, inflated his cheeks 
 like iEolus: "Voila!" said he, making a comic gesture; I understood at once that the 
 
 A SICK MAN AND HIS DOCTOR. 
 
 man was suffering from some kind of tumour or abscess. Entering the room we found 
 the invalid reclining on a truckle-bed with a woollen coverlet, One of his cheeks 
 was so swollen that the eye could not be seen. So violent was the tension of the skin, 
 that it had displaced the nose, drawn up the mouth, and altogether made the poor 
 fellow look like one of those india-rubber dolls, to which we can give any expression we 
 please by pressing it with the fingers. Only the grimace of the postmaster was fixed ! 
 "What is to be done?" asked the Indian. 
 
 " For the moment," I replied, " I see nothing better than to keep him out of a 
 draught, and apply a poultice of mallow-leaves or bread and milk." 
 The Indian looked at me cunningly. 
 
 "Bread and milk!" he said, "why, we make pap of that for huahuas (infants). 
 Have you nothing better to propose?" 
 "Absolutely nothing," I said. 
 "In that case I have a better remedy myself." 
 
 "Apply it then," I replied, turning my back on him, and leaving him with the sick 
 man, whose condition, I ought to say, was not at all alarming. 
 
124 
 
 PERU. 
 
 The next moment as I was preparing to lie down, the Indian re-entered with an 
 earthenware plate which lie placed on the fire, and in which he put to melt a 
 bit of fat or grease, together with some bruised coca-leaves and a pinch of ashes 
 from the hearth. He stirred the whole up with a bit of wood; then, when he thought 
 his mixture was properly cooked, he turned it into a wooden bowl, which he filled up 
 with chicha. 
 
 "What are you messing with there?" I asked him. 
 
 "This is my remedy," he replied, gravely. 
 
 "The d it is; and how do you apply your remedy?" 
 
 "I will give him the half of it to drink and wash his face with the other half." 
 
 When I left Pucara in the morning the man was better, which the reader may 
 attribute to the " remedy " or not, as he pleases. For an hour we followed the course 
 of the river. There is nothing more fresh and delightful than these Andean torrents in 
 a time of drought; now they flow gently over a white or golden sand, now they hurtle 
 with a soft murmur against the polished stones, and seem to complain in the notes of 
 turtle-doves of the obstacles which obstruct their course. Every passing cloud mirrors 
 itself in the pellucid water for an instant, and throws upon it a slight shadow. There 
 the sun breaks his golden arrows, the moon flings her silver rays, and the vultures and 
 condors come to make their toilet. In a moment, however, these wayward streams, 
 peaceful as they look, may be lashed to fury. Leaving the course marked out for them 
 by nature, their spreading waters rush impetuously over the plain, rolling in their course 
 enormous blocks of stone, carrying away pell-mell sheep and shepherds, even the bridges 
 of stone and mud-built cottages which they encounter in their passage. These formidable 
 floods are occasioned by the sudden melting of the snows of the Sierra. They last from 
 eighteen to twenty-four hours, and take place in the middle of the night or early 
 morning, rather than when the sun is above the horizon. 1 
 
 About six miles from Pucara we witnessed, though at too great a distance to 
 appreciate the details, one of those cacharparis, or farewell festivals, so frequent in the 
 Sierra between Indians of the same village when they are about to separate for some 
 time. These adieus would make one's heart ache if we did not know that in the 
 chymic composition of the tears which accompany them, there is much more chicha and 
 brandy than any other constituent. The parting, in fact, is only a pretext for an orgie 
 on both sides. Following the custom of ages, the travellers quit their homes in com- 
 pany with relations and friends of both sexes, and supplied with provisions both solid 
 and liquid. They halt at a place previously agreed upon, and, seated in a circle, 
 begin to eat and drink. They drink much more than they eat, and at the end of their 
 lunch, dance the zapateo to the sound of the flute and guitar. When the moment of 
 parting arrives, or the liquor fails, they begin a lament, in which each emulates the 
 
 1 I have often witnessed inundations of this kind, apart from the great annual thaw of the snows of the Cordillera 
 in Januai-y and December. The river, which I have left calmly reposing on its bed in the evening, has swollen suddenly 
 during the night, and on the next day overflowed the country. But as these anomalous floods were preceded or followed 
 by earthquakes, which more often occur in the evening or before daybreak than in the middle of the day, I have con- 
 cluded, rightly or wrongly, that this partial melting of the snows of the Sierra was occasioned by the heat which the 
 volcanic phenomena suddenly determined on the strata which form, so to speak, the foundation of the Andean chain. 
 
LAMP A TO ACOPIA. 
 
 125 
 
 other in deploring their hard fate. The men weep and raise their hands to heaven; 
 the women utter piercing cries and tear their hair. At last the critical moment arrives, 
 the last embrace is given, the stirrup-cup is drunk, if anything should be left to drink, 
 and with a supreme effort they tear themselves from each other's arms. When fairly 
 on their way the travellers often look back and see from a long distance, on some rising 
 ground or rock, the relations and friends they have left behind, giving way to the most 
 
 THE CACHARPAIit, OR FAREWELL FESTIVAL OF THE QUICHUA INDIANS. 
 
 violent grief, and saluting them by waving a rag of baize in default of a handkerchief. 
 These cacharparis are sometimes repeated at several stages, that is to say, they finish 
 at one point to recommence at another, and are even known to extend over three clays 
 and nights, obliging the travellers to postpone their actual departure to the eighth day, 
 so much has excess of emotion and brandy impaired their strength. 
 
 Although a distance of a hundred yards separated us from the actors in this 
 familiar drama, and the departing travellers were nearly out of sight on our left, my 
 companion, as familiar with all that occurs in the Cordillera as a savage with the forest, 
 did not hesitate to reply, when I asked him who these people were: "These are 
 Indians of Pujuja or Caminaca whom the sub-prefect of Lampa has sent to work in 
 some mine of the Raya." 
 
 Ayaviri, where we arrived about four o'clock, is a village of the same family as 
 
126 
 
 PERU. 
 
 those which we had left behind us. Its situation upon the left bank of the river of 
 Pucara, a wooden bridge, a good sized church built of stone and mud without the least 
 pretensions to style, and a school where twenty pupils, taken from the populations of 
 Pucara, Ayaviri, and Santa Rosa, learn to spell out, correctly or incorrectly, the Psalms 
 of David translated into Castilian, and to repeat from memory the Paternoster and 
 Ave Maria, are the only peculiarities which recommend to the attention of statisticians 
 this group of about eighty cottages. As a faithful chronicler I must add that the 
 pedagogue charged with the duty of instructing and training the youth of the country 
 
 amuses himself with a little quiet trade in wool, butter, and cheese, which often obliges 
 him to be absent; at such times the doors of the school remain closed, like those of the 
 temple of Janus in times of peace. Some families of half-breeds, the only aristocracy 
 of the country, are a little indignant at these doings of the schoolmaster; not so the 
 children, who are delivered for a time from their daily recitations, and the coscorrovs 1 
 with which the lessons are often accompanied. I do not know what profit the master 
 may get from his commercial transactions, but his scholastic sinecure is worth £60 
 per annum. 
 
 These details were given to me by the cure' of the place, to whom I had civilly 
 presented a cigarette in exchange for his polite salutation in front of the church, 
 where I was pretending to admire some imaginary sculptures — an innocent trick by 
 which I hoped to render myself agreeable to the pastor, and get into his good graces. 
 
 1 Coscorron, a kind of blow with the fist which Peruvian schoolmasters give their scholars in place of using the ferule. 
 I say, a kind of blow, because in the coscorron the fist is not fairly doubled as when the puhetazo, or ordinary blow with 
 the fist, is given, but the middle finger is bent upon itself in such a way that the middle joint sticks out. Besides, 
 the coscorron is delivered upon the scholar's head, never elsewhere, and not perpendicularly or horizontally, but obliquely, 
 so as to produce a contusion, which is followed by extravasation. Fathers of families will excuse the length of these 
 details. 
 
 DON OALIXTO MIRANDA, THE CURfi OP AYAVIRI. 
 
LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 
 
 127 
 
 For an instant I nattered myself I had succeeded. Not only did he entertain me 
 with his personal affairs, but he related those of his coadjutors, and especially of the 
 schoolmaster, whom he described as a povreton, or poor-spirited fellow. Without 
 troubling myself with the motives which the cure" might have for his confidence, I 
 pretended to be quite charmed with it, and in my turn confided to him that I was 
 dying of exhaustion; having had nothing to eat during the day but the half of a soft 
 cheese bought at a shepherd's hut which we had found en route. My expectation of 
 an invitation to some kind of repast with the holy man was, however, disappointed. 
 After a half-hour's conversation, he politely saluted me, and resumed with slow steps 
 his walk to his presbytery. The name of this charitable priest, which I learned from 
 the Indians at the post-house, was Don Calixto Miranda. May it be immortalized 
 in my humble prose, in which hope I have inserted it in italics ! 
 
 The next day at eight o'clock we were already far from Ayaviri, when I remem- 
 bered that this town or village, call it what we will, had secured a place in the annals 
 of Peru by the successive rebellions of its native inhabitants against the emperors 
 Lloqui Yupanqui and Mayta Capac, who lived in the twelfth century. In 1780 also, 
 Tupac-Amaru, a cacique descended from these emperors, tried to raise the inhabitants 
 of Ayaviri against the viceroys, an attempt which he expiated by a frightful death 
 at Cuzco. After being dismembered (ecartele) his trunk was burned on the heights 
 of that city, while the members were distributed to the towns which he had excited 
 to insurrection. Santa Rosa, the nearest town to Ayaviri, had for its share one of 
 the legs of the unhappy cacique. Four years after the battle of Ayacucho, and the 
 extinction of the royalist party, General Bolivar, at the suggestion of his friend 
 Alexander Von Humboldt, having caused a geodesic survey to be executed by Lloyd 
 and Falmarc, upon a line of thirty myriametres (about 186 miles), Ayaviri had been 
 one of the 916 stations set out on that line. With such illustrious antecedents, the 
 place was certainly entitled to a few words in my note-book; but half from idleness, 
 half from spleen against the cure' Miranda, I left the aforesaid book at the bottom 
 of my bag, judging it useless to devote any space, however short, to a place which 
 had for its spiritual ruler so inhospitable a priest. 
 
 On leaving Ayaviri, the landscape acquired movement, as painters say; the hills 
 drew together, they were connected by their base at some points, and heaped together 
 at others; their undulations stretching from north-west to south-east. Could a bird's- 
 eye view have been taken of these irregularities of the soil, they would have presented 
 the appearance of a sea, the waves of which had been fixed. Totally devoid of trees 
 and shrubs, there was nothing to animate the landscape, for long distances, but herds 
 of oxen or flocks of sheep, and troops of llamas and alpacas feeding at various points. 
 Now and then a pascana, or shepherd's hut, with its roof of stubble and its door so 
 low that one can only enter by crawling, presented itself, but this was seldom. In 
 passing a troglodytic den of this kind, you would naturally look for the inhabitant, 
 with the idea of exchanging a friendly good-day, or of buying a cheese. He is not 
 there; but while you arc lamenting the mischance, the sound of a flute is heard over- 
 head; looking up you will discover perched upon a rock the shepherd playing on a flute 
 
128 
 
 PERU. 
 
 or flageolet. If you possess a little imagination, and ever so small an animal with 
 bonis is feeding at the foot of the rock, you will picture to yourself Argos and the 
 cow Io. Mercurius septem mulcet aniudinibus, you repeat after Virgil. This tribute 
 paid to the eclogue, you ask the shepherd to stop his tootling and sell you one of the 
 cheeses which he employs his leisure in making. lie seems not to understand you. 
 liaising your voice, you request him to come down from his pedestal; you show him 
 a piece of money, and add that you have no time to wait. A sustained trill is the 
 only response the man vouchsafes. Getting impatient, you spring from your mule ; 
 "Eh! scoundrel!" you cry, at the same time throwing a stone at the shepherd to 
 
 A SHEPHERD'S HUT IN THE SIERRA NEVADA. 
 
 attract his attention. If he is naturally of an amiable disposition he takes the hint, 
 puts his flute under his arm, and comes smiling to meet you. But more often he is 
 surly and unsociable, and as he usually has his pockets filled with stones to throw 
 at the beasts when they stray away, he instantly seizes his sling and lets fly at his 
 interlocutor. In such a case you have only one way of escaping the storm ; that is, 
 to put spurs to your mule and ride away as fast as possible. 
 
 I hardly know at this distance of time if we had anything to eat that day, but I 
 well remember that we arrived at Santa Rosa quite famished and benumbed. A fire 
 of bosta in the post-house, and some llama's flesh cut into strips and dried in the sun, 
 of which they sold us a few yards, helped to keep the cold and hunger at bay. 
 Santa Rosa, like Ayaviri and Pucara, is one of those dull-looking villages which seem 
 rather intended for the discipline of criminals than the abode of honest people. The 
 river runs through the middle of the village, and its murmur, which anywhere else 
 would be cheerful and harmonious, is here only one sadness the more. It is as if 
 the voice of Nature bewailed herself eternally in this solitude. Let us add that Santa 
 Rosa is of all the places we have passed through the coldest and least sheltered 
 
LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 
 
 129 
 
 from the storms of the Cordillera, built as it is at the foot of the snowy chain of 
 Huilcanota. As a trifling consolation it possesses a large church with square towers, 
 a pediment, and something in the likeness of acroteral ornaments; but the facade is 
 
 SHEPHERDS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA. 
 
 cracked, the pediment is broken, and the towers gape with more than one crevice, 
 so that the wood and the mud employed in their construction are distinctly visible. 
 
 By the unaccustomed movement that evening in the post-house of Santa Rosa, 
 by the sparkling eyes of the Indians, and the vivacity of their gestures, above all by 
 the unusually loud tone of their voices, I surmised that some bacchic festival had 
 taken place during the day. On questioning the least drunken of the company, he 
 told me that he had been drinking the blood of Jesus Christ. As his reply seemed 
 as absurd as it was unintelligible, I begged him to explain; when he told me that 
 
 VOL. I. 17 
 
130 
 
 PERU 
 
 a neighbouring estancia, of the name of Puncullutu, had for patron la sangre de Jesus 
 Cristo, of which the festival was being celebrated by dancing, and drinking, and various 
 sports. To give more pomp to this religious solemnity, the inhabitants of Santa Rosa 
 had united with the Indian estanciero (farm-bailiffs). My informant added that "the 
 festival had only commenced the day before and would last two days longer, and as 
 the estancia of Puncullutu was on our road I should be able to judge for myself of 
 the grand style in which the Indians of this domain did things." I thanked the 
 drunken fellow for his information, and went to bed a few steps from Nor Medina, 
 who was already as fast as a top. 
 
 When we left the next morning the Indians of the post-house, who had passed the 
 night in drinking and chewing coca, were asleep on the ground, wrapped in their 
 ponchos. Among the pedestrians of both sexes with whom we mingled on the road, 
 some were returning from Puncullutu to Santa Rosa; others, on the contrary, were 
 going from Santa Rosa to Puncullutu. In this cliasse-croise, all as they passed ex- 
 changed a salutation, a burst of laughter, or a merry phrase. The former plodded 
 along with an uncertain step, the latter footed it nimbly. These, full of illusions, 
 sprung joyously towards the goal; those had touched it, and were returning on their 
 path fatigued and disgusted with themselves. Such is life with its opposite currents, 
 I said to myself, at the sight of these indigenes, one half of whom stumbled along, 
 while the other half walked straight. A reveillie sounded by tin trumpets reached our 
 ears as the harmonious prelude of the local fete. We pushed on our beasts, and the 
 inspiriting fanfare was soon succeeded by the mingled sound of drums and flutes. 
 After a ten minutes' rapid trot, we arrived at the foot of a hill surrounded with snow. 
 A hundred Indians were assembled, and had just commenced the day's revels. 
 
 At the summit of the eminence an altar had been set up. It was made of planks, 
 imperfectly concealed by the draperies of the local calico called tocuyo, over which 
 were pinned cotton handkerchiefs of a blue and red square pattern, which gave it a 
 cheerful look. A frame of osiers, of an elliptic form, ornamented with ribbons, mirrors, 
 flags, and streamers of the Peruvian colours, formed a kind of reredos to this rustic 
 altar. An artificial tree stood at each corner of the platform. When I say artificial, 
 I must explain that the trees were nothing but sticks fixed in the ground, and crowned, 
 in place of foliage, with a bunch of those reeds which grow on the shores of ponds or 
 lakes. One might have called them four gigantic brooms. Although it was but early 
 morning, and the cold was piercing, the female chicha-sellers were already at their 
 posts, and their admirers with empty purses were fluttering around them with no 
 other amorous intention than that of getting drunk on credit. Some musicians, 
 trumpeters and flutists, in order to give their lips the inflation and elasticity necessary 
 for blowing a wind-instrument, applied them from time to time to the mouth of a 
 gourd filled with tafia, which some among them carried saltier-wise, like St. James 
 of Compostella. One of these artists leaned over an empty jar in which he was 
 blowing his flageolet, and thus filled with harmony, instead of liquid, the dark interior 
 of the vessel. This kind of melody, little known in Europe, is used in the Sierra at 
 funerals for threnodies, or laments, which the living are supposed to address to the 
 
LAMPA TO ACOPIA 
 
 133 
 
 dead. Flageolets of different tones, with their months in various sized pitchers or 
 jars, are played by fits and starts, passing suddenly from grave to sharp, or from sharp 
 to grave, and are supposed to express, by the frightful charivari they keep up, the 
 trouble, the grief, and the heart-rending affliction of the human soul when constrained 
 to separate for ever from the object of its affection. 
 
 After having sufficiently enjoyed the spectacle of the f£te, and commenced a sketch 
 which the cold prevented me from finishing, I signed to Nor Medina, who appeared to 
 be highly amused with the scene, that it was time to turn our backs upon it, and 
 continue our journey. 
 
 " At five o'clock in the evening the fete will be at its height," he said, with a sigh 
 of regret. 
 
 "Alas!" I said, sighing also, "the vultures alone will be able to judge, for every 
 one here will be dead drunk, and unable to distinguish their right hand from their left." 
 
 On leaving Santa Rosa the gradually diminishing breadth of its stream indicates 
 that we are approaching its source. It is here necessary to observe that all the rivers 
 and streams of Peru take their name from the village by which they flow, an absurdity 
 which throws the geography of the country into confusion. Thus the river of Santa 
 Rosa becomes in succession the Ayaviri, the Pucara, the Nicasio, and the Calapuja. 
 After two hours' march along the course of this river northward, and after having sur- 
 mounted the Cordillera of Huilcanota, which the map-makers and inhabitants of the 
 country call by corruption Vilcanota, and which at this spot is called the Raya} we came 
 to a plateau of irregular form, where two little lakes, of some miles in circumference, 
 spread their mirror-like waters. The southernmost of these lakes, called the Sissacocha 
 (Lake of the Flower), overflows in a thin stream, which is augmented in its course by 
 two torrents from the Cordillera. This is the river we had followed from Santa Rosa, 
 and crossed at Ayaviri. At some fifty miles from Pucara it receives the two rivers, 
 already united in one, of Lampa and Cabanilla, and continues its course to the Lake of 
 Titicaca, in which it debouches near San Taraco, a village of the province of Azangaro. 
 
 The second lake, situated on the north side of the plateau, and named Huilcacocha 
 (Lake of Huilca), 2 gives birth to a stream which is enlarged some leagues further down 
 by the overflow of the lagune of Langui, and takes the name of Huilca-Mayo (River of 
 Huilca), which it soon exchanges for another. After a course of about 900 miles, it 
 flows, under the name of the Rio de Santa Ana, into the Apurimac. 
 
 As I had long been familiar with this locality, I merely glanced at the two lakes 
 with an absent look as I passed by. I observed, however, that their waters reflected 
 the tint of a cloudy sky, and were therefore of a leaden colour. I was in haste to 
 
 ' For the Spanish word raya (ray, limit, dividing line), by which the inhabitants of the country designate this 
 passage of the Cordillera of Huilca, the Indians substitute nota, which in the Quichua idiom has the same signification 
 as raya in Spanish : hence Huilcanota, or the boundary line of Huilca. 
 
 2 The Huilca, or as corrupted, Vilca, is a tree of the natural order of Leguminosoe, division Mimosa;. In the Argentine 
 provinces it is known as the algaroba; it is very common there, and the pulp contained in its pods is used to make 
 brandy. On the other hand, it is rare in Peru ; the hot valleys on the Pacific coast are the only places in which I have 
 found it. How to explain its existence in the midst of the snows of Huilcanota, and to account for its name being 
 given to that chain of the Cordillera, is out of my power — the thing seems absolutely inexplicable. 
 
134 
 
 PERU. 
 
 reach the post of Aguas-Calicntes, 1 to get a morsel of something to eat, and, after a 
 night's rest, have done with the region of the Punas, of which I was getting rather 
 tired. We reached the little station about the close of day, and found its occupants 
 in a state of anxious expectation of a great event. 
 
 An ex-prefect of Ayacucho, who had become a general of division owing to some 
 political accident, and was charged by the government with a secret mission to the 
 Sierra, was expected to halt at Aguas-Calientes, and stay there some four-and-twenty 
 hours. The postmaster and several women, who had trudged on purpose all the way 
 from Layo and Langui, villages about eighteen miles distant, were in the midst of a 
 lively discussion about the ceremonial to be observed on this occasion. They thought 
 
 THE LAKES OP SISSACOCHA AND HUILCACOCHA, ON THE EAYA PLATEAU. 
 
 nothing less would do than to hang the cracked walls of the station with a tapestry 
 of baize and calico, hoist a pennon above the roof, and strew with green rushes the 
 approaches by which his excellency would arrive. Some spirited old dames proposed 
 to dress themselves in red and white, the national colours, and thus attired go to meet 
 the great man, and dance before him as he approached. As usual, the jug of chicha 
 and the brandy bottle went the round, and each in turn had some ingenious idea 
 or fresh advice to give. 
 
 This supposed question of etiquette so absorbed their attention that not one of 
 the company noticed my arrival, or if they were aware of the fact they pretended 
 otherwise. I waited patiently some minutes till the master of the post, a fat and 
 ruddy-faced Indian whose black tresses hung almost to the ground, should deign to 
 turn his head. Seeing this hope was in vain, I made my presence known by a friendly 
 tap on his hat, which, whether the said hat was a little too large for the oblong head it 
 
 1 Tliis nnme is derived from a spring of hot water which comes in slender jets from a rock level with the ground, 
 ahout two hundred yards eastward from the post-house. 
 
LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 
 
 135 
 
 covered, or that my hand was a little too heavy, descended suddenly upon the Indian's 
 nose, the contour of which resembled an eagle's beak, and there lodged. His astonish- 
 ment was great, to judge by the way he swore before he saw daylight again. 
 
 " God be with you ! " I said, in the idiom of the Children of the Sun, while he 
 disembarrassed himself of his hat, and looked at me at once wonderingly and wrath- 
 fully. "I have come from Santa Kosa, and am dying of hunger; can't you get me 
 something to eat?" 
 
 "Manancancha, fnanamounanichaj 1 go to the devil, and let me alone!" he replied. 
 
 I philosophically allowed this ebullition of bile to pass unnoticed. 
 
 "Now listen," I said; "your conversation with these mamacunas" 2 — so I designated 
 
 the group of gossips — "has made me aware that General L is on his way to 
 
 Collao, and will halt at the post of Aguas-Calientes. The general is one of my friends. 
 Some time ago I retouched a portrait which he did not think sufficiently like him, and 
 lengthened by six inches the epaulettes of his uniform, which he thought too short. 
 I have besides given to his wife the recipe of a wonderful paste to make a lovely pink 
 and white, and I have taught her three daughters the difficult art of selecting the 
 proper colours for their toilet, of which before they knew nothing. You see then the 
 general and his family are under obligations to me. . . ." 
 
 Here I purposely made a slight pause to give the Indian time to digest my words. 
 
 "True, very true," he said, "thou art a friend of his excellency." 
 
 "It is so true," I replied, with freezing dignity, "that I think of staying here till 
 the general arrives; not to congratulate him on his new dignity, or to help you with 
 my advice on the subject of the reception you are preparing for him, but to beg 
 my worthy friend to let one of his soldiers dust your back with a twisted strap, to 
 teach you the civility of which you are ignorant and the laws of hospitality which you 
 have outraged." 
 
 "No, tayta; no, taytachay ; 3 you will not beat a poor pongo 4 who never did you any 
 harm ! " 
 
 1 There is nothing — / will not. These two phrases require explaining. When, travelling in the Cordilleras, one asks 
 an Indian to sell a sheep out of his flock, to avoid dying of hunger, his invariable answer is, Manancancha — There is none. 
 Naturally you give the lie to his assertion by pointing to two or three hundred sheep feeding around hiin. He then 
 replies : Manamounanicha — I will not. These are the only words that can be extracted from him. In sucli a case the 
 only way to get out of the embarrassment is to select, through the agency of the mozo or muleteer who accompanies us, 
 a nice fat sheep, have it killed and skinned on the spot without listening to the abuse of the proprietor, who, obliged to 
 submit to force, cries, groans, and shows every sign of exasperated grief. When the sheep is cut up you pay four reals 
 (the regular price) to the owner, to whom also one generously abandons the head, the feet, and the intestines of the 
 beast, to make a chupu. In a twinkling he passes from the bitterest distress to the liveliest joy; he thanks the traveller 
 a hundred times, kisses his hand or the stuff of his poncho, lavishes upon him the most gratifying and endearing 
 epithets, and ends by wishing him every possible blessing. If a few conscientious travellers honestly pay the shepherd 
 for what they take, it must be remembered that the greater number simply help themselves, and push their liberality 
 so far as to beat the proprietor of the animal into the bargain. 
 
 2 llama, mother; cuna, plural article of two genders. The name of mama is generally given to Indian women of a 
 certain age. 
 
 3 Tayta, father; taytachay, dear little father. 
 
 4 In the great cities, pongos are Indians of the lower class, who very reasonably value their services at fifteen francs 
 a month. They are employed indoors to carry wood and water; to sweep the stones, and to open and close the entrance 
 gate, behind which they sleep squatting. Their name of pongo is derived from puncu, gate, by corruption pongo. They 
 are the porters of the country. 
 
PE 1(U. 
 
 In his terror of the strap, the man descended voluntarily from the dignity of 
 postmaster to the condition of a pongo. Such accesses of humility are frequent 
 among the Indian caste, and I am not surprised at it. The end that I proposed to 
 attain, and which I had partly attained, had otherwise claimed all my attention. I 
 replied then to the postmaster, who had seized the fringe of my poncho, and whose 
 eyes glared and nostrils trembled with the fear of the vengeance I had threatened. 
 
 "I believe I told you that I am hungry. As you must have some provisions in 
 the house you will prepare a ckupi as savoury as possible ; you will give dry 
 fodder to my mules, and to-morrow before leaving I will settle for that little matter. 
 As to the general, do not trouble yourself to prepare a surprise for him. I will 
 write a line or two that will induce him to dispense with any ceremony on his 
 account. 
 
 The postmaster let go the border of my jioncho, overcome with joy. 
 
 "0 tayta," he said in a coaxing voice, "good taytachay, ... if you but knew 
 how grateful . . ." 
 
 "That's all very well, my good fellow," I replied, interrupting him, "but leave for 
 the present your gratitude, which will not put a single onion in the soup, and lose 
 no time in getting my chupe ready." The man addressed some hasty commands to 
 the gossips, who had listened to this dialogue with the greatest interest, and in the 
 twinkling of an eye the station was turned upside down, every one was rushing here 
 and there in search of the domestic animals. I heard the cry of anguish of a fowl 
 whose neck they wrung, followed by the squeak of a guinea-pig, to which one of 
 the women gave chase, and which she killed by breaking its back. Half a sack of 
 llama's dung was thrown upon the burning embers: everything about me assumed the 
 appearance of cheerfulness and abundance. The postmaster assigned to each his task ; 
 two Indian postilions had to attend to the fire and blow it without ceasing; four of the 
 women were charged with the cooking of the chupe, which consisted of an old hen, a 
 bit of dried mutton, and some real potatoes, the chuno or frozen batatas having been 
 unanimously declared too common for a delicate taste like mine. The quantity of salt, 
 of pimento, or of garlic, proper to season the broth, was the object of a discussion among 
 the women, who only settled the point after the maturest deliberation. Never was a 
 plat convert or gastronomic delicacy of any kind destined to excite the worn-out 
 appetite of a despot, or to tickle the nervous papillae of a bishop's palate, watched, 
 combined, and cooked with more loving care and attention to details than the vulgar 
 pot-au-feu which was boiling in my sight. The postmaster himself took charge of the 
 friture. Like Brillat-Savarin he found, apparently, that the art of frying is a very 
 delicate one, and would trust no one but himself with the handle of his frying-pan. His 
 guinea-pig singed, washed, cleaned, spread open, larded over, sprinkled with ground 
 pimento and kept flat in the pan by means of a stone placed on the belly, only awaited 
 the moment when it could be popped on the fire, to acquire, by being quickly fried, 
 that golden colour which recommends the animal to the appreciation of Peruvian 
 gourmets. 
 
 At length this splendid supper was served up, not on a table, the station did not 
 
LA MP A TO ACOPIA. 
 
 137 
 
 possess one, but on a piece of baize spread on the ground, and by which I squatted like 
 a tailor on his board. A wooden spoon was placed at my service, a fork was out of the 
 question. My ten fingers did good duty for one. The postmaster willingly served me 
 as cup-bearer. A quarter of an hour sufficed to sup and return thanks. Then the 
 spectators who surrounded me, having seen that my skins were drawn near the fire, 
 and understanding that I wished to sleep, retired into an adjoining apartment. Nor 
 
 PEEPABATION OF A SUPPEK AT THE STATION OP AGUAS-CALIENTES. 
 
 Medina, at a sign from the postmaster, joined the cortege and followed them into the 
 room, letting fall behind him the cow's-skin which, hung up by the tail, served for a 
 door. Soon the noise of eating, mingled with merriment and laughter, 1 made me aware 
 that the servants were supping on the left victuals of the master, and were enjoying by 
 anticipation the pleasures of paradise. 
 
 In the morning I rose early and found the postmaster already up. After giving him 
 a dozen reals, the price at which I valued my supper and the provender of my mules, 
 I tore a blank-leaf out of my note-book, and having been repeatedly assured by the 
 Indian that he was unable to read any kind of writing, I addressed the following lines 
 to General L : 
 
 1 Rire a la cantonade: a phrase of the theatre, for merriment heard behind the scenes. — Tit. 
 
 VOL. I. 18 
 
138 
 
 PERU. 
 
 "My dear General, — The herein-named Tgnacio Muynas Tupayanehi, postmaster of Aguas-Calientes, had intended 
 to follow the example of his fellow-citizens, and burn a little incense on your visit. I have persuaded him to do 
 nothing of the kind, feeling assured that at the moment I am writing you are tired of ovations, and official banquets, 
 and harangues. If then you do not find at Aguas-Calientes the usual display of hangings, flags, and garlands of green 
 rashes, do not blame the aforesaid Ignacio, who has simply yielded to foreign influence. The honest fellow will 
 compensate you by his cuisine for the loss of the vain honours he would have rendered you. He excels in fritures, 
 and with a common guinea-pig can make a dish fit for the gods. It is in this quality of cuisinier that I recommend 
 him to you, my dear general, that on arriving at Aguas-Calientes you may put to the proof the peculiar talent of its 
 postmaster, whom I do not hesitate to declare as good a friturier as he appears to me to be a good citizen, devoted 
 soul and body to the public good. 
 
 " I pray that St. Rose, the patroness of Peru, may watch over your days, and over those dear to you." 
 
 I was informed afterwards that the unhappy postmaster, put in requisition by 
 General L. and his escort, who had taken my advice seriously, was kept at the frying- 
 pan for eighteen hours, during which time he fried a fabulous number of guinea-pigs 
 collected in the neighbourhood. But let us not anticipate events. 
 
 About six miles from Aguas-Calientes, after a slight but continuous descent, we 
 arrived at Marangani, a poor village, which has no other claim to attention than its 
 situation at the confluence of the Huilcamayo (which Ave have seen to take its rise 
 from the Lake Sisacocha, on the Raya plateau) with the stream of Langui issuing 
 from the lake of that name. The temperature is here a little ameliorated. In some 
 winding nooks of the mountain, sheltered from the wind and cold, were growing 
 little patches of potatoes, barley, oats, quinoa, and a species of the Oxalis locally 
 called occa, which the Indians eat in their chup^s. 
 
 It may be noted as a geographical and statistical detail, that the northern extremity 
 of the Raya plateau forms the frontier which separates the province of Lampa from 
 that of Canchis. The village of Marangani pertains to the latter, which is one of the 
 smallest provinces of Peru. Its area is 540 square miles. 
 
 Nine miles from Marangani, northward, and on the right bank of the Huilcamayo, 
 is situated Sicuani, which is marked in the Peruvian maps as a city, but is really 
 only a big village, as monotonous as it is badly built. Its population in the time 
 of the viceroys was 7500 souls, now it is hardly 3000. An hospital for both sexes, 
 founded in the seventeenth century by the viceroy Count Gil de Lemos, has disappeared 
 from the earth with its founder. As to the massive silver lamp which still existed 
 in the church of Sicuani at the beginning of the century, it has been replaced by 
 a poor thing of copper with three branches. A Spaniard named Joaquin Vilafro 
 had presented it to the Virgin of Sicuani, not so much as a devotional offering as 
 an atonement or apology, in dread of the Inquisition and the viceroy, for the immense 
 wealth he had acquired in a short time from the mine of Quimsachata, near the 
 sources of the Apurimac; a precaution, however, which did not save him from being 
 hung par ordre for the sake of that same wealth. The lamp of the unfortunate 
 colonist, after having long been the ornament of the choir and the admiration of the 
 faithful, was taken to the mint and coined into piastres during the war between the 
 Royalists and Independents. 
 
 It was at Sicuani that the cacique Matheo Pumacahua, who in 1781 had betrayed 
 Tupac Amaru to the Spaniards, received, thirty-four years afterwards, the price of his 
 
LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 
 
 139 
 
 services. The Spaniards, who had promised him the epaulettes of a colonel, deferred 
 the promotion till they settled their debt in full by cutting off his head. 
 
 A natural curiosity of Sicuani, of which travellers have made no mention, probably 
 because they were unacquainted with its existence, is the lagune of Quellhua, or more 
 correctly Quellhuacocha, as it is called in the country, which is situated on the 
 heights to the east of the village. Let any one picture, if he can, a liquid sapphire 
 
 SICUANI, SEEN FROM THE HEIGHTS OF QUELLHUACOCHA. 
 
 eighteen miles in circumference, in a setting composed of the five rounded backs of 
 mountains which extend to the horizon the snowy summits of the Cordilleras of 
 Chimboya and d'Atun-Quenamari, and which are charmingly belted with those totoras, 
 or large-leaved rushes, of which we have elsewhere spoken. Nothing can be more 
 calmly beautiful, or more freshly poetic, than this Andean lake, which no wind ruffles, 
 and no vessel has ever furrowed; in which clouds and stars, sunlight and moonlight, 
 are alone reflected; and the whole physiognomy of which is so ineffably sweet that 
 we have exhausted the resources of language when we say it smiles upon us like 
 something human ! 
 
 San Pablo and San Pedro de Cacha, situated about nine miles northward of 
 Sicuani, are two neighbouring hamlets of the dullest character, and closely resembling 
 each other in the misery of the inhabitants and their wretched mud -built huts. The 
 
140 
 
 PERU. 
 
 villagers of St. Paul boast that they have very much the advantage of St. Peter, and 
 support the assertion by pointing to the school with eighteen pupils which the former 
 possesses, and the latter does not. The rector of a university might appreciate this 
 evidence of superiority; Ave prefer, for our part, the geological grandeur and archaeo- 
 logical illustration of St. Peter, which, instead of a school and schoolmaster, may 
 well be proud of its fine ruins, above which towers a very respectable volcano, 
 unhappily extinct, though the time has been when it covered the country with lava, 
 scoriae, and pumice. This volcano, the crater of which is inclined from north to south, 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF HUIRACOCHA, ACCORDING TO THE HISTORIAN GARCILASSO DE LA VEGA. 
 
 lifts its head above a platform of low hills, on a site which bears the name of 
 Racchi, and from which the volcano has been corruptly called the Riacha by the natives. 
 At the foot of those barren hills, which form its pedestal, we find a plastic clay, of 
 which the potters of the Cordillera make pitchers, vases, and drinking-vessels of charm- 
 ing shapes. Here also are found several ochres, a red ochre called taco; and magnesia, 
 which the thrifty poor, who call it chacco (milk of the earth), collect, and of which, 
 mixed with a little water, they make a poulette, or white sauce, to be eaten with 
 potatoes by the family. 
 
 At some bow-shots from the hills of Racchi, in a place called Yahuarpampa, 1 are 
 the remains of an ancient edifice which can be seen from a long distance, and which 
 travellers have called the ruins of Tiuta without saying one word of their origin. 
 We do not well know where these travellers got the name. Is it derived from the 
 fact that the province of Canchis, in which these ruins are situated, once formed, 
 together with the province of Canas, a single government, under the name of the 
 
 1 Plain of Blood, so called because there the Inea Huiracocha completely defeated his father Yahuar-Huacac, who, 
 haviug been deposed by his subjects ou account of his vices, had come to reassert his right to the empire at the head 
 of 3000 Chaucas Indians, who perished in the engagement. 
 
LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 
 
 141 
 
 Corregimiento de Tinta f We do not positively affirm this, but what we dare repeat 
 after the historians of the Conquest is, that the ruins are those of the temple built 
 towards the middle of the fourteenth century by Viracocha, or more correctly Huira- 
 cocha, 1 the eighth Inca ; in remembrance of a dream in which an old man with a 
 long beard, wearing a flowing robe, and holding a chained dragon, had appeared to 
 that prince when as a young man he kept the sheep of the emperor Yahuar-Huacac, 
 his father, in the plains of Chita. 2 
 
 TEMPLE OF HOIEACOCHA, ACCORDING TO THE HISTORIANS CIEg A DE LEON AND ACOSTA. 
 
 To this dream, from which the heir presumptive had inferred a command from 
 Heaven relative to the subjugation of the Chancas, and which at a later period he 
 religiously accomplished by destroying 3000 of these indigenes, and annexing their 
 territory to the empire, must be ascribed the merit of having enriched the country 
 with a memorial temple 240 feet long and 120 feet wide, the walls of which, thirty 
 feet high, were built half of worked stones and half en pise. This edifice, erected 
 on a plateau which overlooked the environs, was reached by five terraces or steps. 
 It had three doors and three windows upon the northern and southern sides, and a 
 door and two windows at each of its ends or facades. Five pillars, erected at equal 
 distances on the principal walls, and tied by transverse beams, served to support the 
 chief timbers which carried the thatched roof. The overhanging eaves of this roof 
 
 1 Foam of the Lake, so named on account of his ruilky-whiteness, say the historians of the seventeenth century ; 
 but, considering the habitual exaggeration of these estimable writers, we cannot help thinking that this pretended 
 whiteness of Huiracocha was only a kind of milk-and-coffee colour, instead of the burned brick tint which marks 
 the race generally. The sister and wife of this Inca, who was equally unlike her features in the comparative fairness 
 of her skin, was called Mama Runtu (the mother-egg). 
 
 2 We must leave to the historians of the Conquest the responsibility of this apocryphal dream and the explana- 
 tion of the young prince's presence in the frightful desert of Chita, 120 miles south of Cuzco, the capital of the 
 empire, and keeping sheep, which the conquerors did not introduce into America until two centuries later. 
 
142 
 
 PERU. 
 
 formed along the sides of the edifice a sort of pent-house, under which passers-by 
 surprised by a heavy shower could take shelter. 
 
 According to Garcilasso, this temple was only 120 feet long by 60 feet broad, or 
 half the dimensions assigned to it by Cieca de Leon and Acosta. He also states 
 that it had no roof, as the dream which it commemorated occurred in the country, 
 sub Jove crudo, and its interior decoration consisted of nothing but a simple cube of 
 
 RUINS OP THE TEMPLE OF HUIEACOCHA. 
 
 black porphyry, upon which was placed the statue of the mysterious old man seen 
 by Huiracocha in his dream. At the period of the Conquest, the Spaniards threw 
 down the statue and destroyed its pedestal, in the expectation of finding hidden 
 treasure. 
 
 Of these architectural splendours nothing is left but the ruined walls, about 
 twenty feet in height. It is true these walls have nine doors, while the primitive 
 edifice had only eight according to Cieca de Leon and Acosta. Happily this fact is 
 known to myself alone, for if the ninth door had been discovered by the delegates 
 of a learned society, not only would it have set rival societies by the ears and caused 
 a great waste of paper, but the spirit of paradox would have been ready to declare 
 in public that insatiable Time, tempus edax, who gnaws with ceaseless tooth the poor 
 works of our hands until little is left of them, had, on the contrary, added to those 
 
LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 
 
 143 
 
 of Peru. From regard for those respectable old women Record and Tradition, I will 
 not say anything so paradoxical. I will admit, with the above-named historians, that 
 the temple of which they speak had only eight doors, and that the ninth was opened in 
 its Avails by a shock of the neighbouring volcano. No other way of accounting for 
 the discrepancy occurs to me just now. 
 
 Six miles from St. Peter and St. Paul, we come to the village of Combapata. The 
 distance traversed is a continual descent, and in the measure we descend the tem- 
 
 VILL AGE AND LAG U N E OF COMBAPATA. 
 
 perature becomes milder, and belts of verdure begin to appear at the foot of the 
 mountains. Combapata, of which we find no mention in any geographical work or in 
 any known map, is a village of some threescore hearths, situated near a turbulent 
 and rapid river. Its little church is very bright and clean, its whitewashed walls con- 
 trasting pleasantly with the dirty look of the cottages in its neighbourhood. A Christ, 
 of life size, decorates the chief altar. The work of a sculptor of Huamanga, it is 
 venerated by the faithful under the name of Seigneur de Combapata, and is credited 
 with the performance of miracles. It has given sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, 
 and speech to the dumb. In the eighteenth century, when the Jesuits were exiled from 
 Peru, tears of blood, they say, ran from its eyes — made of enamel. The same prodigy 
 occurred in 1821, when the viceroy La Serna, banished from Lima by the Independents, 
 was compelled to depart for Spain. Unfortunately for the Seigneur de Combapata, 
 
144 
 
 PERU. 
 
 the Christ of Tungasuca, a neighbouring- village, has also the gift of miracles. This 
 latter, known as the Seigneur d'Anaipampa, renders barren women fruitful, heals the 
 reputed incurable, and preserves sheep from the scab. Like his rival the Seigneur de 
 Combapata, he weeps, on occasions, tears of blood over the miseries of this world. 
 From this identity of powers there results a bitter rivalry between the faithful of the 
 two parishes ; the inhabitants of one village glorifying their own Christ by depreciating 
 that of their neighbours. Often in the bacchic solemnities with which each village 
 celebrates the fete de VHomrne-Dieu, have we seen the Indians, drunk with fanaticism 
 and brandy, use their heads like battering-rams for the greater glory of their lord. 
 
 The river which runs by the village, and debouches in the Huilcamayo, under the 
 name of the Rio de Combapata, takes its rise from the western side of the Andes 
 of Crucero, between the provinces of Lampa and Carabaya. It is an auriferous stream, 
 and when its waters are swollen by the melted snows, it bears along in its muddy 
 waves particles of gold detached from the mountains. The inhabitants of the country 
 at one time established a gold-washing place on its banks. The rapid slope of the 
 lands which it waters gives to its floods a formidable character; it is less a torrent 
 than an avalanche, which hurls itself upon the surrounding country and in an 
 instant submerges it. Two stone bridges, of two arches, built solidly enough to stand 
 for ages, have been successively carried away by the flood. Each of these bridges cost 
 the province 2000 piastres (£400), and the slender resources of the inhabitants have 
 compelled them, as a measure of economy, to return to the swing-bridges of osiers, 
 with which for six centuries their ancestors were contented. 
 
 That which distinguishes Combapata from the other villages of the Sierra is not, 
 however, its miraculous Christ or its gold-bearing river. It is the quality of the chicha 
 brewed by its inhabitants. For a long time the process by which the matrons of that 
 
 THE CKUCIFIX IN THE CHDRCn OF COMBAPATA. 
 
LAMP A TO ACOPIA. 
 
 145 
 
 village obtained their local beer, the smell and transparency of which remind one of 
 the manzanilla or claret of Spain, was kept secret; but like other secrets it has at 
 length been divulged, and now every one knows that the chicha is indebted for its 
 quality to the previous mastication of the gunapo or sprouting maize from which it is 
 brewed. The invention of this process is traced back to the ancient Aymaras; and 
 the chicha -brewers of Cochabamba in Upper Peru, who are descended from those 
 autochthones, still employ it with success. The process, to which we think it our duty 
 to call the attention of the editors of Cookery for the Million and Useful Recipes, is one of 
 the most simple and inexpensive conceivable. Several old men and women squat on the 
 
 floor round a heap of bruised maize. Each takes a portion of the maize, which he puts 
 in his or her mouth, and chews with more or less vigour and for a longer or shorter 
 time according to the strength of his grinders. When sufficiently macerated, it is 
 spit out into the hand and put on a little sheet of leather, spread out in front of each 
 operator. The chicha-brewer then collects these little heaps and throws them into the 
 jar which serves as a substitute for the caldron. 
 
 According to the chemists of the country, who have analyzed these chews or this 
 chicha, it is to a remarkable addition of juices from the salivary glands, and of secretions 
 from the pituitary membrane combined, that the maize of Combapata is indebted for 
 the precious qualities which it communicates to the chicha. I would not venture to 
 say whether the local chemistry is right or wrong, having always declined to taste the 
 chicha of Canchis; but I confess that I have taken great pleasure in watching the old 
 men and women who were assembled to chew the maize ; the mouths of these honest 
 people opening and shutting with such mechanical regularity, as to recall to my mind, 
 with the memory of my absent country, Desirabode's artificial teeth working up and 
 down from morning to night, in their glass case. 
 
 vor,. i. 19 
 
140 
 
 PERU. 
 
 After Combapata, the traveller's next halting-place is Checcacupi, a poor village 
 about nine miles further, containing about thirty hovels, and situated near a small river, 
 flowing, like that of Combapata, from the Andes of Crucero. On crossing this river 
 by a bridge of stone, which dates from the time of the viceroys, and leaving behind us 
 the neighbouring provinces of Canchis and Canas, once combined to form the Cor- 
 regimiento de Tinta, we enter the province of Quispicanchi. Before we go further, let 
 
 CHEWING THE MAIZE FOR MAKING CHICHA. 
 
 us throw a rapid coup d'osil over the past history of the double province, which we have 
 abandoned never more to revisit. 
 
 A long time before the appearance of the Incas in Peru, two rival nations, the 
 Canas and Canchis, occupied an area of about 14,000 square miles: from north to south, 
 it extended from the Sierras of Chimboya and d'Atun-Quenamari to the plateaux of 
 Ocoruro, and from east to west it reached from the Cordillera de Huilcanota to the 
 torrent of Chuquicabana. The Huilcamayo, of which we have seen the source at 
 Aguas-Calientes, and followed as far as Checcacupi, ran through a portion of this 
 territory. The Canas occupied, in the north and west, the present seat of the villages 
 of Pitumarca, Combapata, Tinta, and Yanaoca, extending as far as the heights of 
 Pichigua and Mollocahua, in the neighbourhood of the river Apurimac. The Canchis 
 inhabited the eastern and southern parts, the district in which are now situated the 
 
LAMPA TO ACOPIA. 
 
 147 
 
 villages of St. Peter and St. Paul de Cacha, Sicuani, and Marangani, as far as the 
 Ray a plateau. 1 
 
 These two nations, numbering about 25,000 men, were governed by their curacas 
 or respective chiefs. Their rivalry, which was of ancient elate and occasioned bloody 
 quarrels between them, appears to have had no other cause than the difference of 
 their origin and temperament. The Canas, inhabitants, originally, of the Sierra 
 
 THE VILLAGE OF CHECCACUPI. 
 
 Nevada, took their name from the volcano of Racchi, which overlooked their territory, 
 and of which they boasted themselves the descendants. Cana, in the Quichua idiom, 
 signifies the seat or scene of a conflagration. The Canchis came in old times from the 
 temperate regions near Arequipa. Their name recalls their natal soil with its pale 
 flowers and grasses. Cancha, in Quichua, signifies an inclosed place or garden. This 
 difference of origin was aggravated by a difference of costume, the former invariably 
 wearing black, the latter a mixed colour. 
 
 The character of these indigenes agreed wonderfully with their national patronymic. 
 The Canas, gloomy and taciturn of disposition, but wrathful and impetuous on occasion, 
 jealous of their independence to the point of sacrificing all for its sake, struggled 
 for four centuries against the power of the Incas, and only submitted at last when the 
 
 1 The present limits of the two provinces imperfectly recall those of tlieir ancient territory. 
 
148 
 
 PERU. 
 
 daughter of their chief became one of the three hundred wives of Huayna-Capac, the 
 twelfth emperor of Cuzco. The Canchis, on the contrary, gentle and timid of character, 
 lukewarm and undecided in spirit, like the climate in which they were born, submitted 
 without resistance to the dominion of the Children of the Sun. 
 
 In the sixteenth century the territory of the Canas and the Canchis was formed into 
 one province under the name of the Corregimiento de Tinta, and these indigenes, who 
 now formed only one and the same people, passed from the yoke of the emperors under 
 that of the viceroys. For them the halter simply took the place of the collar. As their 
 robust constitution fitted them to work in the mines, they were treated as slaves by 
 their new masters. Every year the Spanish officials came to carry off one-tenth of the 
 entire population in the name of the state. The unfortunate recruits, designated by 
 lot, were collected before the church to hear a mass said on their account, and for 
 which they were supposed to pay themselves. After mass the cure" received their oath 
 of fealty and obedience to the King of Spain, then sprinkled them with holy water, 
 pronounced the customary blessing, Vete con Dios, and — turned his back on them. 
 
 These recruits, escorted by relations and friends, who answered their tears with 
 groans, took the road to Cailloma, Carabaya, or Potosi, sites of those rich deposits 
 of mineral wealth which the viceroys of Peru worked a little for their own benefit and 
 for that of the King of Spain. Doomed to the labours of excavation, the poor Indians 
 descended into the bocaminas and socabons — pits and galleries — where the want of the 
 pure air to which they had been accustomed, and the emanations of deleterious gases, 
 brought on, according to the doctors of the country, a kind of asthma, called chacco, of 
 which they died in a year. When the supply of workers was thus exhausted by death 
 the representatives of the Spanish monarchy had only to throw in their drag-net and 
 again recruit the ranks of the labourers. 
 
 Things went on thus during more than two centuries before the population, weary 
 of their yoke, endeavoured to throw it off. The inhabitants of Aconcahua, in the 
 province of Canas, exasperated by an increase of the tribute of gold-dust exacted from 
 them by the state, seized the Spanish collector on one of his visits, and gave him more 
 than he wanted by making him swallow a quantity of the melted metal; 1 after which, 
 to escape the pursuit of justice, they abandoned for ever their village, the site of 
 which is still recognizable. Tupac Amaru, cacique of Tungasuca, after having hung 
 with his own hand the corregidor of Tinta, Antonio Arriega, and raised the country 
 against the Spaniards, was defeated by them and cruelly put to death. Angulo, Bejar, 
 Pumacahua, and Andia, who succeeded Tupac Amaru, paid with their heads the 
 penalty of failure in the work they had undertaken, and which nine years later Simon 
 Bolivar accomplished on the plains of Ayacucho. 
 
 When the blow for independence was first struck, the government of Tinta was 
 divided into six districts. These were Sicuani, Tinta, Checca, Checcacupi, Langui, and 
 Yauri, comprising twenty-three villages, the situation of which on the mountain or in 
 
 1 Para saciar de este modo la sed insatiable del recaudadoi — To appease by this means the insatiable greed of the collec- 
 tor, naively says Pedro Celestino Florez, who relates this fact in a work entitled, Patriotismo y amor & la libertad. The 
 honest writer adds by way of a reflection:* The oppression of those intrusted with power, and the failure of justice in a 
 country, often drives the oppressed to commit atrocious deeds, for which the circumstances are some excuse. 
 
LAMP A TO ACOPIA 149 
 
 the plain, and their consequent difference of temperature, had caused them to be classed 
 into higher and lower villages. Many of them no longer exist; others have become 
 simple estancias (farms), though from respect for their past history, and the souvenirs 
 which they recall, the statisticians of the country have preserved for forty years in their 
 annual reports, and will preserve for a long time yet, the rank and situation which 
 they formerly occupied. In like manner the illustrious grenadier, whom France 
 delights to honour, continues to figure long after his death upon his old regimental 
 list, and to answer the roll-call day after clay, by the voice of one of his brothers in 
 arms. 
 
 While giving due credit to these statisticians for an idea evidently inspired by the 
 purest patriotism, we cannot but censure them for an artifice which gives to the world 
 in general, and to the neighbouring republics in particular, a false idea of the numerical 
 forces of the country. According to them the figure which represents the existing 
 population of each of the provinces of Canas and Canchis is exactly that of the entire 
 population of the government of Tinta in the time of its splendour. Unfortunately 
 for these gentlemen, we know that of all the provinces of Lower Peru, that of Tinta 
 was the worst treated during the Spanish occupation. Its population, decimated in 
 turn by epidemics, subsidies for the mines, forced enrolments, voluntary emigration, 
 and all the exigencies caused by spiritual power and political revolution, did not 
 exceed, in 1792, 36,314 souls. In 1820 it numbered 36,968, and in 1836 it had risen 
 to 37,218. Yet we are expected to believe that a population which had increased by 
 900 souls in forty years, could almost double itself in the year or two following! 
 
 On quitting the village of Combapata it had been arranged between Nor Medina 
 and myself that we should pass the night at Checcacupi, and the next day push on to 
 Huaro, doubling the stage and passing, without stopping, the villages of Quiquijana 
 and Urcos. But feeling there was little prospect of a bed or a supper at Checcacupi, 
 and knowing we should have to cross the Huilcamayo on the next day in order to take 
 the road to Cuzco, the idea occurred to me that we might as well cross to the other 
 bank at once and push on for Acopia, where we had some chance of finding food and 
 lodging. As this would add six miles to our stage, I said nothing to Nor Medina, who 
 would have been in an agony about his mules ; and we continued our march. As we 
 were nearing San Juan, a little hamlet agreeably placed by a lagune, I suddenly de- 
 scended to the river and looked for a fordable place. A bed of flints and pebbles, in- 
 termingled with larger stones, was visible through the transparent water. I pushed my 
 mule resolutely forward to cross. Nor Medina, seeing this change in our itinerary, 
 called out as he galloped up: — 
 
 "Where are you going, sir?" 
 
 "As you see, I am going to cross the Huilcamayo: Kiibos aneriphto. May destiny 
 be favourable to me, as to Csesar!" 
 
 "But the river is full of holes; you will get drowned and lame my mule." 
 
 My only reply to this, remark of a venal soul was to shrug my shoulders, seeing 
 which my guide followed me into the river. 
 
 "Why has monsieur taken this road?" he demanded with some brusqueness. 
 
150 
 
 PERU. 
 
 The question was so natural that I was tempted to explain my motive; but the tone 
 in which it was put arrested my confidence on my lips. I looked at Nor Medina, du 
 haul en has, and replied : — 
 
 "I have taken this road for particular reasons." 
 
 "Ah!" said he, "and where is monsieur going?" 
 
 "To Acopia." 
 
 "To Acopia?" 
 
 "To Acopia." 
 
 "That suffices. If monsieur has particular reasons for going to Acopia it is my 
 duty to conform to those reasons and follow him." 
 
 This, however, he did with difficulty, as his mule twisted about upon the slippery 
 stones, and with the efforts which it made to keep on its feet, splashed us all over from 
 head to foot. 
 
 A wetting in the Cordillera is never agreeable, but in spite of its unpleasantness I 
 could not help laughing to see Nor Medina venting his ill-temper upon the mule, 
 calling it heartless and good for nothing — an infamous style of conversation to which a 
 mule is particularly sensitive, either because it indicates a certain amount of contempt 
 for the beast, or because the words are generally accompanied with blows. We 
 arrived on the other side, and having dried ourselves as well as we could, resumed our 
 march, leaving to our left San Juan and its lagune, from which flows a stream which is 
 tributary to the Huilcamayo. If it was Nor Medina's duty to follow me, as he said, 
 I must admit, to his credit, that he fulfilled it to the letter, but by preserving between 
 us a distance of thirty geometrical paces he gave me to understand that he was in the 
 sulks. A Peruvian arriero is very susceptible. The least thing offends him; he is shut 
 up by the merest trifle. His humour is a limpid lake, moved by the slightest zephyr. 
 The mere fact that I had passed from one side to the other of the Huilcamayo without 
 taking counsel of my guide had hurt his feelings, and turned him against me. Out 
 of consideration for my character, as a traveller paying his way, I abstained from 
 calling him to my side, and left him to trot along at his pleasure. We arrived at 
 Acopia without having exchanged a word. 
 
FOURTH STAGE. 
 
 ACOPIA TO CUZCO 
 
 (PERU). 
 
VILLAGE OF ACOPIA. 
 
 FOTJBTH STAGE. 
 
 ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 Dissertation ou the province of Quispicanchi, which the reader may pass by. — Acopia, its pretended ruins and its 
 tarts. — Compromising hospitality. — The widows Bibiana and Maria Salome. — A demonstration that if all men 
 are equal hi the sight of death, they are not so in the sight of fleas. — A dream of happiness. — The Quebrada 
 of Cuzco. — Andajes and its pistachio -puddings. — The Chingana (or cave) of Qquerohuasi. — A quarry worked in the 
 time of the empress Mama Ocllo Huaco. — A botanical discourse which all the world may comprehend. — The 
 traveller laments his spent youth aud lost illusions. — A muleteer may be at once a herbalist and a logician. — 
 Quiquijana and the great stones of its little river. — Something about Urcos, the chief village in the province of 
 Quispicanchi. — The Mohina lake and its lost chain of gold. — Zoology aud arboriculture. — Huaro, its steeple, its 
 weather-cock, and its famous organ. — Valleys and villages characterized, en passant, by a word. — The village of 
 Oropesa. — Why called Oropesa the Heroic. — The traveller has another squabble with his guide.— Sketch of San 
 Jerouimo. — San Sebastian, and its noble families. — The tree of adieux. — The convent of La Becoleta, its prior 
 and its monks. — The Corridor-du-Ciel and the Devil's Pulpit. — A monolithic chamber. — Three sorcerers of Goya in a 
 holy-water font. — By what road we arrived among the descendants of the Sun.— Silhouette of a capital. — Last 
 words of counsel from the lips of Wisdom in the person of a muleteer. — The author packs his trunks with 
 one hand, while writing his memoirs with the other. — Cuzco, ancient and modern. 
 
 The village of Acopia belongs to the province of Quespieanchi, or Quispicanchi, 
 according to the orthography adopted by modern statisticians and the editors of the 
 Calendario. The limits of the province are not well defined, the Peruvian govern- 
 ment not having yet found time to arrange for its survey. All that we can say, 
 geographically speaking, is, that it is inclosed by the provinces of Paucartampu, 
 Urubamba, Paruro, Cotabamba, Chumbihuilcas, and Canas y Canchis; that eastward, 
 beyond the oriental Cordillera, it comprises the valleys of Marcapata, Ayapata, 
 and Asaroma, and extends across regions still unexplored as far as the frontiers 
 of Bolivia and Brazil. 
 
 The civilized population, or the people so called, of that immense territory, 
 scarcely number 40,000 souls. As to the savage tribes who live on the shores of 
 
 vol I. 20 
 
154 
 
 PERU. 
 
 its rivers or upon the borders of its forests, they are by no means so numerous as 
 seems to be believed in Europe. Generally speaking, travellers who have treated of 
 American anthropology 1 have singularly exaggerated the number of these redskins. 
 For that exaggeration there are two causes: first, the amour-propre of the traveller, 
 who wishes to persuade the public that after having piled Pelion upon Ossa, he has 
 discovered the singing water and the talking bird, vainly sought for by those who 
 preceded him. Secondly, some allowance must be made for the incorrectness of 
 notes and documents supplied to the traveller by the inhabitants of the country, 
 who, when they are asked a question, blow themselves out like the frog in the fable 
 in order that a great opinion may be formed of them Vanitas vanitatum, omnia 
 vanitas. Let us return to Quispicanchi, which was once the name of a nation, but 
 is now only that of a province. 
 
 In the middle of the eleventh century, when Manco-Capac, chief of the dynasty 
 of the Sun, had founded Cuzco, and made it the capital of his empire, the first 
 crusade which he undertook to rally to the worship of Helios-Churi the aboriginal 
 tribes who were spread abroad in the Cordillera, was that of Collasuyu. 2 The Ques- 
 picanchis, the Mtiynas, the Urcos, the Quehuares, the Cavinas, and the Ayamarcas, 3 
 then occupied in that direction a territory of about 1500 square miles. These tribes 
 responded to the call of Manco, and ravished by the sweetness and unction of his 
 words — to believe his biographers, the Inca spoke with a mouth of gold like Chrysostom 
 — they listened to him with docility. Manco instructed them in a number of things 
 which we are sorry we cannot insert in our text to impart to it more of local colour. 
 After having convinced them that the worship of the sun was preferable to that of 
 adders, toads, and trunks of trees, which these Indians adored, he taught them how to 
 build huts, for the most of them were troglodytes, and, like the chinchillas of their 
 country, lived in burrows. When he judged they were sufficiently refined, and suffi- 
 ciently impressed with the advantages of civilization over barbarism, he settled them 
 in forty villages on the borders of Collasuyu, and made them his subjects and tributaries. 
 
 Manco-Capac, on whom Spanish historians have conferred two faces like Janus, 
 the one simply good, the other cunning, did not stop at this with regard to these 
 indigenes. As a mark of his esteem, and at the same time as a witness to future 
 ages that they were the first idolaters of the Sierra in whom the eyes of the- spirit 
 had been opened to the light of the sun, he conferred on them, by means of the quipos, 
 equivalent to our letters-patent, titles of nobility, with honours and dignities which they 
 
 1 D'Orbigny, in his work entitled LHomme Americain, has swelled the sum total of his figures to satisfy his own 
 taste, and has also grafted some alien branches on the Ando-Peruvian stock. Thus the inhabitants of the village of 
 Apolobamba, in the eastern valley of that name — Indians and Cholos of the Sierra for the most part — have become 
 under his hand the tribe of Apolistas; of the Cholos and half-breeds of Paucartauipu, he has made the tribe of Pau- 
 cartambinos ; of the Chuncos (a generic name of the savage in Peru), a distinct caste, &c. 
 
 2 From suyu, direction ; direction from Collao, or the territory of the Collas Indians. This is one of the four 
 primitive divisions of the empire, established by Manco-Capac, and corresponding to the four quarters of the heavens: 
 chincha-suyu (north), collasuyu (south), atiti-suyu (east), and cunti-suyu (west). 
 
 3 All these tribes, perfectly distinct before the establishment of the Incas, became mixed and confounded in their 
 time with the great Aymara-Quichua family. The villages of the Sierra, to which these autochthones have left their 
 name, are situated on the territory which they occupied in the tenth century, before the appearance of Manco-Capac. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 155 
 
 could transmit to their descendants. Some had the right to cut their hair square 
 across the forehead to distinguish them from the vulgar, others to let it float freely 
 in the wind; these elongated the lobe of their ears to the length of half a foot, those 
 pierced them for the purpose of suspending a bit of osier, a wooden rundle, the 
 tip of a reed, or a tuft or pompon of variously coloured wool. The favour was as highly 
 appreciated as it was appreciable, say the historians of the Conquest, parenthetically, 
 and the aborigines always showed themselves grateful for it. 
 
 The Spanish conquerors, in their own brutal way, compelled the Indians to 
 sacrifice' all these tokens of a nobility that had endured for five centuries. The 
 way in which they scoffed at the great Quichua dignitaries, whose ears hung clown 
 to their shoulders, prevented the descendants of the latter from continuing the custom. 
 Under the futile pretext that they could not approach them without feeling a dis- 
 agreeable itching, Pizarro and his officers compelled the curacas (governors of villages) 
 to cut off the luxuriant hair untouched by a comb which served to distinguish them 
 from their subordinates. With the abolition of the capillary privileges, old modes 
 and customs also died out. The regime of brute force reigned supreme. In place 
 of the padded collar worn by the Indians in the time of the Incas, Spain substituted 
 a heavy one of iron bristling with spikes. The populations, decimated by the sword, 
 exhausted by exactions and the labour of the mines, died out, or emigrated, abandoning 
 the stubble, the llama skins, and the three calcined stones which represented for them 
 the house, the bed, and the domestic hearth. At this day, what archaeologist, however 
 patient and minute he might be in his research, even if aided by spectacles and the 
 works of Garcilaso, Valera, Acosta, Cieca de Lc"on, Zarate, Torquemada, and other 
 chroniclers, could discover, on the imperial road of Collasuyu in a circuit of nine 
 miles, a vestige of the forty villages of which it boasted in the middle of the 
 sixteenth century? 
 
 The province of Quispicanchi, which of all its past splendour has nothing left 
 but the ruins of an aqueduct, is now divided into four districts, in which are contained 
 three towns and a score of villages. These villages are all alike. Their temperature 
 alone differs, according as they are situated in a quebrada (or gorge), like those of 
 Huaro, Andahuaylillas, and Oropesa; in a, puna, like those of Mosoc-Llacta and Poma- 
 canchi ; or at the foot of the snowy Andes, like those of Ocongate and Sangarara. 
 
 The village of Acopia, where we had now arrived, owes to its exceptional situa- 
 tion, at the base of a plateau and at the entrance of a quebrada, an exceptional 
 climate. It blows, it rains, and it thunders often enough; it hails and snows some- 
 times; but water there never passes from the liquid to the solid state. 
 
 On each side of the road leading into this dull village, which the natives call a 
 town, are the remains of a wall of sun-dried bricks, several feet in height, broken along 
 its summit, and of the agreeable colour of a bituminized mummy. This debris of an 
 inclosure, some twenty years old at most, has a false air of antiquity, by which an 
 enthusiastic and inexperienced traveller might easily be taken in. As I am neither a 
 novice nor an enthusiast, I was not deceived, but passed by the pretended ruins without 
 looking at them. My whole attention, in fact, was concentrated upon the piles of tarts 
 
PERU. 
 
 which two Indian women, who make this their trade, had displayed on wooden 
 benches at the entrance of the village, in a fashion to tempt the appetites of passers-by. 
 On dismounting by these stalls, the women looked at me simultaneously, with that 
 sweet commercial smile with which the seller usually greets the buyer, as the serpent 
 fascinates the bird; and I began to reason with myself thus: "This road is little 
 frequented, the pastry before me has been exposed for a month or two to the detri- 
 
 TART-SELLERS AT ACOPIA. 
 
 mental action of the atmosphere; the layer of dust which covers it, and the singular 
 hardness which time imparts to such things,' justify, in some degree, this supposition. 
 But, should a hungry stomach hesitate about such trifles?" Without condescending to 
 inquire, therefore, at what epoch the aforesaid tarts were manufactured, I immediately 
 bought half a dozen of them, at the price of a real apiece; and having wiped one of 
 them with my pocket-handkerchief, soon fastened my teeth in it. I swallowed two 
 mouthfuls without choking, but at the third stopped short. An indefinable mixture of 
 tastes and smells made me feel sick at heart. Mechanically I thrust my fingers in the 
 tart and drew forth, one after another, black olives, slices of onions, little bits of cheese, 
 and leaves of mint. All this was plastered together with burned sugar and hog's-lard. 
 The secret of my nausea was discovered. As Nor Medina had trotted on before me 
 into the village, I could not make him an offer of this pastry by way of regaining his 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 157 
 
 good graces, I therefore offered it to my mule, to the great disgust of the two women, 
 who looked at me with anything but a pleased expression. 
 
 This fine exploit accomplished, I remounted my beast and went in search of my 
 guide, whom I soon overtook. Then without a word passing between us, though we 
 were both occupied by the same thought — that of supper and bed — we went in quest of 
 some house where they would consent to take us in; Acopia having neither caravan- 
 serai, tampu, or hostelry to offer to unfortunate travellers. We wandered about for 
 some time among the cottages, examining them from top to bottom, without being able 
 to make a selection. For the most part they were singularly out of repair, and looked 
 as if they were overrun with vermin. Two or three of the number were recommended 
 to notice by having been newly thatched and whitewashed, but they were cruelly closed 
 against us. The situation was becoming critical, for the sun had already disappeared. 
 The horizon was enveloped in a violet-tinted gloom, while a slowly ascending fog 
 floated round the village, and presented its outlines in silhouette. Never had twilight 
 seemed to me so wretchedly disagreeable. 
 
 As we passed for the third time down a dirty little street, bordered on one side by 
 the fronts of the cottages and on the other by the wall of a sheep-pen, a rather worm- 
 eaten door was cautiously opened, and a woman, holding between her thumb and 
 her index-fmger a bit of candle, appeared as the personification of that hospitality 
 of which I was in search. "I will go no further," I said to myself, stopping my mule 
 before the beautiful unknown, who returned my salutation by a charming smile. 
 I was pleased with the woman's kind manner and scrupulous neatness. Her hair was 
 carefully dressed, and glossy with mutton-fat ; her lliclla of white wool edged with pink 
 ribbons veiled, without hiding, her bosom and her shoulders. Her petticoat was lost 
 in the shade, but the hand which held the bit of candle, and the arm belonging to it, 
 were well rounded and plump, bearing witness to robust health. 
 
 Flattered by the notice of which she was the object, on the part of a man with a 
 white skin — it is of myself I must be understood to speak, for my guide was of the 
 colour of a medlar — the beautiful unknown smiled again, and pursing up her mouth 
 said, in a falsetto voice: — - 
 
 "What are you looking for at this time of the clay, my good sir?" 
 
 "A roof to shelter my head, and something to appease my hunger," I replied, 
 in my natural voice. As the woman was on the point of assuring me I should find 
 them with her, and better than elsewhere, I looked at Nor Medina, who, since we 
 crossed the Huilcamayo, had not opened his lips. His expression was perfectly for- 
 bidding, and his gray bushy eyebrows appeared to be drawn closer together than 
 ordinary. I had scarcely realized my astonishment, when my attention was caught 
 by a whispering and laughing at the doors of the neighbouring houses, apparently 
 caused by my colloquy with the woman in the white lliclla. 
 
 Without stopping to think of anything sinister in these sounds, I dismounted, and 
 at the same instant a voice, whose clear ring revealed one of the fair sex, pronounced 
 distinctly these strange words: — 
 
 "Don't shear them too close, Templadora." 
 
158 
 
 PERU. 
 
 "Pack of pickpockets!" murmured the beautiful unknown, to whom probably this 
 recommendation was addressed. 
 
 "What does that mean?" I asked, looking first at my intended hostess, and then at 
 Nor Medina, whose two eyebrows were knitted into one. 
 
 "It means," replied the woman, "that I have bad neighbours, who wish to take 
 the bread out of my mouth, under the pretext that I do not belong to the country. 
 But come in, my good sir," she added immediately, with her benevolent smile. 
 
 "Do not enter, sir!" Nor Medina said, impressively; "and you," he added, looking 
 
 severely at the woman, "go to a hundred thousand devils; we are honest travellers, and 
 want nothing to do with such chuchumecas as you." 
 
 These words were hardly pronounced when, like a formula of exorcism which 
 breaks some dark enchantment, they re-established the situation in clear daylight. 
 The beautiful unknown let loose her tongue, blew out the candle, and shut the door in 
 our faces. It was some seconds before I recovered my self-possession. 
 
 "What!" I said at last to Nor Medina, "that woman with her hair so well dressed, 
 and such a pleasant smile, was . . ." 
 
 "Yes, sir," he replied, without giving me time to finish the sentence. "This was a 
 snare set by Satan." 
 
 "To what dangers is a traveller not exposed!" I murmured to myself; and while 
 thankful to God for the visible protection he had afforded me in these circumstances, 
 I remarked that night had fallen, and that a most depressing solitude reigned in 
 Acopia. My guide had recommenced the search, and I followed him, reflecting on the 
 probability that virtue would have to go supperless to bed, and that its bed would 
 perhaps be on the hard pavement of the street. An exclamation from Nor Medina 
 disturbed my reflections. He had discovered a chiclteria, through the half-open door 
 
 TEMPLADOR A — A H D A R M I P A N P AYR U N AC H N A OF ACOPIA. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 159 
 
 of which two fat, greasy-looking women might be seen squatted before a jar making 
 their chicha boil by means of bunches of straw, which one twisted and the other 
 put on the fire. The back-ground of the scene, and most of the accessories, were 
 hidden from view by the smoke. 
 
 "If you think good, we will pass the night here," said my guide. 
 
 The place had a suspicious look, but the night was getting colder and colder, and 
 hesitation would have been ridiculous. I therefore nodded my approbation, and 
 springing from my mule, bravely entered the cabaret. At the rattle of my clumsy 
 Chilian spurs a number of guinea-pigs, that had been attracted to the hearth by the 
 light and warmth of the fire, scattered on every side with squeaks of terror. The 
 chicheras, a little surprised by my sudden appearance, paused in their work for a 
 moment and inquired what had brought us there at such an hour. A few words was 
 sufficient to explain and settle with them the price of a supper and bed. For four 
 reals, which I paid in advance, they consented to give up to us a corner of their hovel, 
 and to prepare some kind of repast for us. Besides this, they pointed out to Nor 
 Medina an inclosure in the neighbourhood where our beasts would find, in default of 
 forage, companions of their own species. Then, judging by our wearied looks that we 
 were dying of starvation, the good women hastened to fill a pot with water, into which 
 they threw the various ingredients which compose a Peruvian chupe in the Cordillera. 
 To make it boil the quicker, I seated myself by the fire, which I fed with handfuls of 
 straw, handed to me by the two ladies in turn. The frankness of my manner won 
 their confidence, and in ten minutes I knew that they were widows ; the one named 
 Bibiana, the other Maria Salome^ that they had no property and no income whatever, 
 but gained their living by making chicha, which they sold to the inhabitants of Acopia, 
 and to the peons of the neighbouring estancias. For my part, not to remain in their 
 debt, I related the various incidents of my entrance into the village, from the episode 
 of the tarts to the compromising hospitality which had been offered to me by a woman 
 of the name of Templadora. 
 
 " Santissima Virgen!" exclaimed Bibiana, making the sign of the cross and kissing 
 her thumb, "you have spoken to that heathen, come from, we know not whence'?" 
 
 "My good woman," said I, "what could I do, being a stranger and knowing 
 no one? At first sight that woman seemed to me a Christian, and a good Catholic." 
 
 "So Catholic," added Maria Salomd, "that if I were governor, or only alcalde, she 
 should not be in Acopia another twenty-four hours; such creatures are the disgrace of 
 our sex." 
 
 I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. Evidently the poor woman flattered 
 herself. That sex of which she spoke was as difficult to decipher in her countenance 
 as a hieroglyphic cartouche of the time of Thothmosis. "After all," I said to myself, 
 "the form alters, but the nature remains; beauty fades, the back becomes rounded, 
 the limbs bowed, but the heart, like the gillyflower among ruins, continues to flourish 
 and bloom when all is dead around it. Who can say that this chichera, with the 
 figure of a hippopotamus, has not hidden, under the layer of fat which envelops 
 it, the heart of a young girl, full of illusions, of tenderness, and of love . . ." 
 
HiO 
 
 PERU. 
 
 While I mused thus, the broth boiled with fury. In an instant Bibiana, having 
 tasted it, announced that it was cooked to a nicety, and took the pot from the fire. 
 I seated myself on the ground, my guide sat down opposite me, and then with the 
 pottage between our knees, and with the wooden spoon which Bibiana had handed 
 to each of us, after wiping it with her petticoat, we scrimmaged our best. 
 
 Our supper being finished, I considered, out of regard for the convenances of 
 society, how to fabricate a screen, which dividing in two the common chamber, might 
 isolate us completely from our hostesses. Some rags of serge and old dish-clouts that 
 they brought me, not without laughing at my modesty, and which I hung upon a line, 
 served the purpose. When this was done, I and my guide prepared our beds 
 fraternally side by side, and, covered up to the eyes, awaited the moment when 
 Morpheus should scatter over us his poppies. Already a languid torpor had paralyzed 
 my spirit and my eyes were beginning to close, when two nimble and hairy bodies, 
 the contact of which made me shiver, ran across my face. I could feel that each body 
 had a tail. A cry of horror brought the widows to my side, and Nor Medina sprang 
 up in his bed. 
 
 "There are rats here," I cried. 
 
 " Impossible!" said Nor Medina. 
 
 "Monsieur has taken the guinea-pigs for rats," said one of the women. 
 "Has a guinea-pig got a tail?" I asked. 
 
 "Well, no;" said Nor Medina; "but even supposing they were rats," he added, 
 "the noise you made has so frightened them, that it is a hundred to one they will 
 not return to-night." 
 
 This seemed so reasonable that I lay down again. After a few minutes I felt as 
 if a thousand needles had been suddenly thrust into my flesh. As this attack was 
 made at the same moment on every part of my body, my two hands were of little 
 use in repelling it. Despairing of relief I rolled over on my couch with such cries of 
 rage, that Nor Medina awoke again. 
 
 "Monsieur does not sleep well," he said. 
 
 "Can I sleep by merely shutting my eyes?" I answered, "I am devoured by fleas." 
 
 Hearing this, the chicheras began to laugh. "Ah!" said one of them, "the 
 gentleman is surprised he should be troubled by fleas; but they treat all alike in 
 the Sierra, the rich as well as the poor. The fleas are like death, no one escapes 
 them." 
 
 In the frame of mind in which I then was, this aphorism appeared to me so stupid, 
 and at the same time it so exasperated me, that I could hardly help addressing some 
 rude apostrophe to the woman, who had really made the remark by way of consolation. 
 I did, however, restrain myself, and tried to sleep; but only succeeded in doing so 
 when the enemy, sufficiently gorged with the purest drops of my blood, ceased his 
 attacks. Then I turned over like a log and slept heavily. In the morning when I 
 looked into my pocket-mirror, I was startled by the image which presented itself. I 
 had become quite livid, my eyes were swollen, and my face more tatooed than that of 
 Chingacook the Mohican. In contrast with mine, the skin of Nor Medina was as 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 161 
 
 smooth as velvet, and presented no sign of a puncture. I inferred from this, in spite 
 of the woman's remark, that men, who are really equal in the presence of death, are 
 not so in the sight of fleas, since the infernal beasts, while they devoured me, had 
 thought it a duty to spare my guide. 
 
 The sun was above the horizon when we thought of recommencing our journey. 
 Nor Medina went to seek our mules, and began to saddle them. He was in the act 
 
 A NIGHT OF TORTURE. 
 
 of equipping mine, when the end of a strap which fastened the girth became unsewn. 
 While he borrowed a needle and thread to repair it, I took a turn through the village. 
 My evil star, or rather my ignorance of the locality, led me into the street where my 
 interview with Templadora had occurred the evening before. I understood well 
 enough the smiling and whispering which took place when some of the women, standing 
 about the doors of their houses, recognized me again : but, strong in my innocence, I 
 walked haughtily by without deigning to notice them. In this mood I found I had 
 passed unconsciously beyond the houses of Acopia into the country, if one may so call 
 the stretch of hilly soil, strewn with stones and bristling here and there with stunted 
 sin ubs, over which I was walking. Two lakes, which I saw at a distance, seduced me 
 still further. The surface of both was on a level with the ground. No tuft of herbage, 
 poor as it was in the locality, flourished on their banks. No feathered fowl gambolled 
 
 vol. i. 21 
 
162 
 
 PERU. 
 
 on their surface; in fine, their motionless waters seemed as if covered with a thin skin. 
 I turned my back upon them and retraced my steps. My guide had finished his task, 
 and was beginning to feel surprised by my long absence. We took leave of Bibiana 
 and Maria Salome, whose roars of laughter during the night had very much lowered 
 them in my esteem, and were soon far away from their disgusting abode. 
 
 The day commenced under the brightest auspices; the sky was serene, the sun 
 shone brilliantly, and the temperature of the air was sufficiently pleasant. Although, as 
 yet, we knew not where we should get a dinner, we were not at all alarmed on that 
 account. The double aspect of earth and sky sufficed for the moment to stay our 
 stomachs, and their serenity, reacting upon our humour, coloured it with sparkling 
 reflections and rainbow hues of light. 
 
 Under the influence of this expansion of our moral nature, we chattered — my guide 
 and I — like old friends. He talked trade to me, I talked botany to him. From 
 Mercury to Flora the distance is not very great, and in spite of some little incoherence, 
 we understood each other perfectly well. We thus got over two leagues almost without 
 knowing it, such a charm had this broken conversation. Then, however, we began to 
 feel a little tired, and after a few demonstrative yawns we both ceased talking, and 
 continued our way communing with our own thoughts. 
 
 The gaiety of mine was tempered by the reflection that I should never again 
 revisit the scenes through which we were passing. We were approaching the Quebrada 
 of Cuzco, and I recalled the happy, and already far-off time, when I had passed 
 through it for the first time in the midst of a merry company. My companions were 
 muleteers who travelled by short stages. We had met about 200 miles from Acopia 
 between Putina and Betanzos, and, mutually pleased with each other, had kept 
 together. A few bottles of tafia, with which I paid my footing, had won the hearts of 
 my new friends. During the seventeen days that our journey lasted, they habitually 
 called me patron; an honorary title which flattered my vanity, and was worth a second 
 pourboire to them when we parted. Singing, laughing, and swearing, Ave followed the 
 direction of the chain of Crucero, white with hoar-frost from the top to the base during 
 the whole year. What wicked jests, what repartee we exchanged during those 
 seventeen days' march! what long nights passed side by side in the midst of the snows 
 of the Sierra ! It was our custom to halt at sunset, when we made a fire of dry crottin, 
 placed our camp-kettle over it, and prepared a supper of bean-soup or potatoes cooked 
 with soft cheese. When the hour of rest arrived, my companions would pack up 
 their luggage so as to form with it the three Avails of a hut ; three sticks, placed across, 
 supported the roof, and under this convenient, though confined shelter, for it only 
 covered my head and chest, I crept on all fours. In the twinkling of an eye I Avas 
 asleep. 
 
 While I slept, on one of these occasions, the fall of the barometer indicated a 
 storm; the wind roared, the thunder rolled, the lightnings flashed; heaven, as Ave read 
 in Scripture, opened its cataracts. I dreamed of idyllic scenes, of green fields, and 
 pleasant streams. On awaking in the morning, I found my legs buried under a foot of 
 snow, a spotless eider-down as warm as that from the birds' breast. This pleasant life 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 165 
 
 came to an end. We reached Tungasuca, and took the road to Cuzco, through the 
 Quebrada of that name. There unexpected pleasures awaited me. It was the end of 
 December; summer had commenced in the Cordillera. On all sides the beautiful 
 Liliaceae opened their painted blossoms. Youth is vain and presumptuous ; I thought at 
 the time that the Flora of the Entre-Sierra had coquettishly displayed her sweetest 
 treasures to captivate my fancy : at every step a vegetable marvel drew from me a cry 
 
 A BED-CHAMBER IN THE CORDILLERA. 
 
 of enthusiasm; the muleteers, not comprehending my phytological ecstasy, at first 
 thought me a little cracked, but I explained the matter to them ; and as my passion 
 for the flowers of their country flattered their national amour-jpropre, one emulated 
 another in collecting them for me, and bringing them in armfuls. Between Andajes and 
 Urcos I thus accumulated some beautiful specimens. I found all the known species, 
 and added a few new ones to the catalogue of the learned. This magnificent herbal, 
 which should have insured my immortality, was eaten by one of our mules between 
 Huaro and Oropesa. I nearly went out of my mind ; but consoled myself with the reflec- 
 tion, that as nature, symbolized by the phoenix, springs rejuvenescent from her ashes, the 
 plants I had lost would grow again the next year. Then eight years passed away. Every 
 year when spring gave place to summer, wherever I might find myself, a sudden restless- 
 ness, a desire for change, possessed me. I wished that I were a bird, that I might take 
 
1GG 
 
 PERU. 
 
 wing - and alight in the midst of these cerros, to collect again my harvest of fragrance. 
 The thing was always impossible. 
 
 Some of my readers, puzzled by this prelude, may perhaps conceive the idea of 
 unrolling the map of America, or of searching in the reports of official travellers, to 
 seek for some information about this Qucbrada of Cuzco. Let me hasten to inform 
 
 ALSTR03MERIAS OP THE QUEBRADA OP CUZCO. 
 
 them that maps and reports are alike silent upon the subject — a regretable omission 
 which it is easy, however, to repair. 
 
 The Quebrada of Cuzco, commonly called by the Indians the Atunquebracla (the 
 Grand Quebrada), is a winding gorge formed by the approximation of a double chain 
 of cerros which take their rise between Acopia and Andajes, trending from south- 
 south-east to north-north-west, over an area of about forty-five miles in length, by 
 a breadth varying from 50 to 500 yards. Broken here and there by a village, a 
 lake, or a curve of the river, this gorge recommences further on, so that it resembles 
 the divided parts of a serpent's body that are said to^ rejoin each other. In the 
 neighbourhood of Oropesa it suddenly expands in breadth, and its two parallel chains, 
 after having described a gentle curve in the north-west and south-east, approach 
 again some twelve miles further on, thus forming a circular rampart in the plain, at 
 the bottom of which is seated the city of Cuzco. Such is pretty nearly the orographic 
 
A PART OF THE QUEBRADA OF CUZCO. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 169 
 
 tracing of this gorge, which, during its long course, often varies its aspect and very 
 frequently changes its name. 
 
 Added to its remarkable configuration, the Quebrada of Cuzco enjoys a temperature 
 relatively mild, since in the summer it rises as high as from 64° to 68° Fahrenheit. At 
 this period the melting of the snows in the Cordillera gives rise to small rivers which run 
 through the gorge, watering and fertilizing it for a month or two. All these streams 
 flow noiselessly into the Huilcamayo, a thousand trickling rivulets furrow the flanks 
 of the cerros, reanimating a thousand charming species of vegetation, while the larva? 
 and chrysalises which have slept for a year in their obscure cocoons are transformed, 
 
 VILLAGE OF ANDAJES IN THE QUEBRADA OF CUZCO. 
 
 by the heat and humidity combined, into beautiful insects and butterflies radiant 
 with colour. The freshness of the soil and the porousness of the rock give to the 
 grasses, mosses, and lichens which cover them a moist and velvety lustre. All nature 
 is rejuvenescent during this delicious season. Sparrows, blackbirds, turtle-doves 
 profit by it to contract their transitory nuptials ; they pursue each other on the wing, 
 entice each other with eye and beak, declare their affection by means of chirrupings, 
 whistlings, and cooings, and end by building their nests in the branches. 
 
 The reader may comprehend from this sketch in chalks of the Quebrada of Cuzco 
 that its memory was dear to me. I had hurried forward, in fact, to behold again 
 one by one the places where I had so often halted with the muleteers of Azangaro — 
 here to climb the flank of a hill and collect a charming flower; there to kindle a 
 fire of dried sticks and prepare the potatoes for our repast; further on, to pitch our 
 camp, unsaddle the mules, and set up my tent. I say tent merely for the sound 
 of the thing, to round up my sentence — this tent, as the reader knows, being nothing 
 more than a pile of packages. 
 
 To return : more than an hour had passed since our entrance into the Quebrada, 
 and not only had I failed to discover any of the remembered sites, but I had sought 
 in vain for certain plants with which I was familiar, and which I knew should have 
 grown in such and such places. Already we were approaching the village of Andajcs, 
 
 VOL. I. 22 
 
170 
 
 PERU. 
 
 and a few blackened shrubs with straggling branches, and destitute of foliage, withered 
 grasses, yellow mosses, and the soil cracked by drought, were all the details I could recall. 
 Naturally I thought that after eight years' absence my memory had served me badly, 
 and that we had not yet reached the fertile part of the Quebrada. I contented myself 
 
 THE CHINGANA OR CAVE OF QQUEROHUASI. 
 
 with this idea till we reached Andajes, where we pulled up to buy some coarse bread 
 and morcillas — local puddings made of a mixture of lard and sheep's blood, with 
 underground-nuts, 1 pimento, balsam, and cinnamon. 
 
 Andajes is a village of forty hearths, which recommends itself to the attention 
 of statisticians by its school, open to young men, and its pulperia — a liquor, candle, 
 and grocery store — where we bought our provisions. Andajes has, besides, its legend 
 
 1 Pistachcs-de-terre, called mani by the inhabitants ; the Arachis hypogcea of botanists ; called also the earth-pea 
 and underground-nut. They are in pods, which, as they enlarge, bury themselves under the surface of the soil. — Tr. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 171 
 
 and its dungeon, like one of Mrs. Radcliffe's castles. In front of the village, on 
 the right bank of the Huilcamayo, and on the flank of the cerro Qquerohuasi, there 
 is a chingana, a deep and winding conduit, where the inhabitants of the country 
 believe that at the period of the Conquest the Indians concealed immense treasures 
 to preserve them from the Spaniards. Allured by this tradition, many have searched 
 for these treasures, without succeeding in discovering them. The last of the adventurers 
 — a colonist from Cadiz, named Vidagura — penetrated to the end of the chingana, 
 which, it is said, was very narrow. While he was busy examining the walls of the 
 conduit, an enormous stone fell from the roof and closed the opening, so that the 
 poor fellow was caught as in a trap. 
 
 QOAEEY OP THE PERIOD OP THE INCAS. 
 
 About three-quarters of a mile north-north- west of Andajes, on the left bank 
 of the Huilcamayo, and in the neighbourhood of the little lagune of Santa Lucia, 
 the Quebrada of Cuzco slopes away suddenly, and exposes to view in the midst of 
 the cerros a pile of enormous stones perfectly rectangular and worked to remarkably 
 perfect edges. The mountain is riddled with the square excavations from which these 
 blocks have been taken; in the prodigious mass of which an imaginative traveller 
 might easily picture to himself the stones of some unknown Nineveh, or the ruins of 
 a Memphis of which no one had ever dreamed. Massive portals, enormous propylrca, 
 lofty columns, gaping mouths of caverns, black orifices of underground passages, nothing 
 is wanting to convert it into a city of the good old time like that of Ollanta-Tampu. 
 It is only necessary that an archaeological memoir should be rashly addressed by 
 some traveller to the third class of the French Institute. Let us, however, hasten 
 to prevent any mistake, by explaining that our supposed city is nothing but a quarry 
 of the time of the GentHidad, and our ruins nothing more than the stones in the 
 extraction of which from the cerros the revolted people had been condemned to 
 
172 
 
 PERU. 
 
 work by the Incas, as were the Athenian captives of old at the Latomia) of 
 Syracuse. 
 
 The ancient quarry was soon left behind us. While trotting along and taking 
 a bite now at my loaf and now at my pistachio -pudding, I examined attentively the 
 landscape, questioning every spot of ground, every stone, every shrub in the march 
 past, if they were not those I had known in the old days. As this research kept 
 me continually raising, lowering, or turning my head, Nor Medina, surprised by my 
 manner, asked if I had lost anything. 
 
 " I have lost all trace of my recollections," I replied. From the peculiar way 
 in which the man looked at me, I concluded that if he had heard, he had not under- 
 stood what I had said. To render it more intelligible, I added, " I am looking for 
 some plants which I cannot find." 
 
 " Vaya pues!" said he, laughing heartily. "Why, there are plants enough, if 
 monsieur will take the trouble to look at them." Then he pointed to clumps of 
 shrivelled leaves, yellow peduncles, and withered stalks, which pretended to grow 
 at the side of the road and on the slopes. "That," said he, "is the huaranhuay, 
 the roots of which serve the Indians of the heights for firing; that is the puquincha, 
 with the flowers of which the women dye their llicllas and their petticoats yellow. 
 Here is the parsehuayta, from which they obtain a violet colour; and there the ayrampu, 
 which gives them a pink. That plant at the foot of the rock is a marfil, which cures 
 fever; and that other further on is the pilli, which is good for a cough. Here is the 
 amancaes, which the Spaniards call the "Lily of the Incas;" 1 and the queratica, called 
 by them the "Saliva of Our Lady." See here, too, the calahaala, the hualhua, and 
 the huanchaca, to say nothing of the chichipa, good for flavouring soups and broths, 
 and the sacharapacay, which is a capital medicine for bile." 
 
 I dismounted to examine more closely the vegetable mummies which my guide 
 called plants. In a few minutes I was able to recognize the family, the genera, and 
 the species to which each of them had belonged; I say had, because these shapeless 
 blossoms and discoloured petals no more resembled the brilliant flowers which I had 
 admired than a corpse eaten by worms resembles the woman who has taken one's 
 heart suddenly captive. 
 
 The sight of this vegetable charnel-house, where so many delicate, charming, per- 
 fumed beauties had rotted pell-mell, had sobered my usually buoyant humour. Gloomy 
 visions passed and repassed before my mind's eye. After a moment's silence my 
 guide remarked in a loud tone, that I seemed sad; "What is monsieur dreaming of?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " I am dreaming," I replied, " of the brevity of existence and the nothingness of 
 all things. Eight years ago, come St. Sylvester, I passed this spot for the first time. 
 I was young, ardent, and enthusiastic; all nature seemed to smile upon me. The 
 streams ran, the birds sang, the flowers bloomed as if to salute me on my journey. 
 
 1 The botanists who have succeeded to Ruiz aud Pavon, and the horticulturists who have simply followed their 
 example, have given the name of "Lily of the Incas" to several varieties of Alstrcenieria, originally from Peru 
 aud Chili. They are wrong, however. The only Liliaceae which the Peruvians call "Lily of the Incas," is, as we have 
 before explaiued, the Narcissus amancaes. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 173 
 
 Now in these same scenes she regards me with sullen looks. The streams have dwindled 
 to a drop of water, the birds have taken flight, and the flowers with all their beautiful 
 tints look like tinder. . . . 0 gioventu, primavera delta vita!" 
 
 These philosophical reflections were such as one should politely hear and leave 
 unanswered; but Nor Medina thought proper to reply — ■ 
 
 " From all that monsieur has said, I only understand one thing : that he was 
 journeying here in the summer time, when it is not surprising there should have 
 been water, and birds, and flowers; while now that we are passing here in July, 
 
 QUIQUIJANA, THE "MOST FAITHFUL" CITT. 
 
 that is to say in winter, it ought not to astonish him that there is nothing of the 
 kind." 
 
 I looked at my guide out of the corner of my eye. " After all," I said to myself, 
 "this devil of a man has sense enough, and even exactness of observation: only, 
 where are the reason and exactitude lodged?" From that hour Nor Medina grew 
 considerably in my esteem. I did not, however, let him perceive that I set more 
 value upon him, as this would have given him a too advantageous idea of himself, 
 and by-and-by perhaps had caused him to sin by encouraging pride. 
 
 Sufficiently refreshed by the lunch we ate on the way, we passed through without 
 stopping at the town of Quiquijana, called in the Peruvian charts the "Most Faithful." 
 This Hispano- American fashion of honouring cities by prefixing some sounding epithet 
 
174 
 
 PERU. 
 
 to their names would not be in such bad taste were it not abused. If a village, 
 for example, shows so much sympathy for some candidate to the presidency as to 
 aid his pretensions by the secret gift of a thousand piastres, the place is sure to 
 be recompensed with some such title as the Faithful, the Heroic, or the Well-deserving. 
 The political existence of the successful candidate may be as short-lived as the roses; 
 the village he has ennobled keeps the crown of the causeway nevertheless. This 
 is the evil side of the custom. When in matters of caprice, of fashion, or of transient 
 prepossession, the cause ceases, the effect ought to cease also — ask the fair sex of 
 Peru if it be not so — and be it remembered, the nomination of a president never 
 was anything but an affair of fashion. 
 
 Quiquijana, the "Most Faithful," is nothing but a jumble of houses, a little 
 pretentious, a little the effect of accident. The roofs of five or six of them have 
 bright red tiles; the others are modestly thatched. The landscape in which these 
 houses are framed is picturesque enough, with its round-backed mountains and its 
 fine contrasts of shade and light. Here and there are cultivated patches, orchards 
 surrounded with walls higher than the apples, cherries, and quinces — the only fruit- 
 trees found in the country — which enliven while they complete the physiognomy of 
 the picture. The Huilcamayo 1 flows through the town and divides it into two parts, 
 which are connected by a stone bridge built only a few years ago. 
 
 A detail which I had not noticed before, but with which I was struck on passing 
 through Quiquijana on this occasion, is the breadth of the river-bed. Just now 
 it was dry, and was more plentifully strewn with stones than the sky with stars. Of 
 the proud river itself, so irrepressibly boisterous in the summer, there remained only 
 a rippling stream, which ran noiselessly under the central arch of the bridge, laving 
 with its crystalline water the pebbles of black porphyry. I pulled up to examine 
 the matter more leisurely; the impression it made, and which returns at this moment, 
 was one of astonishment bordering on incredulity. I asked myself how so small a 
 river could swell into so vast a space and roll in its course such stones as I there saw. 
 The ways of God are inscrutable! 
 
 The country situated to the north of Quiquijana is fertile and well cultivated. 
 Lucerne, or Spanish trefoil, grows in the low bottoms; maize and wheat flourish on 
 the slopes; potatoes occupy the plateaux; barley and the Chenopodium Quinoa grow in 
 higher regions still. The whole landscape as far as Urccrs, twelve miles distant, has 
 the creditable and patriarchal look of a well-to-do farmer; there is nothing angular 
 or violent in its contours, nothing sharp or decided in its blending shades. It is dull, 
 calm, and satisfactory. 
 
 The road we were following is marked by soft undulations, stretches of sand 
 alternating with pretty bits of fresh -looking sward and clumps of grasses which, in 
 
 1 After leaving Quiquijana the Huilcamayo takes the name of the Rio de Quiquijana, which it retains as fat- 
 as Urcos, where it assumes the name of that village. The last French traveller who passed through this country before 
 the author's visit, made a mistake in calling this portion of the river the Urubaniba, even at a distance of eighty miles 
 from that town. It is awkward enough that the rivers of Peru should assume the names of the towns by which they 
 flow, without receiving them so long in advance. But, in fact, before taking the name of the river of Urubamba. 
 the Huilcamayo, after leaving Quiquijana, bears in succession six different names. 
 
AC0P1A TO CUZCO. 
 
 175 
 
 the eyes of the ants, may be virgin forests. The temperature, becoming milder as 
 we advance, seems to invite the traveller to dismount, throw aside hat, coat, and shoes, 
 and walk barefoot, smoking a cigar, on the tender grass of the roadside. Agreeably 
 occupied by all that surrounds him he is insensible to fatigue, and forgets the length 
 of the road he is traversing. Before he is aware of it, he finds himself at Urcos. 
 
 Urcos is the chief place in the province of Quispicanchi. It is a large village, built 
 on an eminence, the houses of which leave much to be desired both in regard to their 
 architectural appearance and their cleanliness. It is nevertheless distinguished for 
 two remarkable possessions — its lagune and its valley. Its lagune, called the Mohina, 
 spreads its waters at the bottom of the eminence on which the village is situated. 
 
 The communication between it and the village is by a zigzag path traced out rather 
 than excavated in the wall of the rock, — which on this side is perpendicular, and about 
 900 feet high. 
 
 The Mohina, half surrounded by high mountains, is about three miles in circuit. 
 Its water is at once brackish and bitter. Its depth varies from 90 to 130 feet. 
 Rushes, reeds, and here and there a few stunted shrubs, impart a look of verdure 
 to its borders. A few water-fowl, consisting of red-teal, grebes, and kuananas — large 
 ducks with brown plumage — disport themselves on its surface. In the daytime, when 
 the sky is serene, and the sleeping lagune wears a golden sheen in the sun's light, the 
 effect is ravishing. At night, when all is calm, and the silver light of the moon is 
 broken by dark shadows cast from the neighbouring mountains, it is more ravishing- 
 still. 
 
 There is a tradition, which the European traveller to whom it is recited never fails 
 to interpolate in his narrative, that this lake contains the chain of gold which the 
 twelfth Inca, Huayna Capac, caused to be made when the hair of his eldest son Inti- 
 
176 
 
 PERU. 
 
 Cusi Huallpa {alias Huascar) was first cut. This specimen of gold smith's work, which 
 one might suppose to be a simple neck-chain, was, on the contrary, of the size of a 
 ship's cable, and 800 yards long. It served to encircle the great square of Cuzco 
 during the fetes of the equinox, Itaymi and Cittua. On the arrival of the Spaniards, 
 the Indians, it is reported, threw their colossal bit of jewelry into the lake to save it 
 from the cupidity of the conquerors. They, however, heard of this artifice, and sent a 
 detachment of pioneers to recover the treasure by emp tying the lake. Canals were 
 dug below the level of its bed. Forty Spaniards and two hundred Indians laboured at 
 the work for three months. But whether it was that the lake was inexhaustible, or 
 that the story of the chain was fabulous, the conquerors had only their labour for 
 their pains. The traces which still remain of their canals have suggested to certain 
 savans of the country, anxious to show their sagacity, that the Mohina was an artificial 
 lake made by the Incas, and that its waters had been brought from a distance. 1 
 
 The so-called valley of Urcos is a space of about 8000 square yards, surrounded 
 with mountains, and rendered comparatively fertile by the mildness of the temperature 
 and the neighbourhood of the river. Besides vegetable crops {legumes), they harvest 
 maize and wheat. Apples, pears, and strawberries ripen, but do not become sweet, 
 nor acquire any relish or smell. The people of the country, who are vegetarians and 
 not hard to please, cheerfully accommodate themselves to the circumstances, but 
 Europeans and inhabitants of the south cannot help making an ugly grimace when they 
 bite these fruits. 
 
 To the taxidermist, the valley of Urcos has nothing to offer in the shape of birds, 
 except the carrion -vulture {Sarcoramphus urubu), a subject little interesting, and 
 unsavoury besides; a Conirostre, with black and white plumage, called by the Indians 
 choclopococho, 2 which only makes its appearance when the wheat is ripe, and disappears 
 when the harvest is gathered in; a species of tarin (the Citrine Ha) ; a crested sparrow; 
 three varieties of turtle-doves ; a blackbird with orange-coloured feet {chihuanco) ; and 
 the swallow with a white rump that we have seen flying in the neighbourhood of 
 Arequipa. 
 
 To the entomologist who is strong enough to lift or displace the great stones which 
 are scattered over the country, the environs of Urcos offer a few millepedes (a species 
 of centipede, of which the Julus is the type); some crustacean isopods (woodlice); some 
 Mygales (mining-spiders) ; a few beetles of the Carabidm and Cicindelidce families 
 (sparklers); to say nothing of those hexapodal Apteree of the parasitic and sucking- 
 genera which, under the name of fleas, &c, lay their eggs indifferently in the thatch 
 of the houses and the bodies of the indigenes. 
 
 If from the earth and the air we pass to the liquid element, as fine writers say, we 
 shall not find in the waters of the Huilcamayo-Quiquijana more than two fishes, of 
 the family of the Siluridce, the bagre and the suchi, whose length does not exceed 
 
 1 Such an explanation might have been admissible in a part of Peru where water was wanting to irrigate the lands. 
 But the Huilcamayo flowed below the village of Urcos in the time of the Incas as in our days, and the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of that river rendered useless the creation of an ai-tificial lake. 
 
 2 Literally, the precursor of the maize, or who announces the maturity of the maize: from sara-choclo (spike of maize), 
 and poco-chanqui (one who announces). 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 177 
 
 six inches. Sometimes an otter, with a skin as black as jet, timidly shows his nose 
 between the rocks on either side of the river, but so rarely that the inhabitants of the 
 country, partly on that account and partly from their mania for ennobling everything, 
 have surnamed the animal the river-lion {mayu-puma). The flesh of this lion, according 
 to tradition, is as delicate as that of the fishes on which it feeds. I say tradition, 
 because out of more than a hundred individuals whom I have questioned about the 
 mayu-puma, not one had tasted its flesh, but had heard his father speak of it, who 
 probably got the information from his grandfather. 
 
 From the village of Urcos we descended towards that of Huaro by a gentle slope. 
 The road is broad and conveniently smooth. On the right and left extend cultivated 
 fields, interrupted now and then by great barren spaces. Cerros of a reddish hue, with 
 bare summits and a clothing of verdure at their base, form the framework of this 
 picture, which the people of the country qualify as vistoso — beautiful to behold. 
 
 Huaro is situated a little more than a mile (two kilos.) from Urcos, and on the 
 left of the road. It is a fair-sized but dull village, far from well built. The moun- 
 tains, very lofty here, and disposed in a semicircle, throw a grayish shadow over the 
 locality, so that its gardens and orchards have the soft and undecided hues of an 
 aqua-tint drawing, and consequently look rather strange. Besides this voluptuous 
 half-light, which is peculiar to it, Huaro possesses a square plaza, a few houses built 
 of stone, and many more mud ranchos. Its church, comparatively a large one, is 
 remarkable for the weather-cock on one of its towers. Its material is a yellow copper; 
 its spindle is triumphantly planted on a ball, which sparkles brilliantly in the sun, 
 thanks to the weekly furbishing to which it is subjected by the bell-ringer. The organ 
 of Huaro is renowned for its power and the number of its stops. It is even asserted 
 by amateurs of the country, that it excels the organ of Yauri in the province of Canas. 1 
 I can give no opinion on the subject myself, not having heard either of them. They 
 are rarely played, as there are but few organists in the country. 
 
 Huaro possesses two manufactories of bayetas and bayetons, coarse cloths, similar 
 to the woollen stuff which French manufacturers technically call tibaude. Nothing 
 more poverty-stricken can be imagined than the sheds where these tissues are made 
 by work-people of both sexes; nor anything more primitive than their looms. The 
 first consist of four ruinous-looking walls and a roof of thatch, where the industrious 
 Arachne sets an example to artizans by weaving her nets to catch flies; the second are 
 nothing more than crossed sticks tied together by simple threads. 
 
 The province of Quispicanchi, where learning is somewhat honoured, contains no 
 fewer than seven schools; among which that of Huaro is the most celebrated. One 
 might even with some reason call it the university of Quispicanchi, because it is the 
 only school in that province where the scholars are taught, in addition to the fables of 
 Yriarte and the Spanish grammar, to decline the substantives homo, mulier, and cornu, 
 in the rudiments. 
 
 Beyond Huaro, the Quebrada of Cuzco becomes broader and broader. We 
 
 1 It is to the Jesuits that the greater number of the cities of Peru, anr] some villages in the Sierra, are indebted for 
 the remarkable organs we find in their churches. 
 
 vol. i. 23 
 
178 
 
 PERU. 
 
 travelled over a road, or rather a smooth and broad footpath, which Nature, the only 
 road-maker in Peru, had kept in her best possible order, notwithstanding the frequency 
 of the heavy rains and the displacements of earth which they occasioned. About nine 
 miles of road separate Huaro from Andahuaylillas, a village which has nothing re- 
 markable to show in the summer, except the pools of water and the marshes left by 
 the rains of winter. This village, where the sub-prefect of Quispicanchi has his 
 residence, instead of living, as he ought to do, at Urcos, the chief place of his province, 
 is called a city in the official calendars. To those who feel astonished at the substitution 
 of such a title, we must explain that it would be derogatory to the dignity of a sub- 
 prefect to live in a village. From consideration for the rank of this functionary, 
 therefore, the statisticians of the country have raised to the rank of a city the village in 
 which he has chosen to reside, not from any love of the picturesque, but to look after a 
 farm which he possesses there. 
 
 Andahuaylillas, situated at the base of the cerros on ground gently sloping to the 
 south-east, enjoys at all times a sufficiently agreeable temperature. Maize, wheat, 
 and green crops grow very well, and fruit-trees make a great show of flowers. As 
 to the quality of their fruit, it is like that of all the orchards between Quiquijana 
 and Cuzco ; that is to say, the best of it is worthless. In vain the arborists of 
 the country, enraged to see their produce so depreciated by strangers, prune, and 
 dig, and remove the insects from the trees, with the view of obtaining better results. 
 The Sun-god, to punish these indigenes for their apostasy, refuses to sweeten their 
 apples and pears, and scarcely consents to give them a touch of colour. Such is, at 
 least we believe so, the only way of accounting for the acidity of the fruits in the 
 Quebrada of Cuzco. 
 
 The same statisticians who, out of consideration for a sub-prefect, have given the 
 name of a city to the village of Andahuaylillas, have given the name of a valley to 
 the arable lands which surround it. That valley, to preserve its fine-sounding title, 
 changes its name three miles further on; and instead of the valley of Andahuaylillas, 
 which it was, becomes the valley of Lucre. The traveller who, on the faith of a 
 Peruvian calendar, should look for a valley among these patches of clover and corn, 
 would be surprised to find nothing even approaching that character. The place is 
 simply a farm-stead, around which are grouped, in beautiful disorder, pens for cattle 
 and hovels for peasants. Here they grow with success maize, wheat, and green crops ; 
 and here they weave their bayeta and their bayeton, to the great disgust of Huaro, with 
 whose industry, in so near a neighbourhood, it interferes a little. We regret very 
 much that we have nothing more, and especially that we have nothing better, to say of 
 the place. 
 
 To the valley of Lucre, which is adorned, without being improved in a sanitary 
 sense, by a muddy little lake, succeeds on the right of the great road the village of 
 Oropesa. Oropesa, dear to Ceres, is renowned sixty miles round for its cornfields, and 
 its little loaves made with lard, with which, from time immemorial, it has every morning 
 supplied the market of Cuzco. It is the Odessa of the Quebrada. The wheat of 
 Oropesa is at once of superior quality and of a good yield. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 179 
 
 Besides its reputation for wheat, Oropesa enjoys a title of honour. It figures in 
 the Peruvian maps as "the Heroic." This title was given to it after an engagement 
 which took place on the neighbouring heights some five-and-twenty years ago. Muse 
 of the epopee, divine Clio, aid me to relate this feat of arms! — Two generals of the 
 country contended for the presidential chair, each supported by a battalion of from 
 five to six hundred men. The opposing forces, after having been in search of each 
 other for a month, met one morning, ensign, colours, and music at their head, on the 
 heights of Oropesa. The shock was terrible and the struggle fearful. "Flesh of wolf, 
 
 OROPESA, "THE HEROIC TOWN." 
 
 tooth of dog," says Father Mathieu. Not only did the soldiers of the two camps tear 
 each other with rage, but the rabonas, savage mvandieres, whom every foot -soldier 
 has to follow him in the character of sweetheart, cook, and beast of burden, clawed 
 at each other's hair, biting and scratching until their petticoats were reduced to a 
 bundle of rags. In the heat of the engagement, and while the victory was in suspense, 
 each of the pretenders, seized with a sudden panic, judging the battle to be lost and 
 his cause hopeless, turned bridle and fled from the field, the one north, the other south, 
 without any other escort than a faithful aide-de-camp with a remount. 
 
 While these warriors devoured space in their headlong flight, victory declared for 
 one of the two armies, whose chief was instantly pursued by some of his officers to 
 announce that he had gained the battle. The conqueror refused to believe the tidings, 
 fearing to be taken in some snare; at length, however, he was sufficiently convinced to 
 turn back, and seeing no signs of his competitor on the field, but the soldiers of the 
 two armies peaceably playing at dice together, he yielded to the evidence of his senses. 
 To perpetuate the memory of this feat of arms, the village of Oropesa received the title 
 of the "Heroic Town," which it continues to bear at the present time. If I do not 
 write in so many letters the names of the pretenders, as I have a perfect right to do, 
 
180 
 
 PERU. 
 
 since they belong to history and are in every Peruvian's mouth, it is because these 
 pretenders have sufficiently expiated, in the obscurity of their present position, the 
 pride of their ancient triumphs. They have both, like Cincinnatus, returned to the 
 plough, — both cultivate, in a humble way, a few potatoes and beans. Let us respect 
 their humility and their incognito. 
 
 When the traveller has seen at Oropesa its cornfields, its stunted misshapen 
 trees, and its tiled and thatched houses; when he has looked up, on the right of the 
 village, a ruin of fine pink-coloured sandstone, which dates from the time of the first 
 
 A SOLDIER OF THE SIERRA AND HIS RARONA OK VIVANDIERE. 
 
 Incas — a ruin which modern savants are obstinately bent on taking for the gate of an 
 edifice, but which is nothing more than the arch of an aqueduct, — he may continue his 
 journey. Oropesa is the frontier line which separates the province of Quispicanchi from 
 that of Cuzco. After walking a few steps northward, Ave are in the province which 
 the people in the time of the Incas held to be sacred. We tread on the classic ground 
 of Inti-Churi, whom in everyday language we call the Sun. 
 
 As the Quebrada widened more and more — a certain sign that we were approaching 
 Cuzco — Nor Medina became more and more chatty and communicative. His gaiety, 
 for a long time restrained by the various incidents of the journey, the break-neck 
 ground, the storms, the disagreeable lodgings, the annoyance of having to obey when he 
 wished to command, and the uncertainty of knowing whether the mules which he had 
 lent me would arrive safe and sound, set free by his deliverance from these apprehen- 
 sions, asserted itself in a deluge of words, intermixed with bursts of laughter and merry 
 conceits. I made a study of the man while listening to his chatter. Apart from his 
 ticklish sensibility, and his insane idea that he was travelling for his own pleasure, and 
 not for mine— a notion which I had always done my best to combat — there was 
 no more honest or worthy creature than Nor Medina, and I never so thoroughly 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 181 
 
 appreciated his virtues and his faults than at the moment when I was about to part 
 from him for ever. Since our departure from Oropesa his conversation had been quite 
 poetical, referring to the pleasures of returning home, the joy of seeing again a beloved 
 wife, of embracing the dear children, of shaking hands with friends, and of enjoying 
 their company for an hour or two in the cabarets. Having neither wife nor children, 
 possessing no friend in the country, and doubting the cabarets, both on account of the 
 liquor they supply and the vermin that swarm in them, the little pleasures which 
 Nor Medina passed before my eyes like the painted slides of a magic lantern, had 
 but little interest for me, and I let him run on at his pleasure without hazarding a 
 remark. Judging the matter pretty correctly, he turned the conversation on myself, 
 telling me of the tertulias (evening-parties), the balls, banquets, and cavalcades which 
 awaited me at Cuzco. When he had done enumerating the pleasures that the old 
 City of the Sun had to offer to the visitor, I informed him that I did not calculate on 
 remaining any longer at Cuzco than might be necessary to make some purchases 
 and do up a few packages, but should at once leave, with a guide, for one of the three 
 valleys of Lares, Occobamba, or Santa Ana, I did not yet know which; and that from 
 thence I should push on into the interior of the country. 
 
 "Where then is monsieur going?" he asked, with an astonished air. 
 
 "Always forward!" 
 
 "One might go a long journey that way," he said, "only monsieur does not know 
 that beyond the Cordillera he will find heathen — Chunchos w T e call them — and these 
 savages will pierce him with arrows like St. Sebastian." 
 
 "Nonsense," I said; "I will win their hearts in the manner of Orpheus, and the 
 bows and arrows will fall from their hands." 
 
 " Valgame Dios! and monsieur will do that?" 
 
 "I will do a little music. We know the savage is sensible to harmony, and to 
 develop that sensibility to my profit, I will take care to buy at Cuzco, in the market of 
 Baratillo, an accordion and a Jews'-harp." 
 
 Nor Medina looked at me, du haut en has, with a singular air. Then, shaking his 
 head : — 
 
 "Oh senor, sehor," he said, in a grave and almost solemn tone, "it is not right to jest 
 upon such a subject. I know well enough that the people of your nation make a joke of 
 everything; but believe what a poor man says to you, who has not had the opportunity 
 like you to read books. There are things that one ought to respect, under the penalty 
 of provoking the wrath of God upon our heads." 
 
 As he ended speaking, the worthy arricro passed from the left hand to the right 
 the bridle of his mule, and making him wheel about, placed himself at a respectful 
 distance from me, as was his custom when I said anything to shock his preconceived 
 opinions, to avoid contact with me; in this way I followed his example in the line of 
 honest and childlike simplicity by affectiug unconsciousness of the fact. Besides, as 
 our journey was drawing near its end, and our mutual relations would soon necessarily 
 cease, a whim more or less was of no consequence. While I made these reflections Ave 
 arrived at San Jeronimo. 
 
182 
 
 PERU. 
 
 San Jeronimo is a village of no importance. That which distinguishes it from 
 most of the villages of the Sierra, is that, in place of presenting like them the figure 
 of a parallellogram or a trapezium, the houses are arranged in a double line on each 
 side of the Cuzco road. The air, the light, the openness which it enjoys, the fields 
 of wheat, of maize, of beans, of lucerne, and of potatoes which surround it, render it, 
 if not an absolutely pleasant abode, at least a tranquil, decent, and healthy one. As for 
 specialities, the village contains nothing more remarkable than a third-class pulperia — a 
 liquor and grocery store — five or six chicha or beer houses, and the blackened forge of 
 a farrier, of which one might see the anvil as we pass by, but would never hear the 
 
 SAN JERONIMO, A VILLAGE IN THE QUEBRADA OF CUZCO. 
 
 hammer. Add to this, the disreputable looking paunch-bellied little boys, of the colour 
 of bistre, playing about the doors, the starved-looking dogs lying about the road which 
 take to biting either man or beast that disturbs their siesta, the fowls scratching 
 among the bushes, the pigeons cooing upon the roofs, — and you will have an exact 
 photograph of San Jeronimo. 
 
 Three or four miles of road separate San Jeronimo from San Sebastian, a village 
 of the same family as the last. It is situated on the right of the main road, and 
 presents to the eye a close and compact looking collection of grayish walls and red 
 roofs. The Huatanay, a river which serves as the sewer of Cuzco, passes by San 
 Sebastian and rolls the tribute of its stinking waters into the Huilcamayo-Quiquijana, 
 between Huaro and Urcos. San Sebastian recommends itself to attention by its lofty 
 church . it has two square towers crowned with cupolas, which appear all the higher 
 from contrast with the lowness of the houses, for, as the reader knows, we speak of a 
 giant among pigmies, or an oak among mushrooms. All the inhabitants of the locality, 
 resembling those of the provinces Vascongadas, are hidalgos before birth, and accounted 
 such when born. They all bear the primitive blazonry of the Incas, namely, the 
 
ACOPIA TO 
 
 CUZCO. 
 
 183 
 
 Egyptian pylone (gate of a temple) in an azure field surmounted by a cuntur (condor) 
 with expanded wings. If these prerogatives astonish any of my readers, let me inform 
 them that the Indians — Cholos, M^tis, and mixed breeds — who inhabit San Sebastian 
 are all scions of the Quispe, Mamani, and Condori, three illustrious families, and the only 
 ones in the country who have descended in a direct line from the Sun, by the emperor 
 Manco-Capac and the empress Mama Occllo Huaco. As a conscientious narrator 
 I must add that these historic families are a little fallen from their ancient splendour. 
 In these days it is not rare to see a Quispe' walking barefoot for want of shoes, and 
 driving before him a flock of sheep; a Mamani selling cabbages, carrots, and other 
 
 SAN SEBASTIAN. 
 
 vegetables in the market of Cuzco; and a Condori giving his services as a water-carrier 
 or a groom for the small sum of five francs a month. Such scenes are afflicting to 
 remember! Happily for the unfortunate nobles whose origin and ancient grandeur we 
 have here recalled, they are all, in some degree, philosophers. They console themselves 
 by reflecting that Apollo-Phoebus, their divine ancestor, kept the flocks of Admetus ; 
 that a king of Babylon was reduced to eat grass, and a tyrant of Syracuse taught 
 children to read. These illustrious examples of decadence enable them to put a 
 good face on their precarious position. Besides, a liberal use of brandy, chicha, and 
 coca assists to banish from their thoughts every painful idea relative to the past. 
 
 After leaving San Sebastian, the cerros which bound the horizon draw together, 
 and form, as it were, a circular wall. Cuzco, which we are not yet able to descry, is 
 situated at their base. In our progress northward we discover, like a landmark on the 
 talus at the left of the road, a tree, whose rugged and creviced trunk, exposed roots, 
 and meagre foliage, bear witness to extreme old age. It is of it that one might say, 
 Durando, secula vincit; for the tree in question, if one may believe a local tradition, 
 was planted by the Inca Capac Yupanqui, and dates from the middle of the thirteenth 
 
184 
 
 PERU 
 
 century. This patriarchal vegetable belongs to the family of the Capparidaceoe. The 
 people of the country call it the Chachacuniayoc, "Tree of Farewells." Every one who 
 leaves Cuzco is supposed to come in company with his relations, friends, and acquaint- 
 ances to sit under the shadow of this tree to exchange adieus. They take care to 
 provide themselves with eatables and drinkables, and to bring a guitar. They leave 
 the city in good order. At the entrance of the plain, from which the Chachacumayoc 
 
 "FARE WELL-TREE" BETWEEN SAN SEBASTIAN AND CUZCO. 
 
 becomes visible, they stop, form a circle, and all drink a glass of brandy to the health 
 of the symbolic tree. They do the same when they stand beneath its shadow. This 
 fashion of drinking altogether in a circle, is called doing the wheel (hacer-la-rueda). 
 After these two wheels, a tribute paid to old customs, they sit down hap-hazard, the 
 provisions are taken out of the wallets, the decanters, jugs, and leathern bottles ranged 
 in line of battle, and the action begins at once at every point. For half a day they 
 eat, they drink, they laugh, they sing, they dance; and when the parting moment 
 arrives they weep, and sob, and lament round the traveller, who for his part weeps, 
 and sobs, and laments with them. In fine, they fill up a last cup, that of the despedida, 
 or final adieu, and after having tenderly embraced their friend and called down upon 
 his head the blessings of Heaven, they leave him, stupified with grief and perfectly 
 drunk, to go where duty calls him. The band of relations, friends, and acquaintances 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 185 
 
 then take, untowardly, the road to Cuzco, to continue, for their own sakes, the festival 
 commenced under the Farewell-tree for the sake of the traveller. 
 
 At the moment when we passed the Chachacumayoc, two Indians of the humbler 
 class, a man and a woman, were in the act of exchanging tender adieus. Neither of 
 them were drinking, but both appeared to have drunk more than usual. Our ill-timed 
 appearance interrupted their tete-d-tete; the man, however, put a good face on the 
 matter, and smiled as he raised his hat. The woman, on the contrary, lowered 
 her head, and turned her back upon us, as if she w T ere examining the stuff of her 
 petticoat. 
 
 Ten minutes afterwards we came— I say we, out of politeness and respect for the age 
 of my guide, for the man uncivilly kept himself aloof and pretended not to regard 
 anything I did — we came, I say, on the right of the road and on the flank of the cerros, 
 
 to the convent of La Recoleta, 1 whose architectural mass, in the form of a long square, 
 looked proudly down on the plain. Happy memories crowded on me at the sight 
 of this edifice. How often, after my botanical excursions in the environs, I had rested 
 in the shadow of its galleries, and amused myself by criticizing the attempts in poly- 
 chrome which covered their walls under the title of frescoes! The prior, a fine old 
 man of the colour of mahogany, whom I frequently encountered in my visits, and who 
 each time had seen me smiling on his pictures, had conceived a friendship for me 
 under the mistaken idea that my smile was the effect of admiration. Instead of 
 undeceiving him in this respect, I chose rather to countenance his mistake, an innocent 
 bit of deceit, to which I was indebted at various times for a bit of something dainty 
 to eat, a glass of liquor to drink, and a cigarette to smoke. As the good father had 
 then counted seventeen lustrums (eighty-five years), he has probably flown joyous towards 
 the eternal abodes — sedes wternas Icctus advolavit, as says the epitaph of Father Juan de 
 Matta, his predecessor, engraved upon a marble slab in the chapel. I can only show 
 
 'This is the most modern of the convents of Cuzco. It was built in 1599 at the cost of a rich and charitable 
 Spaniard, named Torribio de Bustamente, and his first prior was the reverend father Francisco de Valesco, a native of the 
 mountains of Burgos in Spain, as his epitaph, written in the Latin of the country, informs us. 
 
 vol i. 24 
 
18G 
 
 PERU. 
 
 my gratitude by a vain regret and a pious tear to his memory; but God I hope will 
 repay the worthy prior in my name and in another world for the cakes and sweets 
 I have eaten at his expense in this. 
 
 The friendship of the prior caused me to be treated with consideration by the 
 monks. The deans of the chapter were pleased to question me about the manners 
 and customs of France, which seemed to them as fabulous an empire as that of Cathay 
 or the Grand Khan of Tartary once did to us. The gate-keeper, seated under the 
 entrance porch, where from evening to morning he occupied himself in knitting- 
 stockings while keeping an eye on the wicket, never failed, on seeing me at a distance, 
 to open the gate in advance, and plant himself on the threshold to wait my arrival. 
 After the customary compliments he would beg a few cigarettes of me, and while I 
 took a turn in the cloister he would carefully put to cool in a pail of water the plants 
 I had collected. Sometimes on leaving I gratified him with a silver real to buy tobacco 
 and brandy, two things for which he had a singular affection. Then he exhausted 
 his eloquence in pouring eulogiums upon me, and, along with the warmest benedictions, 
 gave me the pompous title of 11 Excellence." When, however, it happened that I had 
 forgotten my purse or had no money, he forgot to bless me, and saluted me coldly 
 and briefly as plain "Senor." 
 
 As to the younger monks, I had so often surprised them in the neighbouring 
 cabarets with a jug of chicha at their lips, or their gown tucked in their girdle and 
 their hat doubled up ready to dance the forbidden samacuecas when the reverend 
 fathers were taking a siesta, that they only smiled when they saw me, as at an old 
 acquaintance. Regarding me as an amiable moralist, disposed, as much by nature as 
 by conviction, to excuse human failings, they were not afraid of my knowing their 
 little secrets. Honest fellows! Seeing them, at an age so inexperienced, such lovers 
 of the bottle and the dance, how often I have said to myself, "What capital monks 
 these little friars will one day make!" 
 
 The memories called up by the sight of the convent of La Recoleta sunk into 
 oblivion again as its walls disappeared from view betwixt the hills. We were now 
 passing a spot famous in the annals of the country for the revels of which it has 
 been for a long time past, and still is, the scene. It is a green and almost circular 
 space, with here and there a few small' houses, a farm, or an orchard. At the further 
 extremity, in a bluish distance, this space opens to a gorge formed by the cerros, 
 whose rounded backs, rising one behind another, resemble an immense ladder which 
 reaches from the earth to the heavens. The inhabitants call it the Corridor-du-Ciel, 
 no doubt by way of antiphrasis, for if this pretended ladder leads anywhere it is to 
 hell. A site which nature seems to have formed for the idyllic intercourse of some 
 local Tityrus and Meliboeus, has been transformed by man into a sort of tilting ground 
 or bacchic arena, to which both sexes of Cuzco resort, bottle in hand, and defy each 
 other to drink the hardest and dance the best to the sweet sounds of the guitar. 
 It would need the inspiration of a Homer to record the assaults of arms which during 
 two centuries the citizens of Cuzco have delivered in this place, and the number of the 
 dead, the dying, and the wounded that have been left on the battle-field. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 187 
 
 After passing the Corridor-du-Ciel, we came to a wild and barren-looking spot on 
 the right of the road, called the "Devil's Pulpit" (Chaire-du-Diable). The property of 
 his satanic majesty consists of a mass of rock standing alone in the foreground of two 
 cerros which are united at their base, and in the smooth and almost perpendicular 
 
 THE CORRIDOR-DU-CIEL. 
 
 sides of which there are square openings from which the Indians in the time of the 
 Incas had quarried stones. These black-looking holes, at an elevation of some thirty 
 feet from the soil, and without a road or path of any kind leading to them, look 
 like empty eye-balls with which the mountain glares on the passers-by. 
 
 A short distance from the sites just described, two curiosities of a different kind 
 attract attention at the same time. On the right is a quarry of porphyritic sandstone, 
 from which the same Indians who made the before-mentioned excavations had taken 
 those enormous blocks, which are still regarded with astonishment. Only, after 
 
1SS 
 
 PERU. 
 
 extracting the stone, instead of leaving a gaping orifice encumbered with fragments, 
 as our quarry men are accustomed to do, the Quichuas had cut out a beautiful 
 monolithic chamber some thirty feet square, with a ceiling panelled in relief, and 
 three divans along the three sides, upon which one might recline to take a siesta, or 
 sit down to await the end of a shower. 
 
 On closely examining this work of the pagans, as the fools of the country stupidly 
 call every monument which dates anterior to the Spanish conquest, one hardly knows 
 whether to admire more the metallic hardness of the material or the perfection of 
 the work. These walls, this ceiling, these seats, which it would be difficult to scratch 
 
 THE "DEVIL'S PULPIT," NEAR CUZCO. 
 
 with the point of a knife, look as if they had been wrought and polished by a quarry- 
 man who was at the same time a skilled mason. A cabinetmaker of our time could 
 not polish more perfectly a piece of rosewood or mahogany furniture. 
 
 On the other side of the road, as if to parody this monolithic chamber, there stands 
 in the midst of a copse of alerces and capulis (the alders and cherry-trees of the 
 country) a thatched hut, with mud -built walls. The sign of salvation is placed on its 
 summit, and two nucchos [Salvia sptlendens peruviana) , with seagreen leaves and brilliant 
 purple flowers, entwine their branches over its arched entrance. This hut is the beaterio 
 or beguinage of the Eecoleta. I cannot say on what day of the year the devotees 
 of Cuzco make their pilgrimage here, or what antiphon is chanted on the occasion ; but 
 what I am certain of is, that the place has for its guardians, or its triple-headed 
 Cerberus, three old witches, who came very near one day to scratching my face because 
 I had picked a flower on their estate! 
 
 These holy, amphibious beings, the bats of Catholicism, half-rat half-bird, allied to 
 women of the world by their muffler and their coiffure, and to nuns by their sober- 
 coloured petticoats, their leathern girdle, and their paraphernalia of beads, have been 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 189 
 
 constituted guardians of the beguinage, with the duty of keeping everything in order, 
 washing the altar-cloths, furbishing up the brass instruments, and singing the praises of 
 the Almighty in the idiom of the Quichuas; but instead of washing, polishing, and 
 singing, as they have engaged to do, they pass their time in drinking chicha, talking 
 scandal of their neighbours, and watching the earthen pot in which they are boiling 
 their gruel in the sight of all who pass by. 
 
 This beaterio of La Recoleta is the last isolated point in the environs of Cuzco.' 
 Beyond it the farms, the chacharas, and the orchards increase in number, and occur 
 closer together, until their surrounding walls unite to form a narrow and winding street 
 
 MONOLITniC CHAMBER IN THE ROCKS NEAR CUZCO. 
 
 called the Faubourg of Recoleta. The bed of a torrent, nearly always dry, and strewn 
 with stones, runs through this sordid quarter, in which are some twenty beer-shops to 
 satisfy the craving of the Hispano-Peruvian people for drink. 
 
 Here and there, where we had to ascend and redescend heaps of alluvial debris, 
 the edifices of Cuzco came into view. Pleased with the anticipation of the substantial 
 repast which awaited me, and the good old Spanish bed, painted white, sprinkled with 
 red tulips, in which I should stretch myself after leaving the table, I mused — what other 
 resource has the traveller on the back of a mule except to muse?— on the poetical 
 exaggeration in which official travellers indulge when approaching Cuzco. Some of the 
 highflown apostrophes of these gentlemen were naturally recalled to mind by the sight 
 of the places which had inspired them, — 
 
 "Hail, classic land of the Incas, cradle of an ever-expanding civilization!" is the 
 exclamation of one. 
 
 "Behold, then, this capital of a powerful empire, conquered by Pizarro, whose 
 advanced civilization and incredible wealth have struck the world with admiration!" 
 exclaims another. 
 
190 
 
 PERU. 
 
 I know not if this enthusiasm of the traveller, which I merely remark upon as a 
 physiological characteristic, was shared in by our mules, but as we approached the holy 
 city they got quite excited, and dashed forward with almost supernatural vigour. Like 
 Mercury, they seemed to be furnished with wings on every limb. No difficulty of the 
 road embarrassed them. Holes, wheel-ruts, blocks of stone, up-hill or down-hill, were 
 all the same to them. To see how they got over the ground, their ears bent, their 
 nostrils expanded, their legs stretched to the utmost, one could hardly have believed 
 they had come a hundred miles across the Andes. Going at this rate we soon reached 
 the Cueva-Jionda (deep grotto), the continuation of a stony ravine by which the springs 
 of the Sapi roll their waters into the plain. From this relatively high point the 
 
 11EGUINAGE OF LA RECOLETA, NEAR CUZCO. 
 
 edifices and roofs of Cuzco came into full view. Alas for enthusiasm ! A heavy and 
 compact mass of stones and tiles ; little or no details ; confused contours ; local colour, 
 reddish ; light, dull and diffused ; positively this is all that the old city of Manco-Capac, 
 revised, corrected, and augmented, but little embellished, by Francisco Pizarro, presents 
 to the eye of the artist. 
 
 In the measure that we leave Cueva-honda behind us, the panorama of the city 
 becomes, if not more bright and cheerful, at least more clearly defined. Domes and 
 steeples detach themselves from the mass of house-tops, while white-washed walls 
 contrast here and there with the dirty-red ground of the cerros and ancient buildings. 
 Soon we come to a point where the so-called Faubourg of Recoleta is intersected, on 
 the right by the escarpment of San Bias, one of the eight faubourgs of Cuzco, 1 and on 
 the left by a narrow passage bounded by walls of cyclopean structure. This passage 
 
 1 According to the statisticians of the country, we ought to say ten, because they consider the villages of San 
 Sebastian and San Jeronimo suburbs of Cuzco, although they are separated from the city by a plain of about seven miles 
 square. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. m 
 
 is the Calle del Triunfo. The mules, more excited still on scenting the fodder and the 
 stable that awaited them, lower their heads and gallop still faster. In three minutes, 
 without the least preparation for the sudden change, the traveller finds himself landed 
 in the great square of Cuzco in front of the cathedral. 
 
 LA RECOLETA, A SUBURB OF CUZCO. 
 
 As we were emerging from the gloom which always overshadows this street of 
 "Triumph," whose walls seem to absorb the light, Nor Medina, who had preceded me 
 a moment, pulled up his mule to ask at what tampu of the city I meant to lodge. 
 
 "I will lodge alone," I replied. 
 
 "Where alone, if monsieur pleases?" 
 
 "Galcrie du Vieux-Linge, 17." 
 
 We crossed the great square diagonally, and dismounted at the house I had 
 indicated. Nor Medina fastened the mules to one of the columns of trachytic sand- 
 
102 PERU - 
 
 stone which border the three sides of the plaza called respectively the galeries da Pain, 
 des Confitures, and du Vieux-Linge. After having unsaddled my mule and brought me 
 the equipment, 1 he waited, hat in hand, to be paid. As I added to the price agreed 
 upon a few reals for llapa (drink-money), this generosity, which he had not expected, 
 dispersed the cloud from his brow and touched his heart. 
 
 CALLE DEL TRIUNFO— A STREET IN CUZCO. 
 
 "If I might venture to speak to monsieur!" he said, after having counted the 
 money and put it into a ratskin-purse which he carried suspended from his neck like a 
 relic. 
 
 "At your pleasure, Nor Medina." 
 
 "Well, monsieur, I would have you reflect again before doing what you have told 
 me; it is not only an imprudence but a sin. The Chunchos are miscreants and 
 heretics, and the holy religion of Jesus Christ forbids us to have any intercourse with 
 them." 
 
 1 In a journey on the coast, or in the Sierra, where it is the regular custom to use hired mules, the harness is 
 always supplied by the traveller and never by the muleteer who lets out the beast. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 193 
 
 "Is that all you have to say to met" 
 "That is all, monsieur." 
 
 "Well, good day, mon ami, and God see you safe home again. My compliments to 
 your wife when you get back to Arequipa." 
 
 The arriero retired, shrugging his shoulders; and I have nothing more to say of him. 
 
 After a hearty meal, I took possession of my bed, and slept till the next day. 
 There is a saying that night brings counsel. On awaking in the morning I was able 
 to judge of the value of this proverb. Before going to sleep I had debated with 
 myself what valley I should select for the beginning of my enterprise, but had come 
 to no decision. On awaking, though I could not explain to myself the secret working 
 of my mind, I found, in fact, that my choice was made, and that it had fallen upon 
 the valley of Occobamba, which geographers have neglected to mark in their maps, 
 but which nature has placed between the two valleys of Lares and Santa Ana. 
 
 During the forty-eight hours that I stayed at Cuzco, I spent the day in purchasing 
 various articles intended to conciliate the savages I might find en route. In the 
 evening, in place of accepting the invitation to a cacharpari, or farewell-festival, I shut 
 myself up alone, leaving my acquaintances astonished and even a little indignant at 
 my disregard of local customs. But it was my duty to give the reader some account 
 of the unknown city to which I have brought him en croupe, and from whence we shall 
 very soon depart together. Instead, then, of passing these two nights in drinking 
 brandy with the men and fooling with the women, as each would have had me to do, and 
 as etiquette would have required, I employed them in penning the following notes. If 
 the reader can find nothing in them to praise, he ought at least to know how willingly 
 I sacrificed, for his sake, the pleasures of all kinds which a cacharpari at Cuzco 
 promised. 
 
 The city of Cuzco was founded in the middle of the eleventh century by Manco- 
 Capac, the founder of the dynasty of the Incas. The advent of this legislator in the 
 punas of Collao is enshrined in a mysterious legend, which the Spanish historiographers 
 have amused themselves by reproducing in a variety of ways. We will dismiss from 
 our notice what is marvellous in their recitals, and confine ourselves as nearly as 
 possible to the unadorned truth. Instead of making Manco Capac and his companion 
 Mama Ocllo emerge like marine gods from the Lake of Titicaca, or of taking them 
 like owls from a hole in the cerros of Paucartampu, we shall see in them merely the 
 last remnant of those travelling colonists who, descending in ancient times from the 
 Asiatic plateaux, their primitive cradle, spread themselves over every part of the 
 ancient world. 
 
 If it is next to impossible in the present state of our knowledge to fix the precise 
 date of the first displacement of that migratory civilization, and the length of time 
 which it halted in various places before reaching the American continent, we have 
 at least as a witness of its origin, its point of departure, and the route which it must 
 have followed, the type of its indigenous representatives. Their manners, their laws, 
 their religious institutions, their system of chronology, their cosmogonies, and their 
 architecture, are all extant. 
 
 vol. I. 85 
 
» 
 
 194 PERU. 
 
 It is probable that the first communications between Asia and America took 
 place by Behring's Straits, these now distinct portions of the globe being then united 
 by an isthmus. The deep indentations of the Asiatic continent, the gulfs and inland 
 seas of its eastern part, the groups of islands which have been separated violently 
 from the continental mass, or elevated by the active force of volcanoes situated along 
 the faults or crevasses with which the globe is furrowed, all presuppose a vast primi- 
 tive area, of which the orographic configuration and the climatological constitution 
 have undergone sensible modifications. The north -north -west part of Asia, without 
 high mountains, battered on two sides by the Polar Sea and the great ocean, must 
 have yielded to their double influence, unless, being fractured at the time of the 
 general or partial elevation of the secondary chains of the eastern and western 
 continents, it had been covered by the flowing down of the higher waters into a 
 basin of lower level. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt there was originally 
 a means of communication between Eastern Asia and the north of America, for it 
 is from that side, and not by way of Iceland, Greenland, and the southern parts of 
 the United States, as some have suggested, that one can hope to come upon traces 
 of the first civilized settlements and the introduction of new ideas. 
 
 The anthropological study of the American population, all whose varieties may 
 be traced to two fixed and primordial types — the indigenous type, which we will 
 without scruple call the Mongolo -American, and the Irano- Aryan type — naturally 
 raises the following question : Is the American race autochthonous, or must we regard 
 it as a race of emigrants from the Asiatic stock? Without prejudging this question, 
 which we merely state incidentally, leaving to others the trouble of solving the problem, 
 we would, at the same time, remark, that if the American race is really autochthonous, 
 as held by Morton, Pritchard, Robertson, and Blumenbach, its singular analogy with 
 the Mongol race is inexplicable ; whereas, if its presence on the new continent results 
 from a displacement of the Asiatic hordes, its perfect resemblance to them, with which 
 one has reason to be astonished, is naturally accounted for. 
 
 Of the two aforesaid types, the indigenous or Mongolo-American, however we 
 please to name it, is that which predominates in the two Americas, and characterizes 
 the greater part of their population. Nevertheless one can only recognize in it the 
 colonizing or swarming element. The civilizing element is represented by the Irano- 
 Aryan race, the type of which still endures, if not in its original purity, yet so distinctly 
 marked that it cannot be mistaken. This type is that of the first nations who 
 established themselves in New Spain, from whence they passed into Canada, Louisiana, 
 the Floridas, and Yucatan, and penetrated into the southern hemisphere by the plains 
 of Popayan and Guiana. The sculptures of the Tlascaltecs, the Chichimecs and the 
 Toltecs, and the hieroglyphic paintings of the Aztec manuscripts, have faithfully 
 transmitted to us this type, which we still find among some of the nomad tribes of 
 North America; and in South America among the Aymaras, the Quichuas, and a great 
 number of Antis and Chontaquiros, savage tribes which live upon the left bank 
 of the Quillabamba-Santa-Ana, east of the Andes. 
 
 Although at first sight it may seem surprising to discover, in the heart of America, 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 197 
 
 the types, the institutions, and the monuments of the ancient peoples of Asia, this will 
 no longer appear extraordinary if we examine the various territories occupied by these 
 peoples on the flanks of the great mountain chains commanding the surrounding 
 countries, north, south, east, and west, and so allied to one another as to form a 
 compact and homogeneous whole; those of Zend to the ancient free states of India — 
 the country of peoples without kings; these again to Brahmavarta and to Aryavarta — 
 countries of Brahma and the Aryan nobles; these latter, touching on Madhya-Desa, from 
 the centre of which territory and beyond it there spread the primitive non-Aryan 
 population; — all these were able to communicate, by the provinces of Persia, with 
 Chaldea and Egypt, by the provinces of Thibet with Transgangetic India (Burmah, 
 Siam, &c), and with the northern countries of Asia. It would be impossible to 
 conceive of a geographical position more naturally adapted to facilitate the outflow of a 
 teeming population. These plateaux of Iran, of Zend, and of Arya may be compared, 
 as anthropological reservoirs, to lakes in alpine regions, the water of which may 
 remain for a long time immovable, until a sudden flood causes it to overflow its bed, 
 when it drains away through a thousand channels. 
 
 There is historical testimony to confirm the establishment of the Hindoos, at a very 
 remote period, in countries situated to the east of their territory. We discover them 
 traversing with the north-east monsoon 1 the Gulf of Oman, and establishing themselves 
 in the southern part of Arabia and the island of Socotora, for the purpose of trading in 
 gold with the Egyptians. We find no mention, on the contrary, of establishments 
 founded by them in the countries of Northern Asia. It is true that nothing on this side 
 attracted their attention or excited their commercial instincts. Ever since the migration, 
 at an unknown period, contemporary perhaps with the earliest ages of the world, 
 which conducted the Misraites (Children of the Sun) from the heart of Asia into the 
 valley of the Nile, Egypt had remained in possession of the traditions and ideas of the 
 race; she was the centre of intellectual culture, and the commercial entrepot of the 
 known world; her preponderance over the neighbouring countries was solidly estab- 
 lished, and the eyes of all nations were attracted to her by the light she radiated. 
 It is not then by any of the needs of civilization, or commerce, or even of territorial 
 aggrandizement, that one can reasonably account for the displacement of the Aryan 
 populations towards the northern parts of Asia. Neither had any religious schism, or 
 any systematic persecution, of which history makes mention, 2 moved them to abandon 
 their primitive home. In the absence of all historic certainty which might throw some 
 light upon the causes of that displacement, one may nevertheless reasonably imagine that 
 the pressure exercised upon these populations by the first conquests of the Pharaohs of 
 Thebes, 3 earlier by nine centuries than those of Rameses the Great — conquests 
 limited at first to the shores of the Indus, but which finally extended beyond those of 
 
 1 In the Malayan tongue, mussim; that of tlie north-east is called the rnussim of Malabar, that of the south-west the 
 mussim of Aden. Arabian navigators called it the maussim, and the Greeks hippalos. 
 
 2 The establishment of Buddhism in India can hardly have taken place more than six centuries before our era. As 
 to the persecutions which it suffered from the Brahmins — persecutions which determined the priests of Buddha and their 
 followers to emigrate towards the north of Asia — historians assign for their date the early years of the Christian era. 
 
 3 About 2200 years B.C. 
 
198 
 
 PERU. 
 
 the Ganges, and which were subsequently completed by the Greek invasion which 
 brought the civilization of the Hellenes and that of the Hindoos face to face — we may 
 reasonably suppose, I say, that these grave events which changed the face of the world, 
 would exercise a powerful influence on the spirit of the Aryan populations, and 
 determine with them those migrations which astonish us, and which we cannot other- 
 wise explain. 
 
 In abandoning their birth-place in the Asiatic plateaux, these populations carried 
 with them the idea of a primitive worship, their cosmogonies, their cycles of regeneration, 
 their manners, their arts, their industry, and their language. But the new regions which 
 they traversed; the halts, ages in duration, which they made in divers places; their 
 immediate contact with other peoples, and the mixture of races which must have ensued ; 
 in fine, the influences of climates, and the places where they dwelt, upon their consti- 
 tution, — all these demoralizing causes, if they did not efface among them the pure ideal 
 of the past, must have sensibly altered its form. Borrowing from those among whom 
 they sojourned some formulae of language and of new ideas, they also left behind them 
 something of their own. Hence the analogies and differences which we are constantly 
 discovering in the language and the manners of the peoples descended from them. 
 
 If the worship of Mizraim (the Sun) and that of fire were known from the 
 beginning to the American nations, the same may be said of the system of cosmogony, 
 divided into four great epochs, which represented the human race destroyed by some 
 cataclysm and peopling the earth anew. This system, originally established in Egypt, 
 India, and China, had probably been transmitted by the Asiatic peoples to the Olmecs, 
 the Xicalanqui, the Zacatecs, the Tarascos, the Quitlatecs, and the Otomis, the first 
 civilized nations which established themselves in New Spain. From them the same 
 idea was diffused more lately among the Nahuas, the Cicimecs or Chichimecs, the 
 Acolhuas, the Tlascaltecs, the Toltecs, and the Aztecs, the last group of the Indo- 
 Mexican nations. These four chronological divisions, of which Gomara de los Rios, 
 Fernando de Alva, Gama, and Clavigero have spoken in turn, and which they designate 
 as the age of giants, the age of fire, the age of air, and the age of water, embrace, 
 according to these authors, a period of 18,028 years, 1 that is to say, 23,972 years 2 less 
 than the prehistoric period of Egypt according to her priests, and G020 more than the 
 Persian ages of the Zend-aresta (Boun-Deliescli). 
 
 This astrological fiction, translated into a system of cosmogony and imported into 
 North America by the Asiatic immigrants, spread also into South America, among the 
 
 1 In Hesiod's Theogony, also, 18,028 years are assigned to the four ages of the world, which are related to four great 
 revolutions of the elements. 
 
 2 The Egyptian priests assigned to the prehistoric existence of their nation myriads of years, during which they 
 were supposed to be governed by gods and demi-gods or heroes. The period of the gods was fixed by some at 42,000 
 years, of which 12,000 were assigned to the reign of Vulcan (Phtah) and 30,000 to the Sun. To this first epoch succeeded 
 the rule of the deini-gods, from which the Greeks derived their twelve chief gods. According to Herodotus the hiero- 
 phantes of Thebes and Memphis calculated that Egypt had then existed 11,314 years. It is clearly impossible to establish 
 a system on data so contradictory and so evidently fabulous. 
 
 If, however, the early ages of Egypt present us with chronological problems which are almost insoluble, this is not 
 the case with its historic period, which Manetho's "Dynasties" have been able to fix at 3893 years before the Christian era. 
 This period comprises 113 generations, and 331 reigns from the time of Menes. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 199 
 
 nations whose establishment there was long anterior to that of the Incas. Only, in 
 place of being applied by them to four climacteric epochs of humanity, it served to 
 designate four families of individuals. Thus the civilization of Tiahuanacu and of the 
 Collahuina, Aymara, and Quichua populations, asserted to be contemporary with the 
 deluge, had for its founder an unknown man who divided the world (Peru) into four 
 parts, and charged four individuals with their government. The first of these 
 personages was named Maneo, the second Colla, the third Tocay, the fourth Pinakuay. 
 A mythical legend of similar import existed among the Poque nation, who lived to the 
 east of Cuzco, and among the nations of the north, the May us, the Caucus, and the 
 Rimactampus. According to them, four men and four women, in the beginning of the 
 world, came out of a cavern situated in the district of Paucartampu. The first of these 
 men was Manco-Capac, the second Ayar-Cachi, the third Ayar-Uchu, the fourth 
 Ayar-Sauca. From the agreement of the first name in the two legends, local traditions, 
 and the historiographers of the Conquest, have transmitted to us the name of the first 
 Inca; but as they have made no mention of the three others, we may fairly infer that 
 all four names apply to four historical epochs, or serve to designate four dynasties, of 
 which one only, that of the Incas, counted, according to Juan Astopilco and Torquemada, 
 some threescore sovereigns anterior to the dynasty we know. 1 
 
 Some of the learned have tried to refer the foundation of the empire of the Incas to 
 the last displacement of the Toltecs, who had abandoned Mexico to pass into South 
 America. Unhappily for the system of these savants, historians have traced the 
 itinerary of the Toltecs since the year 544 of our era — some say 596 — according to 
 which, coming from Tlapallan into the country of Anahuac, they inhabited suc- 
 cessively, during a period of 124 years according to the one, or 145 years according 
 to the other, the countries of Tollantzinco and Tulan. A dreadful pestilence, in which 
 we recognize the small-pox, which has caused, and still causes, great destruction among 
 the populations on both sides of the Andes, finally drove the Toltecs from the country 
 of Anahuac. It is from this period (1051) that their migrations tend towards the south , 
 but after this epoch, also, they disappear mysteriously from history. Whether it was 
 that they perished, obscurely, of sickness, poverty, and hunger 2 in the regions of 
 Yucatan and Guatemala, where they had sought an asylum; or whether, surprised in 
 their march by the Aztecs, who, coming from Aztlan, opened themselves a road south- 
 ward by way of Tlalixco, Tulan, Tzampanco, and Chapoltepec, they were completely 
 lost in the superiority of the more powerful nation. But at the period of these dis- 
 placements (1051) the empire of the Incas was already constituted. 
 
 A fact not less conclusive than the preceding, is the use of the hieroglyphic 
 alphabet, which was common not only to the Toltecs and Aztecs, but to all the 
 peoples who preceded them in New Spain, while it was always unknown to the 
 Incas. Certainly the Toltecs, in migrating south, had not failed to introduce their 
 
 1 It is this dynasty which, according to Garcilaso, Pedro de Cieca, Bias Valera, Zarate, and others, comprises thirteen 
 sovereigns from Manco to Huascar inclusive, whose reigns, from a.d. 1042 to 1532, embrace a period of 490 years. 
 
 2 The material difficulties of existence could not have been less in the case of these wandering peoples than they 
 are now for most of the savage races of America, that is, the object of a constant pre-occupation, and the end of a 
 thousand expedients. 
 
200 
 
 PERU. 
 
 method of picture-writing (escritura pintado,, as Gomara says), which their forefathers 
 derived from the oriental peoples. 
 
 The use of hieroglyphics among the Mexican nations appears to have been posterior 
 to their establishment in New Spain. Before the introduction of symbolic characters 
 these nations used the quipus, or skein of variously coloured wools, which we find 
 again among the Canadian tribes, and the use of which in China ascends to very 
 remote times. After the introduction among them of symbolic characters, the Mexican 
 nations continued to use the quipus as a means of traditional numeration. More 
 recently, after the extinction of these peoples, we find again in the southern continent, 
 among the Puruays of Lican and the Incas of Cuzco, the same quipus, but not the 
 hieroglyphic characters. Is it not then reasonable to believe that the Mexican nations 
 having parted company at a very early period, either in consequence of the rivalry 
 of caste or from religious differences, or, what is more probable, from the insufficiency of 
 resources in a territory that was too thickly populated; 1 and one of the divided parts, 
 continuing to dwell in New Spain, remained, if not in contact, at least in com- 
 munication, with Asiatic civilization, and was able to feel foreign influences; whilst 
 the other, passing into South America, and wandering farther and farther from their 
 ancestral homes, retained nothing of the past but fundamental ideas and rudimentary 
 forms, or if at a later period some impression of new ideas which had regenerated 
 the ancient world recurred to them, it was only as a vague and confused perception, 
 like the echo of a noise but faintly heard in the distance. 
 
 The more one studies the type, the manners, and monuments of the Mexican 
 races, the more we are struck by their intimate connection with those of the Indo- 
 Egyptian nations. The portrait which tradition has left us of the chiefs who led 
 them in their migrations, or of the legislators who gave them laws, recalls at once 
 the rot-enne-rome type of the Egyptian race and the namou type of the Irano-Aryan 
 race, according to the division into four parts of the world represented in the ancient 
 Egyptian system. The Spanish historiographers of the Conquest, following their genius 
 for amplification, have seen in these personages with yellow or brown skin and a long 
 beard, bearded men with a white skin. The first legislator of the Aztecs, Quezalcoalt, 
 whom some have made grand-priest of Cholula, and others the god of the air, was 
 one of these bearded whites. In South America, Bochica, the founder of the civilization 
 of Cundinamarca, was likewise a white man with a long beard. The ancient Mexican 
 sculptures of Tenochtitlan and Culhuacan, as well as those of Tiahuanacu in Higher 
 Peru, represent bearded personages clothed in flowing garments whose appearance 
 agrees with that of the oriental peoples. The carboniferous sandstone or the por- 
 phyroid trachyte in which they are sculptured does not permit us to decide whether 
 their skin is a brownish-red like that of the Egyptians, a yellow-brown like that of 
 the Asiatics, or a white like that of the Tamou, the European or Indo-Germanic race 
 of which the Spanish historiographers have made choice probably from regard for 
 
 1 The break-up of the great Mirahna nation, which occurred little more than half a century ago, had no other cause 
 than the failure of the game and fish in the territory, some niuety miles square, which they had occupied during the 
 previous century in the basin of the Amazon, between the Japura and the Rio Negro. 
 
AC0P1A TO CUZCO. 
 
 201 
 
 themselves, but whom the ancient Egyptian system places below the Nahari, or negroes, 
 whom it treats as the last, and least appreciable, of the series. 
 
 After the historiographers come the commentators, who have seen in these white 
 and bearded men ancient Erse or Irish who came by sea to North America. Their 
 long and flowing robes, represented in Mexican sculpture, have been transformed 
 into the albs and surplices of priests or missionaries, 1 come to instruct the peoples 
 of Virginia and Carolina in the faith. There can be no doubt that white men had 
 visited at an early period the southern part of America, comprised between Virginia 
 and Florida, since in the twelfth century we see the Normans already established in 
 their settlements between Boston and New York. The Danish archaeologist Carl 
 Rafn, in his Antiquitates Americance (1837), speaks of explorations attempted in North 
 America since the tenth century of our era by the colonists of Iceland and Greenland. 
 But whatever be the value of these various statements, and the date (1005) assigned 
 to the discovery of North America by Leif Ericson, a discovery which some have 
 endeavoured to make coincident with the appearance of the first Inca (1040-1042), 
 there is nothing in the worship, the manners, the institutions, and the monuments 
 of the Mexico-Peruvian nations which would suggest the idea of a civilizing influence 
 exercised by the nations of the north of Europe, who were still plunged in the 
 darkness of barbarism at a period when American civilization, which already counted 
 many centuries of existence, still diffused its light. 
 
 It would be irrational, then, to seek elsewhere than in Asiatic regions for the source 
 of the great civilizing currents by which America was first fertilized ; but at the same 
 time it would be quite as unwise to assume that these currents have flowed over the 
 new continent at one epoch only, and in equal volume. Everything conspires to prove, 
 on the contrary, that American civilization has been arrested at various times by long 
 periods of torpor and numbness, when, thrown back upon itself, it has remained 
 stationary, until a new impulse was given to it by the mother country, whose most 
 active representatives were then the Phoenician, Etruscan, and Arabian navigators. 
 Had it been otherwise we should have found among all the descendants of the first 
 Asiatic colonists the exact formula? of one and the same faith, the same manners, and 
 the same architecture. But the fact is, that if, among the nations of New Spain and 
 those of the southern continent, we find the idea of worship fundamentally the same — 
 appearing among some of them under an abstract figure, among others in the concrete 
 form — if also the general traits in the category of morals are common to the two 
 groups of nations, proving their community of origin and their common point of 
 departure — there exists at the same time such decided differences as to separate the 
 one from the other hierarchically, and to establish the supremacy of the former over 
 the latter. That supremacy has no other cause than the division which took place 
 at a very early period, and which, as we have before observed, left the predominant 
 race in communication with the ideas which continued to flow in from the south of 
 
 1 These Irish colonists, on their return from Virginia and Carolina, established themselves in the south-east 
 part of Iceland, at Fapyli, and in the little island Papar, where, after they had left, the Normans found bells, croziers, 
 books, and other things used in worship. Hence they were supposed to have been called Papar, papce (fathers), 
 clergy, in the work of Dicuil, a monk who wrote in the ninth century, 7)e Menaura Orbis Terrce. 
 
 vor.. i. 26 
 
202 
 
 PERU. 
 
 Asia; whilst the subject races, by their farther and farther removal from the point of 
 influx, ceased to feel the influence, or felt it but feebly. 
 
 We see, in fact, after the separation of the two groups of peoples on the plateaux 
 of higher Mexico, the first constituting themselves the guardians and depositaries of 
 the past tradition, the religious myths, and the cosmogonical ideas of India and 
 Egypt. Their physique, their colour, their hair soft and tressed, their garments white 
 or variegated with brilliant colours — all about them recalls the namou and rot-enne-rdme 
 races, and the double branch (Semitic and Japhetic) from which they sprang. The 
 pontiff chiefs who governed these peoples and ruled their worship, the king-legislators 
 who gave them their laws, are men with long beards and flowing garments, who seem 
 to continue in America the theocratic and warrior castes of the Orient. Ages have 
 passed away since the departure of these peoples from the regions which gave them 
 birth. Established on a new continent, they continue to receive from that old Asia 
 — their alma mater — the germs of a progressive civilization. Hieroglyphic writing 
 is naturalized amongst them. The use of the papyrus {maguey) is introduced. Their 
 architecture, which had been confined to copying from memory the massive primitive 
 structures of India and Upper Egypt, develops a new phase. While continuing, in 
 their temples, palaces, and monuments, the hieratic and unchangeable forms of the 
 ancient edifices, that architecture, inspired anew by art, covers their walls with an 
 elegant and complicated ornamentation, in which we recognize the delicate fancies of 
 the Greek style of the Macedonian epoch. The monuments of Teotihuacan in the 
 state of Mexico, those of Culhuacan, of Guatusco, and of Papantla in the state of 
 Chiapa, the temple of Chichen-Itza in Yucatan, have descended to us as magnificent 
 specimens of American art at different epochs. 
 
 Under the dynasty of the Aztec emperors American civilization attained its apogee. 
 Ceremonies of worship, spectacular splendours, sumptuary laws, all seem to have 
 renewed that insensate luxury of the Persian satrapies to which Hernando Cortez 
 went to put an end, as Alexander the Great, nineteen centuries before him, had done 
 in regard to the provinces of Media, Babylonia, and Persia. 
 
 If from the first group of peoples we pass to the second, we shall see them after 
 their separation from the primitive swarm, and their introduction to the southern 
 continent, traversing the wooded regions of Venezuela and Guiana, leaving upon the 
 rocks of Orinoco and of Cassiquiare, on the shores of the Rio Cauca, one might say, 
 a sculptured attestation of their passage. Among these travelling hordes there were 
 some who halted for several centuries on the plateaux of Bogota; others found their 
 rest under the equator, and founded in the country of Lican the dynasty of the 
 Conchocandos; others again continued their course as far as to the Lake of Chucuytu, 
 and covered the neighbourhood of Tiahuanacu with temples and monuments. Let us 
 remark, incidentally, that in the measure that these peoples wandered away from the 
 seat of intellectual culture in New Spain, the pure ideal of the past wore out, and 
 became more and more obscured among them. Left to their own resources, having no 
 communication with the rest of the world, deprived by their distance of all civilizing 
 influences, they gradually fell into a state of relative decadence, so that while in the 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 203 
 
 northern hemisphere the architectural art took from age to age a new flight, it dwindled 
 in the southern hemisphere until it returned to the feebleness of infancy. 
 
 To speak here only of the teocalli, that symbolic edifice which is allied at once to 
 the pyramids of Ghizeh, the temple of Bel, and the pagoda of Chalembron, having the 
 threefold utility of a tomb, an observatory, and an altar given to it by the first nations 
 of Upper Mexico. This teocalli is already, in Canada and Florida, only a tumulus, 
 more or less elevated, which covers the remains of the chief warriors of the tribe. 
 Among the nations south of the equator it is transformed into a mound of earth, 
 
 PUCARA OR FORTRESS OP THE PERIOD OF THE INCAS. 
 
 rounded at the summit, an involuntary return towards the past, to which, however, 
 we can assign no rational purpose. Such is the artificial hill of Tiahuanacu. 
 
 After a lapse of time, of which Ave cannot give an exact idea, the teocalli reappears 
 under the dynasty of the Incas. During the greater part of this period it is an isolated 
 mamelon, of a conical or rounded figure, but the work of nature, and no longer of 
 man, except in so far as he perfects it by forming two or three retreating stages, or 
 steps, with broken stones piled one upon the other. The teocalli, thus disposed, 
 supports a pucara (fortress) ; sometimes its layers of stone, plastered with mud instead 
 of cement, are transformed into sustaining walls, intended to prevent the slipping down 
 of the sands, in which case it bears the name of a chimpu or andaneria. 
 
 What we have said of the teocallis of the southern continent is applicable to the 
 architecture of its monuments, in which we may observe the same phases of decadence. 
 Thus the edifices of Tiahuanacu in Upper Peru (which belong to an epoch contem- 
 porary, as we think, with the civilization of the Muyscas of Cundinamarca, but anterior 
 to that of the Puruays of Lican), so far as one can judge from the ruins of their walls, 
 were massive structures with no pretensions to elegance, and no ornamentation save a 
 few moulded figures {sculptures en creuoc), representing the Misraites kneeling before 
 
204 
 
 PERU. 
 
 their god, and a scries of grotesque heads of coarser execution placed below them. As 
 in the earliest efforts of Etruscan art, these works are of very primitive character, 
 and border on caricature. Of two stone giants, formerly seated at the foot of the hill, 
 and of which Pedro de Cieca and Garcilaso have made mention, there remains nothing 
 but the two heads almost defaced. As to the population of statues which surrounded 
 them, and which perpetuated, according to the testimony of the same authors, the 
 punishment inflicted by Pachacamac, the lord of the universe, on the natives of the 
 locality, the earth has swallowed it up, and only a few images without arms or legs are 
 disinterred at long intervals. 1 
 
 The blocks employed in the construction of the edifices of Tiahuanacu generally 
 exceed in size those of the Peruvian edifices attributed to the Incas, and in the style of 
 their sculpture, as well as their great mass, constitute a distinct architectural epoch. 
 
 ANDANERIAS OR SUSTAINING WALLS. 
 
 It is often asked, after reading the almost always hyperbolical descriptions of the 
 historiographers of the Conquest, and the amplified narrations of modern travellers, how 
 the nations of that part of the continent had been able, without tools or power-engines 
 of any kind, to accomplish such labours. Let us say at once, that the edifices of 
 South America, when one examines them at leisure and in detail, instead of seeing 
 them casually and in their ensemble, as most travellers have done, have absolutely 
 nothing to astonish the mind and confound reason, as some have taken the pains to 
 write. What monument of these countries can ever be cited as a parallel to those of 
 India, Persia, and Egypt? where shall we find, if we search from the isthmus of 
 Panama to the twentieth degree of south latitude, an ancient edifice which can be 
 compared with the temples of Elora, of Kailaca, of Persepolis, of Karnac, or of 
 Ipsamboul; and this not merely from an artistic or decorative point of view, but simply 
 
 1 "In the neighbourhood of the edifices of Tiahuanacu," says Garcilaso, "are found immense numbers of statues of 
 men and women holding vessels in their hands and drinking from the same. Some are seated, others standing; the 
 latter have a leg raised, and their garments tucked up as if crossing a stream ; the former are carrying their children in 
 their swaddling-clothes, straitened out or lying down, and, in fact, in every variety of posture. The natives told the Inca 
 (Mayta Capac) that these natives had been changed into statues as a punishmeut for their past crimes, and above all for 
 having stoned a stranger who visited the country." 
 
AGOPIA TO CUZCO. 205 
 
 as a work of labour and masonry? Let any one look up, in the pages of Herodotus, 
 Diodorus, and Strabo, the number of men 1 and the years occupied in building the 
 great monumental edifices of Egypt, or the structures of Van and Babylon, and they 
 will no longer be astonished that the nations of South America, much more numerous 
 some ages ago than they are now, were able, favoured also by the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of the Andean chain and its ramifications, to accomplish the works attributed 
 to them, the most considerable of which was the fortress of Sacsahuaman, commenced 
 
 FRAGMENTS OF AYMARA SCULPTURE. 
 
 about the middle of the fifteenth century by the twelfth Inca, Tupac Yupanqui, and 
 finished by his son Huayna-Capac. 
 
 The manner in which these indigenes extracted the blocks from the quarry has 
 also puzzled the ethnographers and savants who have deprived them of the necessary 
 tools. Notwithstanding the fact that no implement belonging to that age has been 
 discovered — perhaps because the indigenes on the arrival of the conquerors secreted 
 those which they possessed, fearing they should be compelled to use them for the 
 benefit of their new masters, as they also disposed of a greater part of their wealth 
 to prevent its falling into the hands of the Spaniards — it is certain they were acquainted 
 with iron, which they called cquellay; lead, which in its native state they called titi, and 
 
 1 According to Herodotus, a hundred thousand men, who were relieved every three months, were employed in 
 quarrying and conveying the stone for the Great Pyramid {Euterpe, cxxiv.) — Tr. 
 
206 
 
 PERU. 
 
 caca after it was melted; copper, which they called anti; and an alloy of two or more 
 metals, to which they gave the name of champpi. 1 
 
 As to their method of quarrying stone, it was that of the ancient Egyptians, as 
 described by Herodotus. Like them the American workmen first traced upon the 
 stone the shape of the block they required, then cut the outlines with a chisel, 2 and 
 drove into these grooves wedges of dry wood, which they afterwards wetted, and which, 
 by their swelling, split the stone. In the neighbourhood of Cuzco, in the districts of 
 Quiquijana and Ollantay-Tampu, we still find in the quarries these wedges made of the 
 
 FIGURE OP A NAIAD. SPHINX CORREQUENQUE. 
 
 SCULPTURES OP THE PERIOD OF THE INCAS, FOUND BY THE AUTHOR IN THE BACK-YARD OF A HOUSE IN THE CALLE DEL TRIUNFO. 
 
 wood of the huarango (Mimosa luted) fixed in the joints of the stones, and become by 
 lapse of time as soft and spongy as German tinder. As to the transport of these blocks, 
 they were carried, according to their size, on the backs of the men, or with the help 
 of their arms. Garcilaso, whose relationship with the Incas entitles him to be regarded 
 sometimes as the best informed of the historiographers of the Conquest, as he is also 
 the coolest liar 3 among them all, whom we have read and re-read, and annotated in 
 
 1 Tin and glass were also known to these indigenes, they call the first yuractiti (white lead), and the second cquespy. 
 There is the less reason for doubt in this respect, because the Peruvians never gave the Quichua names to things brought 
 among them by their Spanish conquerors, but contented themselves with the names which the latter gave them. Hence 
 the large number of Castilian vocables which have corrupted the original purity of the Quichua idiom. 
 
 2 The two sculptures found by me in the back-court of a house in the street of Triumph — one that of a sphinx 
 Correquenque (vulture-gryphon), the other that of a naiad ci'owned with rushes, which served as a fountain, as proved 
 by the leaden pipes placed in her mouth and her breasts and the greenish tint which the water has given to the stone — 
 however coarse they may seem, must have been fashioned with a chisel and a mallet in some way, because we cannot 
 reasonably admit that they were cut with blows of a flint, a process, says Garcilaso, employed by the workmen in the 
 time of the Incas, who cut and jrolished with blows of hard flints called hihuanas the stones destined for their edifices, 
 and, he adds, gnawed and crumbled rather than cut them. 
 
 3 The gasconnades, at once simple and audacious, scattered at random through the works of Garcilaso and his 
 competitor, Pedro de Cieea, would fill a considerable volume. We cite the following hap-hazard by way of specimens: — 
 
 Speaking of the maltecllu (Hi/drocotijle multiflora), which from the time of Garcilaso the Indians have eaten as a 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 207 
 
 the very localities which inspired him, and whom for that reason we cite with ex- 
 treme reserve, makes mention, in his Comentarios Reales, of blocks weighing 20,000 
 metrical quintals (1000 tons), which the Indians were compelled to leave on the road. 
 These masses, which he designates by the name of piedras cansadas (fatigue-stones), 
 may be actually seen in certain localities of the Sierra. Let us hasten to add for the 
 edification of the public, abused by ingenuous and credulous travellers who, on the faith 
 of Garcilaso, have measured with their astonished eyes these fatigue-stones, that they 
 are nearly all what geologists call drift-blocks; but are occasionally composed of the 
 granite rock itself cropping out in the form of polyhedral masses, some of them cubic 
 or rectangular, and inclined to the north-west. 
 
 After the historiographers and commentators come the archaeologists, who have taken 
 the trouble to class the American monuments by epochs according to the nature of 
 the material employed in their construction. According to these gentlemen the stone 
 edifices are the most ancient; those of brick come next in point of time, and con- 
 structions of earth and stone are the most modern. This scheme, however, is inad- 
 missible, because we find on both continents and among the same nations the three 
 kinds of material used simultaneously in constructions of the same epoch. Thus the 
 edifices of Teotihuacan in the state of Mexico, attributed to the Olmecs, one of the 
 most ancient nations established in New Spain, present in two teocallis, dedicated 
 to Tonatiuh and Meztli, the sun and moon, the use of clay, of small stones, and of 
 blocks of porphyritic sandstone serving to plate the exterior The pyramid of Cholula 
 in the state of Puebla, constructed by the Toltecs, is composed of layers of clay, 
 earthen bricks dried in the sun iocamilli), and of blocks of stone. By the side of these 
 structures we find other monuments both of a more remote and a more recent date 
 built exclusively of stone. Such are those of Mitla, attributed to the Tzapotecs, and 
 those of Culhuacan or Palenque. The exclusive use of stone, or of sun-dried bricks 
 alternately with it, characterizes equally the constructions of Canada, Florida, and 
 Yucatan. 
 
 The same observation applies to South America, for example to the remains found 
 in Cundinamarca, the seat of the civilization of the Muyscas, whose antiquity appears to 
 be greater than that of the Aztecs, if we admit the period of 2000 years which these 
 
 salad, and of which they made poultices for sore eyes, which they no longer do in our day, our historiographer recites 
 the marvellous cure which he operated with the above-named herb. A translation of his words would" only weaken 
 them: — " Yo se la puse a un muchacho que tenia un ojo para saltarli del casco: estava inflamado como un pimiento, sin 
 divisarse lo bianco >ii prielo del ojo, sino hccho una came y lo tenia ya medio caido sobre el carillo, y la primera noche que 
 le puse la yerva, se restituyo el ojo a su lugar, y la segunda quedo del todo sano y bueno. Despues acd he visto el moco en 
 Espaha, y me ha dicho que ve mas dc aquel ojo que tuvo enfermo que del otroP The reflection which terminates this recital 
 is a true touch of comedy. 
 
 Again: "The first pomegranates that appeared in America in the seventeenth century were carried in triumph in 
 the procession of the Host. They were as big as half a hogshead ; but the times are changed. In our day, and notwith- 
 standing the indisputable though slow progress of cultivation and the application of huano, which was not used in the 
 seventeenth century among the first Spanish colonists, the finest pomegranates grown in the western valleys of the Pacific 
 do not exceed in dimensions the size of a large orange." 
 
 As to Pedro de Cieca, he tells us he has seen (seen with his own eyes, or what lie calls seen) among the peoples of the 
 Sierra, but what people he forgets to name, on the stalls of the pork-butchers, cutlets, beefsteaks, and fillets of human 
 flesh, regularly cut up and set out for sale, as well as pates, puddings, and force-meat balls (morcillas y longanisas), 
 made of the flesh, the blood, and the bowels of men. 
 
208 
 
 PERU. 
 
 peoples place between the advent of Bochica their legislator and the first dynasty 
 of the Huancas, his successors. The materials employed in these constructions were 
 successive layers of stone and clay mixed with chopped straw or small stones. Under 
 the equator among the Puruays of Lican, whose subjugation was completed by the 
 Incas about the end of the fifteenth century, the remains of their edifices are also 
 found to be constructed of stone alternating with sun-dried bricks (tica, tapia, and 
 adobe). Tiahuanacu, whose civilization appears to date from the same epoch as the 
 establishment of the Muyscas in the neighbourhood of Bogota, presents, together with 
 the remains of edifices constructed of porphyritic and carboniferous sandstone, some 
 
 EUINS OF A FORTRESS OF SUN-DRIED BRICKS (TAPIAS) IN THE DISTRICT OF OLLANTAY-TAMPU. 
 
 debris of earthen walls. Such are the ruins of two edifices situated about three miles 
 east-south-east from the actual village in the middle of a desert plain. 
 
 After these monuments of divers countries aud ages, come the constructions built 
 by the Incas, and those the last of the series, since they do not mount higher than 
 to the middle of the eleventh century. All these constructions are of stone; sun- 
 dried bricks are employed only in four or five fortresses at different points in the 
 Sierra, edifices of no architectural importance which the Incas erected on the boundary 
 of the newly conquered territories, and the best preserved specimen of which exists 
 upon the left bank of the Quillabamba, in the district of Ollantay-Tampu. 
 
 If, as these facts justify us in concluding, the nature of the materials and their 
 supposed exclusive use in the monuments of the two Americas fail to furnish arguments 
 of any value whatever in respect to the antiquity of these nations, they throw a clear 
 light, on the other hand, upon their common origin, and at the same time bear testi- 
 mony as to the countries from which they borrowed their architectural ideas, their 
 various methods of construction, and even the use of the materials which they employed. 
 We have seen that they derived from the ancient Egyptians their method of extracting 
 blocks from the quarry, of working them on the spot, and of transporting them by 
 manual labour. Their method of fixing the stones, without lime or cement, by continual 
 rubbing and the addition of a little water to make them adhere more perfectly, is 
 evidently borrowed from the orientals, 1 as likewise is their idea of monolithic construc- 
 
 1 See Strabo — Cliardin — Niebuhr. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 209 
 
 tions. The use of dried bricks alternately with stones of all sizes is common to them 
 and the Persians, the Medes, the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, and the Babylonians. 
 The simultaneous use of these materials is observable in the ruins of Persepolis, 
 Ecbatana, Nineveh, Borsippa, and Babylon. Even China is not excluded from the 
 list of oriental nations which have furnished these ancient Americans with the idea 
 of some one of their constructions. The revetment of certain teocallis, the disposition 
 of the pucaras or fortresses, the chimpus and andanerias serving at once as sustaining 
 walls and lines of demarkation or defence, often more than a thousand yards long, 
 resemble the walls built by the peoples of the Mongol race which are every day being 
 discovered in the eastern part of Asia. 
 
 After this rapid coup-d'ceil of the presumable origin and the intellectual develop- 
 ment of the American nations, we pass on to consider that last fraction of them, the 
 dynasty of the Incas, which carried into Peru the worship, and the traditions, then 
 almost effaced, of the old Orient. 
 
 Local tradition, when the clouds which obscure it are dispersed, represent Manco- 
 Capac and his sister Mama Ocllo as having come from the hot valleys situated beyond 
 the Cordillera, to the east of the Lake of Titicaca. These valleys, lying between Apolo- 
 bamba and the sources of the Rio Beni, now belong to Bolivia, and are commonly 
 designated by the name of the Yungas of La Paz. 
 
 Carrying a rod of gold, the emblem of power, 1 the new Horus, pastor of the peoples 
 to come, crossed the punas of Collao, followed by his companion, and after a march 
 of 240 miles in a north-westerly direction, arrived on the heights of Huanacote" 
 (now Huanacauri), where he discovered a vast circular quebrada surrounded by moun- 
 tains, which he fixed upon for his residence. The city that he subsequently built 
 in the centre of this quebrada bore the name of Ccozgco (now Cuzco), which signifies 
 the point of attachment, or navel. 
 
 In a short time the people of the environs rallied to his voice, and drawn by his 
 eloquence and the charming life he pictured, which recalled perhaps the primitive state 
 from which they had declined, accepted his laws, and exchanged the precarious life 
 of the chase for that of agriculture. While Manco instructed the men to cultivate 
 the ground and dig canals for irrigation, Mama Ocllo taught the women to spin the 
 wool of the vicunas and alpacas, and weave the stuffs necessary for the clothing 
 of the family, and initiated them into their duties as wives and mothers. The city 
 was planned in the form of a parallelogram of no great extent; its greatest length 
 was from north-east to south-west, and it had no wall. A stream descending from the 
 Cordillera bounded the south side of the city, and at a later period divided it in two, 
 when under the successive reigns of thirteen emperors the boundaries of the primitive 
 acropolis had extended northward to Huancaro and southward to Sapi. 
 
 The inequality of the ground caused the city to be divided into two parts (fau- 
 bourgs), the upper town called Hariri, now San Cristoval, the lower Hanan, now 
 the quarter of the cathedral. After the erection of the Inca's palace in the upper 
 
 1 Some modern writers have spoken, but erroneously, of a wedge of gold. The Spanish texts agreeing as regards 
 — una vara de dot pies de largo y un dedo de grueso — can have no equivocal meaning. 
 
 vol. I. 27 
 
210 
 
 PERU. 
 
 town and of the houses for the people, the first edifices built in the lower town were 
 the temple of the Sun and the Accllhuaci, or palace of the Virgins consecrated to its 
 worship. These two edifices, commenced by Manco, were not finished till fifty years 
 after the foundation of the city, by his eldest son, Sinchiroca. For half a century the 
 temple of the Sun was nothing but an inclosed space (chimpu). Its walls were con- 
 structed of unwrought stones, and in the centre of the area was a square pillar roughly 
 chipped into shape, like the hirmensul or Druidical stone of the Sun; at once the 
 letter and the symbol, the altar and the image, of the divinity. 
 
 After some years devoted to the organization of the rising city, Manco began 
 a crusade among the surrounding populations east, west, north, and south. His 
 enterprise, undertaken in the name of the Sun, whose eldest son and envoy he styled 
 himself, had both a religious and a political object, that of spreading among the 
 infidels the worship of Helios-Churi, and of augmenting at the same time the number 
 of his subjects and his possessions. This apostolic mission, which continued many 
 years, resulted in the subjugation of some score of peoples spread over an area extending 
 to thirty miles round the capital, and to the annexation of their territory to the empire. 
 Under Manco the limits of the empire were at Quiquijana on the south, Ollantay- 
 Tampu on the north, Paucartampu on the east, and Limatampu on the west. 
 
 After a reign of some fifty years Manco died, leaving his power in the hands of 
 his eldest son, Sinchiroca. Already the empire w T as organized, the religion of the Sun 
 was founded, its powers established, its exterior worship assured, and the policy of 
 the rulers distinctly marked out. Manco had foreseen everything; his successors 
 had only to continue his work. 
 
 On mounting the throne Sinchiroca took for his wife, according to the custom 
 of the primitive races, his eldest sister Mama Cora. 1 He finished the temple of the 
 Sun and the palace of the Virgins, and, following the example of his father, undertook 
 a series of pacific conquests, which aggrandized by twenty-one square miles the empire 
 of the Incas. The exterior sign of power adopted by Manco was a roll or fillet of 
 variously coloured wool, which was twisted five times round the head, its two ends 
 falling upon the shoulder. Sinchiroca substituted for this ornament a fillet of nine 
 variously coloured threads, like the former, but girdling the forehead like a crown. 
 Like his father he had his ears lengthened some nine or ten inches, and a wooden 
 ring about ten inches in circumference suspended to the lobe. This fashion, which all 
 the Incas adhered to, 2 proves clearly that the founder of their dynasty had long resided 
 in eastern regions, among the long-eared nations from whom are probably sprung the 
 Botocudos of Brazil, as well as the Orejones, the Ccotos, and the Anguieros of Peru. 
 
 1 These unions in the families of the Incas had for their object the preservation of the purity of race. To increase 
 their prestige in the eyes of their subjects, and give to their origin a divine source, they pretended that in the marriage 
 of brother and sister, they followed the example of their father Churi (the Sun), who married his sister Quilla (the 
 Moon). 
 
 2 The sculptors of Hnamanga and the painters of Cuzco of the eighteenth century, as well as the artists who 
 succeeded them, have not taken care, from their regard for the form and worship of bonito (the beautiful), to give to 
 the statuettes and portraits of the Incas these extravagant ears, the attribute of their race. While pointing out this 
 designed omission on their part, we have ourselves hastened to repair it, from respect for local colour, and without 
 
 disquieting ourselves about the artistic effect. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 211 
 
 After a peaceful reign of forty years, Sinchiroca died, or as his faithful folloAvers 
 say, went to rest from the fatigues of existence in the domains of his well-beloved 
 father, the Sun. 
 
 Loqui Yupanqui, the eldest son of Sinchiroca, succeeded to his power, and 
 continued to extend the bounds of the empire. But it was no longer by that persuasive 
 eloquence which Manco had recommended to his successors when confronting savage 
 tribes that the new Inca recruited his subjects. The force of arms was tried, and 
 during his reign the provinces of Collao were annexed to the empire, and fortresses 
 of rammed clay built on the borders of the conquered territory. It is to Loqui 
 Yupanqui that historians have attributed the erection of astronomical observatories in 
 the higher and lower towns of Cuzco. These observatories were seen by the Spaniards, 
 and were in existence about thirty years after the Conquest. If the idea of their 
 erection is to be referred to a remote epoch, it is necessary to observe that they were 
 no more like the Mexican teocallis than the pyramidal edifices of Chaldea and Egypt. 
 They were simply quadrangular pillars of unequal height, arranged in two groups 
 of eight pillars, four of which were large and four small. They were united together 
 by chains of gold. One of these monolithic groups was situated in the east of the 
 city, the other in the west. The position of the sun in relation to the pillars indicated 
 to astronomers the epoch of the solstices and equinoxes. Some of the palaces had 
 dwarf pillars of this kind placed in the middle of their courts to serve as gnomons. 
 The March equinox was celebrated by grand processions round the bean and corn fields. 
 That of September gave occasion to great rejoicings. The revolution of the earth 
 round the sun, and of the moon round the earth, were known to these peoples. The 
 first they called Huata, meaning the year, and the duration of a month (each month 
 having its own particular name) they called Quilla, from the moon. 
 
 Eclipses terrified them. On seeing the face of the moon grow dark, they 
 imagined she was sick, and would fall down and annihilate them. To avert this 
 catastrophe, they made a frightful uproar, beating drums, clashing cymbals, blowing 
 trumpets, and thrashing their dogs to make them howl. As the moon has a par- 
 ticular affection for dogs, and clogs, on their part, love the moon — in whose face 
 they look with tenderness, and break out into a romantic howling on quiet moonlit 
 nights — the moon, seeing her friends abused, and hearing their cries, experienced a 
 lively emotion, which was supposed to hasten her cure. The days on which eclipses 
 of the moon happened were regarded as "bad days," and called punchau. The 
 morning which preceded them was called pacari, and the night which followed tuta. 
 
 The lunar spots, which they were also acquainted with, as they were with the 
 revolution of Venus, the Milky Way, and the Southern Cross, 1 were attributed to 
 an enchantment as old as the age of gold, when beasts had the gift of language. 
 A fox, the legend went, seeing the moon so white, so round, so fascinating, and 
 taking it for a cheese, sprang towards it with the idea of snapping it up, but the 
 star of night, disagreeably impressed by the odour of the beast, seized him in her 
 
 1 Venus, on account of her radiancy, was called Coyllur Chascca, the star with the bristling hair (the French cke- 
 velure means streaming light as well as hair). The Milky Way they called Cataclrillay, and the Southern Cross Crinita. 
 
212 
 
 PERU. 
 
 arms, and was about to throw him into space, when a magic charm united the one to 
 the other for ever. For other particulars of this astronomical system see Garcilaso, 
 Pedro de Cieca, and Acosta. 
 
 It was during the reign of Loqui Yupanqui that poesy, literature, music, philo- 
 sophy, and the sciences represented by medicine as well as astronomy, as we shall 
 immediately see, made their first timid essays. Poesy limited itself to the composi- 
 tion of little poems of ten or a dozen strophes in eight-syllable lines of blank-verse, 
 the compositions of the yaravicus (poets). These works, called yaravis, 1 from the name 
 of their composers, were at first songs of victory, odes, and dithyrambs in celebration 
 of the triumphs of the Inca, his personal qualities, and his power. In course of time 
 they assumed other forms, and told of love, of nature, and of flowers. 2 The usual 
 figures in this kind of poesy are borrowed from the most beautiful objects of creation. 
 The star, the flower, the turtle-dove, and the butterfly play the first part in them, one 
 might say the only part. If the style of these compositions is almost always florid, the 
 form is poor, the idea puerile, the sentiment cold and artificial. Like its elder sister, 
 the poetry of the Zend races, that of the yaravicus of Peru is characterized by a 
 drowsy monotony, reminding one, though distantly, of the eternal loves of the Persian 
 rose and bulbul. The only difference to note between the Indo-Persian poets and 
 their compeers of the American continent is the graceful freshness which characterizes 
 the works of the former and the profound melancholy which marks those of the latter. 
 In the poesy of the western Aryans, notwithstanding the constant return of the same 
 images and their fatiguing monotony, one may fancy he hears, in the pure atmosphere 
 of the morning, the lark singing to the light. In the poesy of the yaravicus we seem 
 to hear the plaintive note of the goat-sucker (Caprimulgus americanus) on the approach 
 of twilight. The rapture of love is never expressed in the works of the yaravicus. If 
 passion enters into them, it is like a subdued flame or ardour without hope. 
 
 These little poems were recited by the yaravicus themselves, who were at 
 once composers and rhapsodists. As in the old Greek and Latin times, flute or 
 flageolet players gave the note to the declaimers, and sustained the modulation. 
 These instruments were made of reeds, and were of various sizes. Some, with 
 three holes, were called the pincullns, others, with five or six holes, the qqueynas. 
 The peoples of Collao used a Pandean pipe or mouth-organ. The pincullu was 
 played in the ordinary manner, but the player of the qqueyna placed the mouth 
 of his instrument in an empty jar, kneeling before which he played into it to 
 augment the sound. This kind of melody is still heard in the Sierra, and some- 
 times several performers indulge in it at the same time. We may imagine the 
 discord of all these instruments playing hap-hazarcl, but the racket cannot very 
 well be described. 
 
 1 Literally, sad songs; yaravicu, the author or composer of sad songs. The yaravis of the present day are 
 simple romances, the music of which is always written in the minor key, and in a very slow movement. They are 
 sung to the accompaniment of the guitar. We will give a specimen further on. 
 
 2 The most modern of these yaravis, and at the same time the most celebrated, is entitled the Pica-flor de 
 Uuasear-Inca (Inca Hnascar's Humming-bird). It is said to have been composed some years before the Spanish 
 conquest. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 213 
 
 The peoples of Collao, historiographers inform us, were the cleverest flutists in 
 the world. By means of the flute and mouth-organ they conversed with each other 
 from a distance, giving to certain notes a distinct value, and asking or replying to 
 questions about their health, their flocks, the weather, the probability of a good or 
 bad harvest, &c. Time and experience enabled them to formulate more complex 
 ideas: love -passages, business matters, and even small talk, arrangements to meet 
 or to travel, were all translatable into a tune on the flute or pipe. This musical 
 language was so generally understood, that a lover playing on his flute at the door 
 of his mistress would indiscreetly reveal to passers-by all that we in Europe take so 
 much trouble to conceal. 
 
 In times of war the soft notes of the pincullu, the qqueyna, and the Pandean 
 pipe were strengthened by the clash of golden cymbals and the patter of little 
 
 drums, on which they struck with one hand only, as on a box. At a later period, 
 when the Incas had extended their conquests as far as the shores of the Pacific 
 Ocean, horns of Amnion (pututus) added their cavernous moanings to the strength of 
 the before-mentioned orchestra. 
 
 If poesy was the resource of the yaravicus, literature had for its representatives 
 the amautas, who were at once astronomers, dramatists, and philosophers. Their 
 works consisted of tragedies, comedies, and something resembling morality plays. 
 Farce, so much used and abused in more enlightened countries during the last four 
 centuries, was interdicted. The ordinary subject of the tragedies was borrowed 
 from the wars and the triumphs of the Inca. Comedy dealt with agricultural 
 operations and domestic affairs; and the morality plays consisted of a series of 
 sentences, aphorisms, and maxims, which two actors addressed to each other 
 before the assembled court. In the tragical and comical performances the reigning 
 Inca habitually played the first role; the secondary parts were taken by his rela- 
 tions or the principal dignitaries. The coya (empress) and the pallets, or women 
 of the court, took no part in these divertissements, and were present only in the 
 character of spectators. It is the same at the present day among all the savage 
 tribes of the Cordillera, where the men do the drinking, howling, and dancing, 
 while the women, squatted on the ground, look at them without saying a word. 
 
 Medicine was limited to the knowledge and application of a few simples. The 
 custom of bleeding by means of a needle made of hard stone, which served as a 
 lancet, and the use of violent drastics, were familiar to them. One of these purga- 
 
 PH YSIC-BOTTLE MADE OF PORPHYROID TRACHYTE. 
 
214 
 
 PERU. 
 
 tives was a white root very similar to a wild turnip. After having eaten it, they 
 exposed the stomach to the sun, praying to their god to hasten the effect of the 
 remedy. At the end of a moment they fell into frightful convulsions, straightened 
 themselves out at full length, ran, jumped, fell again on the ground, and rolled 
 about, howling and foaming like epileptics. Garcilaso has related, with a naivete 
 which is characteristic of him, the details of the diabolical treatment to which he 
 was subjected by his relations, who, as descendants of the Incas, had religiously 
 preserved the formulae and the prescriptions of the olden time. 
 
 To this rapid coup-d'ceil of literature and poesy, art and science, in the times of 
 the first Incas of Peru, we believe it our duty to add some specimens of the voca- 
 bulary of the same period. The Quichua words in our list, extended by others 
 collected from different idioms which we shall meet with in the course of our 
 journey, will form a table of philological specimens, the analogy and comparison of 
 which will not be uninteresting to some of our readers. If there are any whom 
 such an essay in comparative philology is likely to embarrass, or send to sleep, we 
 beg them to accept in advance our very humble apologies. 
 
 QUICHUA VOCABULARY. 
 
 God . . . . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 eye 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 day 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . . . paray. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 lightning. . . . 
 
 . . . illu illu. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 hand 
 
 . . . maqui. 
 
 
 
 finger 
 
 . . . ruccana. 
 
 fire 
 
 . . . nina. 
 
 belly 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 leg 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . . . IlIllL 
 
 foot 
 
 . chaqui. 
 
 
 
 
 . . . tullu. 
 
 
 
 
 
 child 
 
 
 
 
 father ..... 
 
 . . . taj ta. 
 
 bee-hive .... 
 
 . huasi huaucuyru. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 old 
 
 
 tiger 
 
 
 young 
 
 . . . huayna. 
 
 guinea-pig . . . 
 
 . . . huangana. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ClOg ..coo 
 
 . . . alccu. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 215 
 
 1*™ 1 
 
 
 a woman's mantle . . 
 
 . llicclla. 
 
 
 
 tissue or woven stuff 
 
 . ahuan. 
 
 
 
 
 . ririnchana. 
 
 
 
 
 i ii 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 T_ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 parroquet 
 
 . uritu. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 drum 
 
 . huancar. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . motelu. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . poque. 
 
 
 . sayri. 
 
 
 
 
 . achiote. 
 
 
 
 
 . huitoch. 
 
 
 . urcu. 
 
 manioc (cassava) . . 
 
 . yuca. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . rnayu. 
 
 beer made of maize . . 
 
 . acca. 
 
 
 . cocha. 
 
 tortoise (fresh- water) 
 
 . charapa. 
 
 
 . ccaspi. 
 
 toad 
 
 . am pat u. 
 
 
 . satcha. 
 
 frog 
 
 . cayra. 
 
 
 
 ■fi.-,!-. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 : i 
 
 ■fl .r- 
 
 fl y 
 
 . chuspi. 
 
 
 
 mosquito 
 
 . huanhua. 
 
 
 
 
 
 bank 
 
 . ccauitu. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . yura. 
 
 
 . lanjpa. 
 
 
 
 
 . canoa. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . keellu. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 | iscay. 
 
 
 . komer. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . quimsa. 
 
 
 
 
 . tahua. 
 
 
 
 
 . pichcca. 
 
 
 rejon. 
 
 
 
 
 . pucuhana, 
 
 
 
 poison (for weapons) 
 
 . hampi. 
 
 
 . puzac. 
 
 a man's clothing . . . 
 
 . uucu. 
 
 
 . isccon. 
 
 
 . chulio. 
 
 
 . chunca. 
 
 As far as twenty the Quichnas of that time, like their descendants of the present 
 day, placed their ten before unity; for example: — 
 
 chunca-huc eleven. 
 
 chunca-isca twelve. 
 
 chunca-quimsa thirteen, &c. 
 
 On reaching twenty, or more correctly twice ten — isca-chunca — they put unity 
 before the ten. 
 
 isca-chunca-huc 
 isca-chunca-isca . 
 isca- chunca- quimsa 
 
 . twenty-one. 
 . twenty-two. 
 . twenty-three, &c. 
 
216 
 
 PERU. 
 
 So also for thirty, or three times ten — quimsa-chunca; forty — tahua-chunca; fifty — 
 pichcca-chunca ; sixty — zocta-chunca; seventy — cchanchis-chunca; eighty — puzac-cliunca; 
 ninety — isccon-cliunca ; 
 
 a hundred pachac. 
 
 a thousaud huaranea. 
 
 ten thousand chunca-huaranca. 
 
 a hundred thousand . . . pachac- huaranea. 
 
 a million chunca-pachac-huaranca. 
 
 On reaching ten times a hundred thousand, or a million — hunu — they left off count- 
 ing, and called anything beyond panta cliina, the innumerable sum. 1 
 
 Mayta Capac succeeded his father Loqui Yupanqui. The reign of this fourth Inca, 
 whom historians place at the commencement of the thirteenth century, is celebrated for 
 the discovery of the ruins of Tiahuanacu, the invention of suspension -bridges, and 
 the great aggrandizement of the empire. The apologists of the Spanish conquests 
 have tracked the march of Mayta Capac across the provinces of Puno, La Paz, and 
 Oruro, as far as the Lake of Paria in the south, and in the west his exploration of 
 the provinces of Cailloma, Chumbihuilcas, Velilla, Union, Aymaraes, Paucartampu, 
 and Arequipa. That itinerary, which appears so strange when followed out on a 
 map of Peru, is explained by the topographical ignorance of the conqueror in regard 
 to the countries which he overran, or rather across which he marched hap-hazard. I 
 have already given some details concerning the Aymaras, the primitive inhabitants 
 of the neighbourhood of Collao, which old authors call Culhahua, and related how 
 they were treated by Mayta Capac. 
 
 Capac Yupanqui, the fifth Inca, succeeded his father Mayta Capac. At the head 
 of 20,000 men he took the road to Arequipa, subdued the Yanahuaras, completed the 
 subjugation of the Aymaras of Cuntisuyu (the region of the west), and invaded that 
 part of the coast country comprised between the 17th and 19th degrees of latitude, 
 then occupied by the Chanquis (Changos). After some years of repose he made an 
 expedition southward, and passing beyond the province of Paria, already subdued by 
 his father, he pushed on as far as Challante" in Upper Peru, which formed the limit 
 of his conquests. 
 
 His son Roca was contented with the subjugation of the peoples established to 
 the north of Cuzco, between that city and the province of Amancaes, where grew 
 in abundance those beautiful yellow lilies {Narcissus Amancaes) which have since been 
 called the Lily of the Incas. There are no more lilies in that province, which has 
 also changed its name from Amancaes to Abancay. The Inca Roca has the credit 
 of having founded the first schools where the amautas publicly taught astronomy, 
 philosophy, and literature, and the yaravicus poesy and music, or rather the musical 
 conceits, of which we have spoken above. 
 
 1 We are indebted to the Spanish Jesuit Antonio Ricardo for a grammar and a vocabulary combined of the Quichua 
 idiom. A copy of this work in 18mo, and printed on coarse paper, but gilt-edged for the occasion, was pi-esented to 
 Louis XV. by the academician La Condamine, on his return from Quito. 
 
 Some years subsequently the Jesuits Diego de Torres Rubio and Juan Figueredo also published a combined grammar 
 aud vocabulary of Quichua (Lima, 1754). These works have become extremely rare in the country where they were 
 written and published. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 217 
 
 To the Inca Rocca, succeeded his eldest son Yahuar-Huaccac. His first conquests 
 southward resulted in the enslavement of the Carangas in Upper Peru, of the Llipis 
 in the great desert of Atacama, of the Chicas, grouped between the 22d and 23d 
 degrees of latitude, of the Amparaes established on one of the affluents of the Pilcomayo, 
 and of the Chancas, riverside inhabitants of Mapocho or Paucartampu. Eastward, this 
 Inca pushed his expeditions beyond Mapocho, crossed the snowy chain of Huilcanota 
 (Vilcanota), and penetrated into the Trans-Andean valleys of Havisca, Tono, and 
 Chaupimayo, which he annexed to the empire. During his absence a revolt, excited 
 by his son Viracocha (Huira-Cocha), broke out at Cuzco. Deposed by his subjects, 
 who had elected Viracocha in his place, Yahuar-Huaccac put himself at the head 
 of the recently conquered Chancas, re-entered the capital of the empire, and gave it 
 up to pillage. Afterwards being repulsed from Cuzco and defeated in a battle with 
 his son Viracocha, at a place called Yahuar-Pampa (the Plain of Blood), he was com- 
 pelled to abdicate and retire into private life. It was in the reign of Yahuar-Huaccac 
 that huano was first employed as manure by the populations of the Sierra. 1 
 
 The reign of Viracocha is celebrated for the extension which this Inca gave to 
 agriculture, the aqueducts which he caused to be constructed, and the irrigation 
 canals which he had dug. He also erected many temples to the Sun, among others 
 one at some distance from the volcano of Racchi, in remembrance of a dream that he 
 had in his youth. 2 Historians have credited him with the reduction of eleven provinces, 
 but as none of them are designated by name, and as the conquests of his successor 
 commence at the point to which Yahuar-Huaccac had extended the empire before him, 
 we must conclude that the Spanish authors have mistakenly seen in the inspection 
 which this Inca made of eleven provinces the conquest of them. The error is all the 
 more probable, as the Incas were in the habit, at certain periods, of visiting the 
 provinces of their empire, either to improve the administration of the curacas or 
 governors of those provinces, or to assure themselves that their orders tending to the 
 same end had been faithfully executed. 
 
 Pachacutec succeeded to Viracocha. After the deposition of the father by the 
 son, we see the grandson violating the law which Manco had imposed on his descend- 
 ants, in order to preserve in its native purity the blood of the Children of the Sun. 
 Instead of marrying a sister, he united himself to a noble woman of illegitimate birth, 
 a simple Palla of the name of Mama Anahuarqui. 3 The conquests of this sovereign, 
 directed towards the north-west, comprised the provinces of Huaylas, Pilcopampa, 
 and Conchuco, extending beyond Cajamarca. He is said to have built many temples 
 to the Sun in the provinces subjugated by his predecessors. 
 
 1 From the time of the Incas these deposits of huano, still untouched, formed upon the islets and rocks of the 
 shores of the Pacific a range of couical eminences which were visible at a great distance owing to their whiteness. 
 Every year this huano was distributed to the indigenes in certaiu quantities according to the extent of the lands they 
 cultivated. Sentinels were posted for its protection, and the penalty for being found on the islets or rocks, at the period 
 when the birds (huaneros) laid and hatched their eggs, was death. 
 
 2 We have already looked up the site of Yahuar-Pampa, meutioned the events which it recalls, and given an en- 
 graved view of the ruins of the temple of Viracocha. 
 
 3 The ruins of his palace still exist on the hill of Apuchanca, beyond the village of Cchoco, about three-quarters of 
 a mile from the baths of Huancaro, and three miles north-west of Cuzco. 
 
 VOL I. 28 
 
218 
 
 PERU. 
 
 Down to the time of Viracocha, the diadem of the Incas had been a fillet of nine 
 woollen threads, which Sinchirocha, the son of Manco, had substituted for the simple 
 cordon (llautu) worn by his father. To that band which surrounded the chulio or 
 bonnet of brown wool, the form of which reminds us of the Phrygian cap, some Incas 
 had added a golden plate surmounted with golden myrtle-leaves, or an aigrette made 
 of the tail of a bird [Ardea alba). After the time of Loqui Yupanqui, golden ear- 
 rings, as big round as a saucer, had been adapted to this head-dress. As for the kingly 
 sceptre, it had varied in form under each reign. Pachacutec, on the promulgation 
 of his new sumptuary laws, adopted for his crown a golden mitre with fillets or falling 
 bands of the same metal, which recall the pschent of the Egyptian sphinxes. This 
 mitre had for its aigrette two wing-feathers, half white and half black, of the corre- 
 quenque (Vultur gryphui). A woollen fringe of a dull red colour, of two fingers' breadth, 
 and falling over the forehead just above the eyes, was added to this coiffure, 1 which was 
 completed by the golden ear-rings spoken of above. 
 
 The primitive garments of the Incas consisted of a short shirt made in one piece, 
 called the uncu, 2 and a mantle called the llacolla. Pachacutec added to these, golden 
 knee-coverings, and sandals of the same metal, engraved with the image of the Sun. 
 A shield carried for display, and a sceptre of gold and silver, in allusion to the sun 
 and moon, and which was called cliamppi (signifying an alloy of the two metals), com- 
 pleted the new costume, which the successors of Pachacutec varied and embellished yet 
 further. To the exclusive use up to that time of woollen stuffs, this Inca added that of 
 cotton stuffs, the material for which was supplied by the subject nations beyond the 
 Cordillera in the nature of tribute. These nations had to furnish besides, perfumes, 
 fragrant woods for making the frames of litters, and feathers used for the achihuas, 
 many-coloured parasols which the deformed dwarfs who filled at court the office of 
 buffoons, held over the emperor's head. The woven designs assumed in time a mar- 
 vellous delicacy, and in place of the three or four colours uniformly repeated hitherto in 
 the woollen stuffs, presented some variety of shades. Threads of gold and silver were 
 woven in to brighten up the colours, always a little dull. 3 
 
 It was in the reign of Pachacutec that the ceramic art reached its perfection. Those 
 vessels, of a material so fine, so pure in their outlines, or so decided in their originality, 
 which we still admire, date from this epoch, and served as models to the potters of 
 succeeding reigns. Some specimens in gold and silver filigree represent expanded flowers, 
 butterflies with their wings spread, birds with their tails displayed and fashioned 
 like perfume-burners, statuettes of gold and silver, and electrum (champi souffle), in a 
 style which recalls Etrurian and Egyptian art, — men and women coiffed with the 
 
 1 This diadem, called mascca paycha, was somewhat similar to that of the Aztec emperors, called maxtlatl. 
 
 2 This is the ichcahuepilli of the ancient Mexicans; it is not unlike the short shirt of the modern Arabs and the 
 antique garment of the Egyptians. 
 
 3 We have seen in a private collection one of these yacollas (Uacollas), the long mantle worn by the Incas, and 
 which reminds us of the pallium of the Romans. This specimen was of white cotton, very thick, crossed by stripes 
 of three fingers' breadth about six inches apart, which were combined in the most fantastical manner. Some took the 
 form of the Greek border, some were meandering, some interlaced, some like a draught-board, some like heraldic billets, 
 some formed crosses, some stars, and combined with all were hieroglyphic characters and figures of men and women, 
 quadrupeds and birds. Painted in dull colours, it resembled at a short distance a tissue of cashmere. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 221 
 
 pschent, and fashioned like termini; 1 — all these objects, discovered in the tombs after 
 the Spanish conquest, or preserved as curiosities in old families who have inherited 
 them as heirlooms, date from the reign of Pachacutec, and witness to the solicitude of 
 that Inca for the plastic arts. 
 
 Tradition ascribes to Pachacutec a series of philosophical maxims, which one might 
 believe had been taken from the Proverbs of Solomon ; we will cite a few of them for 
 the edification of our readers. 
 
 THE INDIAN OF ALARCON — AN EARTHENWARE VESSEL OF THE PERIOD OF THE INCAS. 
 
 "The wages of honest folk will be lost if thieves are not hung." 
 "He who kills another without reason or without authority condemns himself to 
 death." 
 
 "Envy is an adder which gnaws the entrails of the envious." 
 "He who envies and is envied suffers a double torment." 
 
 "The judge who seeks to suppress the claims of "another ought to be treated as a 
 thief, and judged and condemned as such." 
 
 "The doctor or the dealer in simples, who administers his medicines or his herbs 
 without knowing their virtues, is a fool worthy of contempt." 
 
 "He who pretends to count the stars, and cannot tell the number of them, deserves 
 that one should laugh in his face." 
 
 To Pachacutec, succeeded his eldest son, Yupanqni. Following the example of 
 his great-grandfather, Yahuar-Huaccac, he crossed the snowy Cordillera of Huilcanota, 
 penetrated into the valleys of the east, among the peoples who inhabited both sides of 
 
 1 The engravings on the next page are defective ; cteis rigida phallusque erectus, qme insigniehant hcec simulacra 
 illaque conjungebant aigyptiacis imaginibus, adcmpta sunt pudoris causa. 
 
222 
 
 PERU. 
 
 the Amaru-Mayu, 1 reduced some of them, and passing through the country of Musus, 2 
 from which he reached that of the Chirihuanas, 3 returned into the Sierra, and advanced 
 to Chili, then peopled by the Araucanians. He was the first to subjugate the Llipi 
 Indians, of the desert of Atacama, of Copiapo, and of Coquimbo. In his reign the 
 limits of the empire were pushed as far south as the right bank of the Rappel, latitude 
 34° 50'. The ruins of a Peruvian fortress, intended to mark the frontier and prevent 
 the invasions of the Chili Araucanians, may still be seen near that river. 
 
 Historians have ascribed to the Inca Yupanqui the interior decoration of the 
 temple of the Sun. That edifice, commenced by Manco-Capac, finished by Sinchiroca, 
 
 STATUETTES OP GOLD, SILVER, AND ELECTRUM— PERIOD OP THE INCAS. 
 
 improved and embellished by their successors, had nevertheless preserved, in the 
 fifteenth century, its primitive simplicity. Yupanqui, profiting by the tribute in gold 
 and silver imposed on the conquered nations, lavished on this temple the treasures of 
 which the Spaniards possessed themselves on their arrival at Cuzco. 
 
 Among the number of buildings which signalized the reign of this Inca, there 
 were four in various quarters of the city, which served as menageries; this Inca 
 appearing to have a special taste for tame and wild animals. One of these edifices, 
 situated in the north-west of the city, 4 served as an aviary, containing birds of every 
 species; another, devoted to boas, pythons, and snakes, was annexed to the ancient 
 palace of Capac Yupanqui; 5 a third, in which pumas, improperly called American 
 lions, were confined, adjoined the temple of the Sun; 6 finally, the fourth, and most 
 celebrated, was peopled with jaguars of various sizes and colours; it crowned the 
 
 1 From mayu, river, and amaru, serpent. The Incas gave it that name on account of its winding course. It is 
 formed hy the union of the Ocongate, Coiiispata, Tampu, Pillcopata, Avisca, Cattanga, Chaupimayo, Pinipini, and Tono, 
 which rise in the little valleys of the same names. The Amaru-Mayu has borne, since the end of the last century, the 
 name of Madre de Dios, which was given to it on the occasion of a statuette of Mary being found upon the shore. 
 This image came from a chapel built by the Jesuits, in their hacienda of Coiiispata. Having been carried off by the 
 Tuyneris in one of their raids, these savages had thrown it into the river as a worthless object. 
 
 2 Now the Moxos Indians. 
 
 3 The territory of these Indians now belongs to the department of Chuquisaca iu Bolivia. 
 
 4 Now the quarter of Almudena. 
 
 5 Now the church of the Jesuits. 
 
 6 Now the church and convent of Santo Domingo. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 223 
 
 eminence of Amahuara, adjoining the fortress of Sacsahuaman. 1 However, what 
 rendered this edifice remarkable among its neighbours, was not, as one might suppose, 
 the number or variety of the feline race confined in it, but its anthropological curiosities. 
 These consisted of a collection of a hundred Chancas Indians, previously skinned alive, 
 by order of the Inca Yupanqui, as a punishment for their revolt, whose tanned skins, 
 painted in bright colours and stuffed with ashes, figured in the character of musicians, 
 holding drums and flutes, and dancers, suspended from the ceiling. These beautiful 
 objects no longer exist, and of the edifices themselves there remain but a few stones. 
 Tupac Yupanqui succeeded to his father. Leaving undisturbed the southern 
 
 STATUETTES OP BASALT — PERIOD OF THE INCAS. 
 
 limits of his empire, he directed his conquests towards the north. Setting out from the 
 provinces of Huacrachucu, Cassac-Marquilla, Cunturmarca, Tumipampa, he passed 
 beyond the country of Lican (the equator). Dating from this epoch, a part of Con- 
 chocando was annexed to the empire, and its boundary traced by a route from Quito 
 to Cuzco established across the Sierra. It is to Tupac Yupanqui, also, that historians 
 ascribe the construction of the fortress of Sacsahuaman, a work which Spanish authors 
 have cried up as an eighth wonder of the world, and at which modern travellers fall 
 into ecstacies of admiration from respect for tradition. 2 That fortress, celebrated by 
 Diego Hernandez and his associates, who have left a lying description of its buildings, 
 its towers, and its pavilions covered with gold, never possessed more than the three 
 walls, built in crescent- shaped retreating platforms, which still exist, although roughly 
 treated by the hand of time and the soldiers of Pizarro. These walls, formed of 
 irregular blocks put together without lime or cement, present twenty-two salient angles, 
 and as many re-entering angles. Each of them had its name and its gate, a large bay 
 
 1 Now the eastern extremity of the quarter of San Bias. 
 
 2 One of these gentlemen, whom we will not name, but whom the reader may easily recognize by the help of the 
 following lines, which we cite from his work, thus expresses himself on the subject of Cuzco, its Incas, and its monu- 
 ments: "Cuzco interests me infinitely. Its history, its fables, and its ruins are alike enchanting. That city might be 
 called the Rome of America. The immense fortress, situated on the north of the city, is its Capitol, and the temple of the Sun 
 its Coliseum. Manco Capac was its Romulus, Viracocha its Augustus, Huascar its Pompey, and Alahuallpa its Cwsar. 
 Pizarro, Almagro, Valdivia, and Toledo are the Huns, the Goths, and the Christians who destroyed it. Tupac Amaru is its 
 Belisarius, to whom was given a day of hope, and Pumacahua is its Rienzi and latest pat riot." Surely one could not carry 
 further the sublime art of rhetoric. 
 
224 
 
 PERU. 
 
 without doors, the straight side-posts of which were formed by monolithic blocks. The 
 stones of the fortress, the greatest that the Incas have anywhere employed in their con- 
 structions, have received the name of Saycuscas. 1 The first wall nearest the city was 
 called Moyoc-Marca? the second Paucar-Marca? the third Sacllac-Marca} All three 
 were constructed, as their remains still enable us to determine, in the less perfect 
 cyclopean manner of the heroic period — a detail of no importance in itself, but which 
 I, who am nobody, feel it necessary to be particular in relating, because it puts me in 
 
 INTERIOR OF THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN DURING THE LATER REIGNS OF THE INCAS. 
 
 opposition to the illustrious Humboldt, who observes:—". . . We know by certain 
 evidence that the Incas constructed the fortress of Cuzco after the model of the more ancient 
 edifices of Tiahuanacu, situated in south latitude 17° 12"." 
 
 I am forced nevertheless to contradict on this subject the man of science and of 
 genius, led into error by some inexperienced tourist. The buildings of Tiahuanacu and 
 the fortress of Sacsahuaman differ in the shape and size of the stones and in the finish of 
 the work: in a word, both in the kind of material, and the manner of its arrangement in 
 their construction. One may even say that there is all the difference between the two 
 cases that there is between the infancy of healthy and vigorous art and the period of its 
 decrepitude. Speaking thus of the fortress of Sacsahuaman naturally leads me to remark 
 that among the Quichuas the art of building did not progress, but retrograde, in course 
 
 1 From the verb saycuni, to fatigue ; saycuscas, fatiguing. 
 
 2 Height of water, probably the zoue of the level of springs. 
 
 3 Height of flowering, the zone of vegetation of flowers (Paucar sisacc inquill cuna). 
 
 4 Height dominant, the elevated zoue, barren and stony (Sacllac rumi ttrcu cuna). 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 225 
 
 of time. The palace of Manco-Capac and Sinchiroca, the Accllhuaci, or House of the 
 Virgins, those first efforts of Peruvian art, are also the most perfect. Passing from this 
 epoch, the fashion which the Greeks called isodomon, 1 and the canaliculated or rustic 2 
 surfaces, exclusively employed till then in Peruvian edifices, disappeared, and were 
 replaced by cyclopean blocks of great elegance, it is true, and of which we find no 
 equivalent in any Pelasgic construction, but which nevertheless with the Incas con- 
 stitute a phase of decay, and a tendency to barbarism. This kind of construction, of 
 which the palace of Mayta Capac in the Calle del Triunfo is the only specimen witli 
 which we are acquainted, itself degenerated under the successors of that Inca. Heavi- 
 ness took the place of elegance, the size of the stones was considered of more import- 
 
 ance than the finish of the work, and insensibly architecture assumed that Pelasgic 
 character of which the walls of the fortress of Sacsahuaman are an example. 3 When 
 we compare the works of the first period of the Incas with those of the later sove- 
 reigns of their line, we are struck by the length of time, in an artistic point of view, 
 which seems to separate them. Between the constructions of the eleventh century 
 and those of the fifteenth one might suppose there had been an interval of two 
 thousand years. 
 
 Huayna-Capac, the eldest son of Tupac Yupanqui, succeeded on the death of his 
 father. He subjugated the populations of Sechura, Piura, Tumbez, and Santa Helena, 
 who occupied the coast between the sixth degree of south latitude and the second 
 
 1 In this construction, formed of rectangular stones from a foot to a foot and a half long, the vertical joints are always 
 opposed to the middle of the corresponding stone of the lower and superior coui'ses. 
 
 2 Called bugnato by Italian architects. 
 
 3 This fortress of Sacsahuaman was considered absolutely impregnable, and had not sustained any siege, but still 
 preserved its mural virginity, when, some fourteen years after its construction, the Spaniards entered Cuzco. 
 
 29 
 
22G PERU. 
 
 degree north, as well as those of Huanuco and of Chachapoyas, situated east of the Cor- 
 dillera; finally bringing under his rule the petty provinces governed by the Guastays, or 
 tributary princes of the Conchocando of Lican. Notwithstanding that he had already 
 married at Cuzco two of his sisters and one of his cousins, and possessed besides a 
 harem of three hundred concubines, Huayna-Capac espoused the daughter of the sove- 
 reign of Lican, whose name, according to some, was Pachachiri, according to others, Tota- 
 palla. By her he had a son named Atahuallpa. The route from Quito to Cuzco across 
 the Andes, on which Tupac Yupanqui had employed the recently conquered population, 
 was continued by Huayna-Capac as far as the paramos or plateau of Chuquisongo. 1 
 
 The greatest marvel of the reign of this Inca was the chain of gold which he caused 
 to be made when the hair of his eldest son, Inti Cusi Huallpa, was first cut. That 
 
 COURSES OF STONE IN THE FORTRESS OF S AC S A H U A 51 A N . 
 
 operation was performed in the family of the Incas when the child attained his seventh 
 year. It was the occasion of a family festival called Naca, at which the relations were 
 assembled, who never failed to make the child a present. If we are to believe his- 
 torians, the golden chain which Huayna-Capac had had cast and sculptured from the 
 tributes alone of the latest conquered nations was 800 yards long. It served to encircle 
 the great square of Cuzco during the equinoctial festivals Raymi and Cittna. This pro- 
 digious specimen of jewelry disappeared at the period of the Conquest. Historians, 
 to whom we are indebted for the description of it, assert that the Indians of Cuzco 
 threw it into the Lake of Urcos to save it from the rapacity of the Spaniards. 
 
 1 The military road of the Incas commenced from the side of Quito only, and uever existed on the Cuzco side, where, 
 ou the faith of the learned Humboldt, who gave it more than 2000 miles of length, we vainly sought for it during several 
 years. Its length from Quito to beyond Cajamarca, where it stopped unfinished, might be from 550 to 600 miles. This 
 road, which, according to the always exaggerated accounts of the historians, and the parrot i - epetitions of certain travellers, 
 one might suppose to be even to this day a grand highway, paved with granite, and bordered with parapets throughout its 
 entire length, is in fact nothing but the work of nature assisted here and there by the hand and the labour of man. For 
 every league or two that we find it bordered by enormous stones thei'e are spaces three or four times as great where we find 
 nothing of the kind. In the neighbourhood of inhabited places, near Assuay, Gualasco, on the heights of Cuenca, and 
 above all, near Cajamarca, it has been constructed with more care than in the desert regions of the Cordillera. At certain 
 points from which the prospect embraces a vast horizon, it presents some monolithic blocks cut in steps, and evidently 
 destined to sustain sieges. In a word, there are ruins of crumbling walls, tampus, and fortresses, at long intervals. The 
 construction of this road was interrupted by the death of Huayna-Capac, and was never recommenced. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 227 
 
 Huayna-Capac died at Quito from inflammation of the lungs caused by taking 
 a cold bath, into which he had plunged when perspiring. Struck by the appearance of 
 white and bearded men mounted upon winged monsters, who ploughed the seas of the 
 south, 1 he predicted to his relations before dying that strangers sent by Pachacamac 
 (God) would take possession of America, and put an end to the dynasty of the Incas. 
 Here, therefore, we touch on the Spanish conquest, a grave historical event which 
 resounded through the whole world, revolutionized the ideas and science of the 
 epoch when it occurred, and of which the immediate consequences were, as Huayna- 
 Capac had predicted, the fall of the empire of the Incas, and the end of their 
 dynasty. 
 
 Inti Cusi Huallpa, better known under the name of Huascar, succeeded his father 
 Huayna-Capac. Shortly before his death the latter had divided his vast empire into 
 
 THE ISODOMONIC MODE OF CONSTRUCTION. COURSES OF STONE EN BOSSAGE, OR RUSTIC FASHION. 
 
 two unequal parts, each of which had its sovereign. The largest, the richest, and the 
 noblest of the two, that which comprised the veritable empire of the Sun (Aylla Ccozgco), 
 to which the other remained vassal and tributary, fell to Huascar as the legitimate son 
 and direct heir of Huayna-Capac. The other portion, which comprised the ancient 
 states of the Conchocando of Lican, became the appanage of Atahuallpa. This division, 
 unequal as it was, offended Huascar, who, unable to forgive his brother for his ille- 
 gitimate birth and the favour with which he had been honoured by their father, resolved 
 to take from him the provinces which he held by the will of Huayna-Capac. On his 
 part, Atahuallpa, either guessing the intention of his brother, or too proud to pay him 
 homage, conceived the idea of dethroning Huascar, and making himself sole master of 
 the empire. 
 
 The struggle between the two brothers soon commenced. Each of them had a large 
 army on foot to support his pretensions; each in turn was conqueror and conquered. 
 After three years of desperate warfare, the issue was still pending between the rivals, 
 when, in a skirmish before the walls of the city of Andamarca, Hnascar was taken pri- 
 soner by two of Atahuallpa's generals. Their first care was to snatch from his forehead 
 
 1 The Spaniards and their vessels. The caravel commanded by Vasco Nunez de Balboa had been observed some years 
 before off Suchura and San Miguel while the Inca Huayna-Capac was at Tumipampa. 
 
228 
 
 PERU. 
 
 the mascca-paycha, the attribute of power, and to send it to their master, as a proof that 
 the struggle was ended. Atahuallpa was then encamped at Caxamarca (then Caxa- 
 malca), about 33G miles from the city of Andamarca, where his brother Huascar was 
 detained prisoner. This unhoped-for success fulfilled all his desires; already he saw 
 himself in imagination lord of Cuzco, and master of a powerful empire, when Francisco 
 Pizarro and his companions, who had disembarked at Tumbez and crossed the Sierra, 
 entered Caxamarca! 
 
 The arrival of these strangers, to whose first reported appearance Atahuallpa had 
 been far from attending, deranged a little his future prospects. He nevertheless put 
 a good face on the matter, and tried by friendly demonstrations and rich presents to 
 
 CYCLOPEAN METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION: PALACE OF THE INCA MAYTA CAPAC. 
 
 secure their good-will. Huascar, for his part, having been apprised of the arrival of 
 bearded men with white skins, found means, notwithstanding the watch that was kept 
 upon him, to inform them of his position, and claim their assistance to recover his 
 throne. Thus situated between two sovereigns, one of whom solicited his friendship, the 
 other his assistance, and each pretending to have equal right to the empire, Pizarro took 
 the simplest possible course, by setting aside both the contending sovereigns, and seiz- 
 ing the empire himself. As he was above all things a man of action, he organized 
 a massacre of the Indians on the very next day, and imprisoned Atahuallpa in his own 
 palace. 
 
 When intelligence of these transactions arrived at Andamarca, the two generals of 
 Atahuallpa, who had constituted themselves the ad interim jailers of Huascar, fancied 
 that Pizarro and his Spaniards, by their massacre of the population of Caxamarca, and 
 the imprisonment of Atahuallpa, meant to reinstate Huascar on the throne of his fathers. 
 The intention of the Hueracochas appeared the more manifest, seeing that Hernando 
 Pizarro, one of the conquerors, had come to visit the Inca in his prison — 11 to revive his 
 courage," say some authors; to "look after his treasures" say others. If their surmise 
 was correct, Quizquiz and Challcuchima — the jailers of Huascar — judged it would be 
 good policy to rid themselves of a prisoner who, should he ever remount his throne, 
 would either roast them at a slow fire, or flay them alive, for their audacity. Taking 
 advantage of a dark night, therefore, they dragged Huascar from his prison, and 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 229 
 
 strangled him or killed him with a hatchet — opinions are divided as to the manner of 
 his death — and threw his body into the river of Andamarca. 1 
 
 Pizarro received the announcement of Huascar's death with the satisfaction of 
 a verse-maker who hits unexpectedly on a long rebellious . rhyme. For three months 
 he had revolved in his brain some plausible means of ridding himself of Atahuallpa, 
 and had found no way to do so, when the demon came to his aid. Atahuallpa, frat- 
 ricide, usurper, and heretic, was not worthy to live. Arraigned before a tribunal 
 presided over by Pizarro, the prisoner was convicted without difficulty of the three 
 alleged crimes, and was condemned to be burned alive. A commutation of his sen- 
 tence was offered if he would consent to abjure his idolatry and receive baptism. 
 
 CYCLOP EA N CONSTRUCTION IN THE LATER PERIOD OF THE INCAS. 
 
 He accepted the alternative, and after being baptized under the name of Juan by 
 the monk Valverde, he was garotted on the 3d of May, 1532. Pizarro was present 
 at the execution, gave him a pompous burial, and wore mourning for him twenty 
 days. 2 
 
 To the official list of the thirteen Incas who reigned over Peru from the foun- 
 dation of Cuzco to the Spanish conquest, and whose reigns we have briefly sketched, 
 we will add the princes of their line of whom historians make no mention. 
 
 This pedigree, imperial tree as they call it at Cuzco, was painted and written 
 upon Chinese taffeta by an artist of Cuzco in the sixteenth century. It was pre- 
 served with the greatest care in the archives of the cathedral, as much for its his- 
 torical value as for the time employed in its execution. The work cost, we are 
 told, six years of assiduous labour. As it was composed of twenty-four medallions 
 of emperors and empresses, and of an inscription of about five hundred words, 
 each of two or three syllables long, the nameless artist must have written a word 
 
 1 Tradition relates that the unhappy Inca, after he had tried in vain to soften the murderers, whom he sup- 
 posed to be acting by order of his brother Atahuallpa, exclaimed, " Manan asccatachu camaclani auccainiy causainiy- 
 manta camachecc, caimin manani asllatapis camachecta atipahua?iehu" — My reign has been short, but the traitor who 
 disposes of my life, though he was my subject, will reign no longer than I. 
 
 2 The ransom which this sovereign during his detention at Caxamarca offered Pizarro to save his life, and 
 which the latter accepted without completing his part of the bargain, amounted to ,£3,500,000 sterling in gold and about 
 £35,000 in silver. 
 
230 
 
 PERU. 
 
 every four days, and painted a medallion every three months! This original and 
 conscientious work, which Garcilaso de la Vega had the happiness to see in all its 
 beauty, as he tells us himself in his Commentaires Royanx, disappeared during the 
 occupation of Cuzco by the Independents. Happily for the friends of iconography, 
 a family of the country, whose name figures among the princes of the ninth descent, 
 designated Ayllo Ccozgco Panaca, possessed a copy of it, which they were willing to 
 communicate, and which we here reproduce. 
 
 1st Pedigree: Ayllo Ciiima Panaca. 
 
 INCA MASCO CCAPAC. COYA MAMA OCLLO HUACCO. 
 
 Sinchi Rocca. — Apo Anauci. — Anta Ccachuncar. — Rocca Yupanqui. — Auqui Cchuma. — Auqui Allcay. — Pifias Ttupa. 
 
 2d Pedigree: Allo Baurahua Panaca. 
 
 ;nca sinuhi rocca. coya mama ooba occllo. 
 
 Lloqui Yupanqui.— Auqui Allcay.— Piilas Ttupa.— Anta Ccachuncar.— Rocca Yupanqui.- Auqui Cchuma. 
 
PERU. 
 
 231 
 
 3d Pedigree: Hahuanima Ayllo. 
 
 Sift' 
 
 INCA LLOQUI YUPANQUI. 
 
 COYA MAMA CCAHUANA. 
 
 Mayta Ccapac. — Apu Condemayta. — Orcco Huaraucca. — Apo Jisac Condemayta. — Condi Maucaylli. — Maytu Parian. — Ccayau Jahuaira. 
 
 Pauca Jalli. 
 
 4th Pedigree: Usca Mayta. 
 
 INCA MAVTA CCAPAC. 
 
 COYA MAMA OUCA. 
 
 Ccapac Yupanqui. — Jarcco Huaman. — Paucar Mayta. — Apuri Mayta. — Apu Orcco Huarancca. — Apu Ahuayeha. — Michi Yupanqui. — Apu 
 Tisoc Yupanqui. — Auqui Huarinarco. — Auqui Ccopalli Mayta. — Apu Saylla Ccaca. — Auqui Cchuma Huisa. — Condemayta. — Quis- 
 quicllan. — Quimi Mayta. — Huaccac Mayta. — Ccopalli Mayta. — Inti Condc Mayta. — Auqui Jarqqui. — Tampu Uscatnayta. — Ancca Marca. 
 — Apu Cchoro. — riuarcailli Quiso Mayta. — Auqui Llamac Chimpo. — Auqui Jayancca. — Auqui Jocay. — Auqui Caliuitupa. — Auqui Jotic. 
 — Auqui Cullinchima. — Auqui Hualla. — Auqui Allcca Chimpo. — Ccochan Condemayta. 
 
232 
 
 PERU. 
 
 5th Pedigree: Ayllo Apumayta Panaca Urin Ccozgco. 
 
 mi 
 
 INCA ccapac ydpanqoi. 
 
 coya mama cukihillpa. 
 
 Rocca. — Auqui Apumayta. — Apu Rimachi Mayta. — Auqui Huayllacan. — Curin Jahuaira. — Paucav Jalli. — Apu Quisquis. 
 
 6th Pedigree: Ayllo Huicca Iquip.ai Panaca Anas Ccozqco. 
 
 INCA EOCCA. 
 
 COTA MAMA MICHAY CHIMPO. 
 
 Yahuar Huaccac. — Auqui Huicca Iquirau. — Paucar Huamataysi. — Auqui Urcco Yupauqui. — Auqui Huarancca. — Huaman Itupa. — Huaccac 
 
 Mayta. — Auqui Jainpo Jocto. 
 
PERU. 
 
 233 
 
 7th Pedigree: Ayllo Huacailli Panaca. 
 
 INCA YAHUAR H-JACCAC. COYA MAMA CCHOQUE CCHICYA HILLPAI. 
 
 Hurra Ccocha.— Orcco Huarancca.— Apu Marota.— Auqui Mayta.— Chima Chahuac— Sibi Rocca. — Pahuac Chullimayta.— Tupa Huaman- 
 chiri.— Auqui Auccailli.— Apu Hiqqui Yupanqui.— Auqui Cchara.— Tupa Qqueso.— Huainaurimachi.— Atau Yupanqui.— Ccollo Tupan 
 Yupanqui. — Auqui Ticsi Huatutopa. — Panaca Chahomayta. 
 
 Sth Pedigree: Ayllo Sacso Panaca. 
 
 INCA H U I It A CCOCHA. COYA MAMA RUNTO. 
 
 Orcco. 1 — Pacha Ccutic. — Auqui Ticsi Yupanqui.- Yibi Yupanqui. — Sucsu Collatupa. — Chalco Yupanqui. — Auqui Yupanqui. — Cayru 
 Yupanqui. — Quispi Sucsu. — Auqui Ticsi Yupanqui. — Auqui Michi. — Apu Janqui Yupanqui. — Auqui Itupa. — Auqui Qquiso. — Auqui 
 Huallpa Itupa. — Itupac Rarico. — Paucar Cclmino. 
 
 1 Orcco, move commonly called Urco, succeeded to his father, and reigned six months. He was a downright nonentity, 
 according to tradition, and at the same time full of vice, drunken, brutal, quarrelsome, and so licentious that even the 
 vestal worshippers of the Sun were not spared. His people having deposed him, his sister and wife, as well as his 
 concubines, abandoned him. From respect for the memory of the Inca Viracocha the Amautas effaced from their 
 traditional quipos the name of his son Urco, who, from that moment, was not reckoned among the Incas. 
 vol. i. 30 
 
234 
 
 PERU. 
 
 9th Pedigree: Ayllo C'cozoco Panaca. 
 
 ISCA PACHA CCUTIC. 
 
 COTA MAMA ANAHUAHQUI. 
 
 Yupanqui-Amaro Tupac Uturunco. -Achachi Sinchi Rocca.'-Apu Achachi.-Apu Illaquita.-Ima Ititu.-Itupac Yupanqui.-Huayna 
 Auqui Yupanqui.— Jayan Achachi. — Auqui Itupa.— Ccacca Ccozcco.— Anahuarqui.— Sahuaraura. 
 
 10th Pedigree: Ayllo Inca Panaca. 
 
 1 <M, 
 
 INCA YUPANQUI. 
 
 COYA MAMA CHIMPO OCLLO. 
 
 Tupac Yupanqui. — Chanca Itupa. — Auqui Larico. — Huaillac Cchillca. — Itupa Yupanqui. — Salta Cusi Huallpa. — Paucar Itupa. — Huaman 
 Achachi. — Huayna Yupanqui. — Mayta Yupanqui. — Auqui Qquiso. — Qqucso Yupanqui. — Paucar Itupa. — Mayau. — Ttupa Titu Yupanqiii. 
 — Cchachua Rimachi Huallpa. — Atoc Riniachi Huallpa. — Anti Tupa Auqui Huillacpi. — Auqui Calla Conchay. — Hualljia Ttupa. — Auccas 
 Palla. — Ccolque Coca. 
 
 1 It is to this prince, appointed generalissimo of the armies of the empire by his elder brother Yupanqui, that the 
 credit is due for the definitive subjugation of the Llipis of Atacama, of Copiapo, and of Coquimbo, and for the conquest 
 of Chili. The Inca Yupanqui, to whom history ascribes these conquests, remained at Cuzco. 
 
PERU. 
 
 235 
 
 11th Pedigree: Atllo Ccapac Panaca. 
 
 IKCA TUPAC YUPANQUI. COTA MAMA CHIMPU OCLLU. 
 
 Huayna Ccapac. — Auqui Amaru Tupac. — Qquechuar Tupac. — Titu Rimachi. — Auqui Mayta. — Apu Sahuaraura. — Auqui Tomac Tupa. — 
 Tumis Ccalla. — Ayar Marcu. — Junqui Ttupa. — Auqui Chicllo Ccallo. — Auqui Tomac — Ccayo Tupac. — Ccolla Tupac Sinchi Ruccana. — 
 Qquechuar Ttupa. — Huari Ttitu. — Quispi Huallpa. — Tupa Yupanqui. — Auqui Suna Huallpa. — Anti Tupa. — Tasnac Cusi Huallpa. — 
 Puric Tupa Ccoritupa. — Charca Ttupa. — Auqui Aucco. — Mauco Ttupa. — Ticsi Huallpa. — Auqui Huallpa. — Tupa Rimachi. — Tupa 
 Tticollopaisi. — Auqui Sutanea. — Tupa Huaman. — Auqui Ccana. — Auqui Atavalo. — Pilco Tupa. 
 
 12th Pedigree: Ayllo Tumipampa Panaca. 
 
 Inti Cusi Huallpa (Huascar).— Manco. — Huaca Ttupa Paullu. 1 — Mama Cchoqui.—Mama Hillpa Cchoqiii.—Mama Cuya Hupa.—Mama 
 Jocto Ocl/u Coca.— Auqui Huanca.— Auqui Pumaca.— Sayri Tupac— Auri Tupac Amaru.— Tupa Atauchi.— Choqui Huaman.— Mama 
 Cusi Chimpo.— Pilco Ititu.— Titu Atauchi.— Mama Hillquila.—Dona Ink's Quispe Sisa.—Doha Beatrix Quispe Sisa.—Ju-.in Atahuallpa. 
 
 — Francisco Atahuallpa.— Dona Isabel Palla.—Dona Mariquita Itaquita. — Dona Maria Assorpi Ninancorro.—A.\iqm Ruqui. Don 
 
 Carlos Inquil Tupa.— Don Alonzo Pucasa.- Don Estcvan Ccolla.— Itupa Huanca.— Auqui Tupa Atari rimachi. — Chicha Thupa.— Achachi 
 Tupac. 
 
 1 The names printed in italics are those of women, sisters or cousins of the princes of this pedigree. 
 
236 
 
 PERU. 
 
 Incas of the 12tii and last pedigree. 
 
 INTI-CUSI HUALLPA (HUASCAR), 13TH INCA. COYA MAMA CHOQUI. 
 
 Iii the pedigree of Huana Capac, which is the last of the series, notwithstanding 
 that Huascar, the eldest son of that sovereign, had reigned for three years over Peru, 1 
 we may recognize the disturbing influence of the Conquest upon the families of royal 
 blood. To the legitimate male descendants, who are alone inscribed in the preceding 
 reigns, are now added those of uncles, nephews, cousins, and illegitimate branches. Juan 
 Atahuallpa, son of the sovereign executed by the Spaniards, figures by the side of his 
 nephew Francisco Atahuallpa, a son of Pizarro. 2 For the first time also women are 
 mixed with men, and Indian names preceded by baptismal ones are connected with those 
 of the Spanish nobility. Disorder and confusion are conspicuous. 
 
 However, the dynasty of the Incas is not yet extinct. In this tumultuous period 
 which intervenes between the fall of the ancient empire and the establishment of the 
 viceroys, one sees the dynasty revived and ruling for some years under the tutelage 
 of Spain, as if the conquerors, on overthrowing the established order and usurping 
 the seat of authority, had been willing to give to that usurpation some kind of legal 
 sanction. But the Incas whom they re-established temporarily in power are no more 
 than lay figures, tricked out in frippery and crowned to satisfy the vulgar eye. When 
 
 1 As, at the death of his father, Huascar was not old enough to reign, one of his uncles, named Colla Tupac, was 
 intrusted with the regency for some years. Previously, in the twelfth century, a similar thing had occurred on the death 
 of Lloqui Yupanqui, whose heir, Mayta Capac, was a minor. Nevertheless, no member of the family having been 
 deemed worthy or capable of governing the empire ad interim, the many-coloured woollen fillet, then the symbol of 
 power, was deposited in the temple of the Sun, where it remained till the young prince attained his majority: 
 
 2 Atahuallpa left a son and two daughters. The son received at baptism the name of Juan, which had been that 
 given by Valverde to his father some minutes before his death. The two daughters were named Beatrice and Angelina. 
 Pizarro, at a later period, had a son by this Angelina, who took the name of Francisco: he also had a child by the aunt 
 of Angelina, a sister of Atahuallpa, their parents being the Inca Huayna Capac and Totapalla. This child, a daughter, 
 was baptized Francisca Pizarro. She lived to marry Don Martin Ampuero, and commenced the line of Ampuero, whose 
 descendants are numerous in Peru. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 237 
 
 once the Spanish domination is thoroughly established throughout the provinces of the 
 immense empire, these phantom sovereigns will disappear never more to return. 
 
 The fourteenth Inca who girdled his brow with the mascca-paycha was Manco, 
 a younger brother of Huascar. Like the last he reigned three years, and was killed 
 at a game of bowls by a Spaniard named Gomez Perez. In the heat of a dispute 
 between two players the Inca had boxed the Spaniard's ears, upon which the latter 
 hurled one of the bowls at his head and killed him on the spot. 1 The people tore 
 the Spaniard to pieces. 
 
 The fifteenth Inca was Sayri Tupac, brother of Manco. The Spaniards baptized him 
 under the name of Diego, and crowned him at Vilcapampa. By an accident of ill omen 
 the mascca-paycha or imperial crown which they placed on his head was that worn by 
 Atahuallpa at Caxamarca, and which a Spanish soldier named Miguel Astete had taken 
 from him when he made him prisoner. Sayri Tupac reigned some months only and died, 
 leaving a daughter, whom Pizarro married to one of his captains named Martin Loyola. 
 
 Sayri Tupac was succeeded by his brother Philippe Tupac Amaru. He reigned five 
 months. Accused of fomenting disturbances among the indigenous populations, he had 
 his head cut off in the great square of Cuzco. Thirty-six of his relations and adherents 
 were executed with him. 
 
 Cristoval Paullu, his brother, was the seventeenth and last Inca of Peru. His reign 
 was of short duration. He abdicated in favour of the Spaniards, and retired into the 
 little valley of Yucay, eighteen miles north-east from Cuzco, where he ended his days in 
 peace. With him disappeared the moral authority of the Incas and the prestige attached 
 to their name. In 1781 Gabriel Tupac Amaru, grandson of Philippe Tupac Amaru, 
 having tried to revive the past, was cruelly executed (ecartele) at Cuzco. His wife, his 
 two sons, his uncle, and his nephew, accused of being his accomplices, perished with him. 
 This descendant of the Incas had said before dying that the germs of liberty which he had 
 sown in the spirit of his compatriots would develop and fructify one day under the breath 
 of tyranny. Forty-three years afterwards Simon Bolivar and San Martin verified in the 
 plains of Ayacucho the prophecy of Tupac Amaru by driving out of Peru the last of its 
 viceroys and proclaiming its independence. 
 
 In this resume" of the historic period of the Incas — the last gleams of a civilization 
 which mounts perhaps to some thousands of years — we have been compelled to treat the 
 matter summarily. While avoiding details, we may observe that if the history of civiliza- 
 tion among the American indigenes is obscure, it is because the East itself has been little 
 known. During late years, however, a great change has taken place. The study of San- 
 scrit and of the languages derived from it, and the explication of historical documents 
 concealed beneath hieroglyphic and cuneiform characters, have dissipated in some 
 measure the darkness which had shrouded the past, and opened up fresh paths to Euro- 
 pean erudition. Problems apparently insoluble have thus had unexpected light thrown 
 upon them, and immense lacunae in history have been satisfactorily filled up. By 
 what has already been accomplished, we may form an idea of what will be achieved 
 hereafter. 
 
 1 Some authors state that lie was stabbed with a poniard. 
 
238 PERU. 
 
 The ethnography of America, so obscure at present, will have fresh light thrown 
 upon it by these studies. Already we are aware that it is not to the people of the time 
 of the Conquest that we must look for the secret of their origin. It is by investigations 
 at the source itself, in the north of Asia, India and Persia, and the extreme East, that 
 we can alone hope to obtain satisfactory results. This is the road which the first civilized 
 nations followed in remote times when they wandered from the south to the north. It 
 is therefore by retracing the same journey from north to south, thus by remounting from 
 the effect to the cause, that the studious generation of our epoch and their successors 
 will come upon the track of this ancient migration. 
 
 The time will come, let us hope, when the active concourse of intelligences, and the 
 application of new means to ethnologic researches, will bring the solution of many pro- 
 blems which at present baffle the skill of the learned. The archaeological examination 
 of still existing American monuments will lighten up some obscure points in the theo- 
 gony of the peoples to whom they are attributed, while at the same time it will make us 
 acquainted with the religious schisms which divided them. Anthropology and philology, 
 those important clues in pre-historic research, will assist us to refer to a primitive type 
 and a primordial language the scattered traits of the physiognomy of these peoples and 
 their diverse idioms. We shall recover the relationship of one to the other, establish by 
 unanswerable proofs their fraternity with the peoples of the primitive group, and, in fine, 
 determine the chronological order of their migrations, starting from those legendary ages 
 when the human race, flowing like a river from its source, spread itself over the world, 
 and took possession of its great inheritance. 
 
 While we await that future, let us leave undisturbed in the obscurity of past ages 
 the ancient Cuzco and the Incas by whom it was founded, and give our attention to the 
 modern city, which we find very nearly such as it was when reconstructed by Pizarro 
 after the Conquest, and as it was left, in 1824, by La Serna, the last viceroy of Peru. 
 
 To judge from the remains of the walls, which, from San Juan de Dios to the 
 heights of San Bias, defined the limits of the ancient city, and at the same time pro- 
 tected it from the falling in of the cerros, the modern city has gained but little in extent. 
 That which it has lost in architectural character is compensated by a proportionate gain 
 in symmetrical arrangement — a poor compensation, indeed, in the eyes of artistic tra- 
 vellers, but more than sufficient for people of a realistic turn of mind. 
 
 The area of the existing city — the figure of which is that of an irregular paral- 
 lelogram, developed from north-west to south-east— may be about 33,000 square 
 yards, if measured from San Bias in the Almudena, and from the Eecoleta in Santa 
 Ana. A rapid torrent, the Huatanay, which takes its rise in the Cordillera of Sapi, 
 and runs from north-east to south-west, traverses the city, which it divides into 
 two unequal parts. This stream, flowing through a deep trench, almost dry in winter, 
 and rushing like a torrent when the summer heats have melted the snows of the 
 Cordillera, serves as the common sewer of Cuzco, which it relieves of its house drain- 
 age and other uncleannesses. In the west part of the city its high banks, which 
 are united in various places by extemporized bridges of timber covered with slabs of 
 stone, are cut to a perpendicular face, and supported by walls of coarse construction. 
 
REFERENCES AND DESCRIPTION. 
 
 A. Fortress of Sacsahuaman. 
 
 B Palace of the Iuca Manco Capac, now the quarter and 
 parish of San Cristoval. 
 
 C. C. Ancient wards or quarters, now occupied by bakers. 
 
 D. A similar ancient quarter, now the college of San 
 
 Antonio. 
 
 E. The principal street of the city, Calle del Sacsahuaman. 
 
 F. F. F. F. Andanerias, or walls, to prevent the falling in 
 
 of the Cerros. 
 
 G. Palace and Menagerie of the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, 
 
 now the quarter and parish of San Bias. 
 
 H. H. Walls of an old inclosure, now the street of San 
 
 Bias. 
 
 I. Palace of the Inca Hueracocha, now the cathedral and 
 
 annexed buildings. 
 J. The Great Square, in which public festivals were cele- 
 brated in the time of the Incas, now the Cathedral 
 Square. 
 
 K. Palace of the Inca Sinchiroca, now the Calle del Triunfo, 
 and south-west side of the Cathedral Square. 
 
 L. L. Ancient palace of the Vestals of the Sun, now the 
 convent of Saint Catherine, church of St. Augustine, 
 and adjacent streets. 
 
 M. M. M. Palace of the Inca Mayta Capac, recently a 
 Jesuit church, guard-house, and public prison. 
 
 N. N. N. N. N. Walls forming the ancient revetment of 
 the Huatanay, a stream which runs through the city, 
 and divides it into two unequal parts. 
 
 O. Ruins of unknown edifices, now the church and con- 
 vent of the order of Mercy. 
 
 P. P. Ancient inclosures, now the Place du Cabildo and 
 the quarter of San Juan de Dios. 
 
 Q. Sustaining walls, forming also an ancient inclosure, now 
 the Hospital Quarter. 
 
 R. Sustaining walls, now inclosing the quarter of Santa 
 Ana. 
 
 S. S. S. Ruins of unknown edifices, now the quarter and 
 
 convent of San Francisco. 
 T. T. Ancient inclosure walls, now the quarter of the 
 
 Almudena. 
 
 U. U. U. Temple of the Sun and its dependencies, now 
 
 the quarter, church, and convent of Saint Domingo. 
 V. Corridor du Ciel. 
 
 X. Ancient sustaining walls, now the church and convent 
 
 of the Recoleta. 
 Y. The Devil's Pulpit. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 241 
 
 These walls, let me hasten to say, are historic. They date from the reign of the Incas, 
 and reverence for their antiquity causes archaeological travellers, who appear at Cuzco 
 once in half a century perhaps, to make a close study of them, notwithstanding the 
 stench of the filthy waters, which imparts a slimy verdure to their base — a stench 
 which these savants dispel either by holding their noses, or by tickling the pituitary 
 membrane with Spanish snuff. 
 
 The Cozco of the Incas was simply divided into a higher and lower town, com- 
 
 prised in two quarters, called Hurin and Hanan. The Cuzco of the Spaniards com- 
 prises seven districts: 1 the Cathedral, Belen, Santiago, the Hospital, Santa Ana, San 
 Cristoval, and San Bias, which are divided, good and bad alike, into squares or cuadras, 
 giving a total of 3000 houses for a population which, at the last census, amounted to 
 20,370 souls. Of these 3000 houses about a thousand are nothing more than filthy 
 kennels, at least one -half of which are beer-shops {cabarets d chicha). One entire 
 street, the Calle de las Heladerias, is devoted to the trade in sherbets and ices. In 
 this street, towards the middle of the sixteenth century, was born the historiographer 
 Garcilaso de la Vega, of an illustrious Spanish family on his father's side, and with a 
 skin sufficiently dark to betray his relationship to the Incas on the other. The house 
 in which he first saw the light was inhabited at the period of my visit by a washer- 
 
 1 I do not include within tlie limits of the city the villages of San Sebastian and San Jeronimo, which the reader has 
 visited in my company, although the statisticians of the country treat them as suburbs (in orig. faubov>y/s) of Cuzco, 
 from which they are nearly ten miles distant. 
 
 vol. i. 31 
 
242 
 
 PERU. 
 
 woman, a Semiramis in humble life, who occupied the ground-floor and the first story, 
 where she had created on the window-sill a hanging-garden with pots of carnations 
 and cages of birds. The second story, usually decorated with wet rags hung upon 
 lines stretched across the windows, was the abode of a one-eyed Indian who was a 
 trainer of performing dogs. 
 
 Cuzco, formerly the capital of a vast empire, but now only the chief town of a 
 department and the seat of a bishop, possesses, besides its cathedral and fifteen 
 churches — seven of which belong to religious communities- — four convents for men, 
 San Francisco, La Merced, Santo Domingo, and La Recoleta; three convents for women, 
 Santa Teresa, Santa Catalina, and Santa Clara; and six beguinages or retreats, Las 
 Nazarenas, Santa Rosa, Santo Domingo, Las Carmelitas de San Bias, Las Franciscanas 
 de Belen, and San Francisco. There are also several houses of spiritual exercise, where, 
 during the evenings of Holy Week, men and women, shut up in separate apartments, 
 extinguish the lights, and flagellate themselves in expiation of the sins committed in the 
 course of the year. 
 
 The churches and convents of Cuzco are, for the most part, built of a hard stone, 
 such as carboniferous sandstone, porphyritic trachyte, or a feldspathic granite, in place 
 of wood, loam, or plaster, like those of the coast towns. This difference in the nature 
 of the materials has been determined by the situation of the last-named edifices at the 
 foot of the chain of the Andes, in the neighbourhood of some volcano, where they are 
 exposed to frequent earthquake shocks. Hence, too, the use of plaster daubed with 
 a wash of pearl-gray, or perhaps some shade of pink, to disguise the wood-work of the 
 building. The edifices of Cuzco have no need of resorting to such vulgar artifices. 
 They display in all its natural simplicity the stone of which they are built, sobered 
 in colour by the lapse of time and the effects of sun and rain. Their physiognomy 
 is marked by a sad grandeur or gloomy majesty not easy to describe, but which har- 
 monizes well with the melancholy of the sky, the unchangeableness of the climate, and 
 the heavy outlines of the neighbouring mountains. 
 
 The interior arrangement of the churches is nearly always in the form of a Latin 
 cross. Some have nothing but a nave, without side aisles, as the church of the Jesuits ; 
 others have a principal nave and two secondary ones, as the church of the order of 
 Mercy; or three chief naves and two collateral, as the cathedral. Their semicircular 
 vaults, more than twice the height of those on the coast, are sometimes quite simple, 
 sometimes strengthened by double arches, and supported by engaged columns or mere 
 pilasters. The architectural decoration of the interior of these churches is generally 
 very simple. Occasionally that simplicity extends to the exterior of the edifice, their 
 whole ornamentation being limited to a triangular pediment engaged between two 
 advanced towers, supported by pairs of columns, and surmounted by a story pierced 
 with square windows, and decorated with small columns like the facade of the cathedral. 
 Sometimes, again, the ornamentation is indebted to the Hispano-Lusitanian taste 
 of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for its embellishment of pinnacles and 
 acroterise, pyramidions and balls, to which is added the luxury of scrolls, eggs, volutes, 
 roses, and chicory, borrowed from the same period. The church of the Jesuits and that 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 243 
 
 of the order of Mercy present on their facades a complete assortment of these fantastic 
 devices. Let it be observed, however, that these various specimens of architectural 
 bric-a-brac, instead of being moulded in plaster and afterwards stuck in their places, are 
 laboriously sculptured in the trachyte or granite of the Andes, so that the mason may 
 be said to have succeeded where the architect has failed. 
 
 The display of luxury which, as we have seen, characterizes the churches of 
 
 GREAT SQUARE AND CATHEDRAL OF CUZCO. 
 
 Arequipa, is rivalled by those of Cuzco. There is the same profusion of costly 
 materials, mingled and combined according to all the rules of an unsophisticated piety 
 and uncultivated taste. To behold on some solemn religious occasion, sparkling in 
 the blaze of the wax-lights, the magnificence of these churches, their altars encrusted 
 with gold and precious stones, one might well say, knowing their deficiencies in all 
 that regards art and style, that the mere show of wealth is considered a sufficient sub- 
 stitute for them, as women sometimes imagine their plainness will pass unnoticed if 
 they make a sufficient display of jewelry. 
 
 The cathedral of Cuzco, whose high-altar is of solid silver, as likewise is the reredos 
 and all the ornaments which crown it, possesses a fabulous store of riches in the shape 
 of reliquaries, remonstrances, pixes, chalices, patens, stars of diamonds, rubies, topazes, 
 and emeralds, enough to fill with jealousy the heart of any pope of the time when the 
 popes were in their greatest glory. It is true the architecture of this gorgeously- 
 
244 
 
 PERU. 
 
 endowed monument, both exteriorly and interiorly, is but little worthy of the strong 
 box of so much wealth. Built on a platform where stood, in the fourteenth century, 
 the palace of the Inca Viracocha, its plan, as before observed, is that of an oblong 
 square, and its elevation presents two stories with salient wings or towers. The three 
 doors and three windows of its facade are separated by coupled columns, and 
 this part of the work is finished with a pediment. The trachyte sandstone of which 
 it is built has acquired by age a sooty hue, which contrasts strongly with the chalky 
 whiteness of the cupolas of its five naves and its two towers. 
 
 The interior of the building consists of a pronaos or portico opening to three chief 
 naves and two lateral ones provided with chapels. The most celebrated of these 
 chapels — the second to the right on entering — is that of the Senor de los Temblores, 
 or "Christ of Earthquakes." We shall have to speak of this more in detail when we come 
 to describe the religious feites and processions of Cuzco. The few windows in the walls 
 of the edifice admit but a faint light into the interior. The heavy mass of the arches 
 which form the vaulted roof, and the pillars which support them, add still more to the 
 obscurity which the external atmosphere renders cold and forbidding. The only ray 
 which brightens and warms a little this darkness, the only inestimable jewel among all 
 the priceless jewels with which this melancholy basilica is enriched, is a picture of 
 Christ crucified, in the vestry, a splendid painting in the later style of Murillo. 
 
 Around the cathedral extends an atrium or court, bounded by a wall about the 
 height of a man, which is surmounted at regular distances by square pedestals with 
 pyramidal terminations. All along this wall, as if to break the uniformity of its straight 
 line, a picturesque kind of bazaar has been extemporized, consisting of awnings and 
 great umbrellas, under which industrious traders of both sexes display to the gaze of the 
 passers-by the sordid finery and thick shoes, with six rows of nails, which are worn by 
 the governors and fashionable alcaldes of the villages of the Sierra. 
 
 According to a tradition which the dark-skinned and long-haired Nestors of the 
 country have spread among the people, there is a lake under the cathedral. This lake, 
 the water of which reposes in a profound calm all the year, swells up and beats against 
 the pavement of the choir with a hollow sound on the anniversary of the entry into 
 Cuzco of the Spanish conquerors (Nov. 13th, 1532). On that day of mourning for the 
 population of the old stock, it is no uncommon thing, when traversing the court, to 
 see a number of credulous souls kneeling in the dust, with their ears close to the 
 ground, endeavouring with the most serious air in the world to catch some murmur of 
 the enchanted water. 
 
 A church built of loam rammed into moulds 1 by Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, 
 and consecrated by his chaplain, Vincent de Valverde, occupied during six-and-thirty 
 years the site of the cathedral. In 1572 the viceroy, Francisco Toledo, had this 
 wretched structure pulled down, and laid the foundations of a new edifice. A sum of 
 about £13,000 sterling was at first devoted to its construction. Fifty years then run 
 their course, and as the new church, like the famous web of Penelope, was always in 
 
 1 En pise, a well-knowu method of moulding clay or stiff earth for building purposes, by ramming it into moulds, 
 which are continually shifted as the work proceeds. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 245 
 
 course of erection yet never got erected, and as fresh sums of money were incessantly 
 voted for it, Philip IV. one day impatiently demanded if they meant to build it of solid 
 silver. The fame of the royal jeu d' esprit, after making the tour of Spain, reached 
 America, and though we cannot positively say that it stimulated the zeal of those 
 engaged in the work, it is certain that at the end of eighty-two years the cathedral 
 was finished. Its cost amounted to nearly three millions sterling, a thing that would 
 appear incredible, considering what a sorry edifice it is. 1 
 
 The church was consecrated on the 15th of August, 1654; but before this could be 
 done it was necessary to clear the approaches, blocked up by the accumulated rubbish 
 of labours which had extended over almost a century. All the canons, inspired by 
 holy zeal, applied themselves to the work, using rush -baskets to remove the earth, 
 stones, and rubbish, which had converted the holy place into a region of mountains and 
 valleys. 2 The example of the canons was followed by the corregidor, and by four 
 knights of the order of Calatrava; then the priests of the city and its environs arrived 
 in a crowd, followed by their curates ; the monks of the four orders were equally ready 
 to lend a helping hand; the ladies of the city imitated the monks, and soon the entire 
 population joined the throng, and worked like one man, till, in the course of five days 
 and nights, the work was perfectly accomplished. 
 
 On the right of the cathedral, attached, in fact, to that edifice, stands the 
 chapel of " Triumph," which at first was nothing more than a house of clay, like the 
 first church of which it was the humble dependant. During an emeute excited by the 
 partisans of the Inca Manco, brother of Huascar, some Spaniards who had sought 
 refuge in that chapel, in consequence of the city having been fired at several points by 
 the Indians, were miraculously preserved from the flames by the intercession of the 
 blessed Virgin. From this circumstance a chapel arose on the spot with a cupola of 
 stone, built in commemoration of the miracle. On its threshold, every anniversary of 
 the Assumption, the Indians of both sexes decorate an altar, before which they sing 
 and dance, eat and drink, and most devoutly make beasts of themselves, in honour of 
 what they, are pleased to call Jesu mamachay — the dear mother of Jesus. 
 
 From the year 1538 — in which Father Vincent de Valverde, whose character would 
 have shamed a hangman, was nominated second bishop 3 of the thatched building, which 
 had been elevated to the rank of an episcopal church by a bull of Paul III. in 1537 — to 
 the year 1843, when Don Eugenio Mendoza y Jara was appointed to the bishopric by 
 his holiness Gregory XVI., twenty-eight bishops, inclusive of the last-named, have suc- 
 ceeded to the spiritual government of Cuzco. 
 
 1 Spanish authors have commented on the fifty years of labour devoted to the fortress of Sacsahuaman, but none of 
 them mention the eighty-tvjo years employed in the construction of the cathedral, or they simply indicate the fact by giving 
 the two dates. Let us add that such figures, which anywhere else than in Peru would be very significant, here prove one 
 thing only — that the Indian of the southern continent is naturally of so supine a disposition, that whatever he does occu- 
 pies him twenty times as long as it would anybody else. 
 
 2 Alturas empinadas y hondos voiles, says the manuscript of Doctor Carrascon, from which I have borrowed these 
 details. 
 
 3 The first Bishop of Cuzco was Don Fernando de Luquey Olivera. Father Vincent de Valverde did not enjoy his 
 bishopric loDger than three years. He was assassinated or killed — we do not know the exact facts — by the Indians of the 
 province of Quispicanchi. 
 
246 
 
 PERU. 
 
 On the right of the Great Square, of which the cathedral occupies the south-east 
 side, stands the church built by the Jesuits on the site formerly occupied by the palace 
 of the Inca Capac Yupanqui and the menagerie of serpents annexed to it. This 
 
 CHURCH OP THE JESUITS AT CUZCO. 
 
 church, constructed of a carboniferous sandstone, is by no means of an ignoble aspect, 
 notwithstanding the bad taste (Hispano-Lusitanian) of the sculptures of its facade, the 
 odd details of which have nevertheless been treated with great care. After the expul- 
 sion of the Jesuits, the church was closed until 1824, when the patriots, on their 
 return from Ayacucho, broke open its gates in the name of Holy Liberty, and trans- 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 247 
 
 formed it into a guard-house. After the proclamation of independence it was again 
 closed, and remained so, until one day the idea having occurred to me to borrow the 
 keys of the sous-preTet of Cuzco, Don Jose Gregorio Llanos, we had it opened, to the 
 astonishment of several indigenes who happened to be crossing the square, and who used 
 their utmost speed to enter with us. Our attendant disappointed them by cleverly 
 shutting the small door in the grand entrance gates, and so baulked their curiosity. 
 
 This church, of which the inhabitants of the city know very little beyond the 
 exterior, has only one nave, the simple semicircular vault of which rests upon an 
 entablature supported by fluted pilasters of the Composite order. At the entrance 
 a large gallery, supported by square pillars, forms a kind of vestibule or pronaos to 
 the edifice. No chapel interrupts the grand lines of the nave, which is continued in 
 its majestic severity as far as the rounded chancel, which is separated from the nave 
 by a stone balustrade. The church was completely destitute of any object belonging 
 to worship; its only altar had disappeared; no picture, no cross, no votive offering 
 hung on its walls, the stone of which, of a faded pink colour, was remarkably clean. 
 
 While walking up and down over the great stones of the pavement, our steps 
 awaking a hollow echo, we picked up some fragments of sculpture, which had 
 belonged to a pulpit, the position of which was indicated by the iron cramps still 
 visible in the wall on the right. Among these fragments was the winged head of 
 an angel, the size of one's fist, remarkable for its charming expression and for a 
 delicacy of execution which did honour to the chisel of the indigenous Berruguete 
 who had sculptured it. 
 
 In the gallery, to which we ascended by a stone staircase protected by a balus- 
 trade of carved wood of beautiful workmanship, the organ still displayed its battery 
 of various sized tubes, but all in disorder, leaning the one upon the other like the 
 trees of a forest in a high wind. The keys were disjointed, worms had eaten the 
 leather of the hammers, and huge spiders' webs enveloped, as in a winding-sheet, 
 this poor harmonious body from which the soul had fled. 
 
 In front of the balustrade which separated the chancel from the nave gaped an 
 opening some four feet square, looking down which we could see only the first few 
 steps of a staircase, the rest being lost in darkness. Followed by the Indian with 
 the keys, who was visibly impressed by this empty church and dark hole, I descended. 
 Some twenty steps led us into the crypt of the church, which was divided into little 
 square cells, the walls of which were as clean as if they had been recently washed. 
 These cells had formerly served as vaults for the dead. Some open and empty coffins 
 still remained, and the form of the corpses was marked on the bottom plank by a 
 silhouette of a sepia colour. Some fragments of the grave-clothes made of the cotton 
 of the country itocuyo) were hanging to the nails of the coffins. At night, by the light 
 of a torch, this spectacle must have been a very cheerful one! But it was mid-day. 
 The crypt was filled with the pleasant summer air, and the sun peeped in at the barred 
 windows, through which might be seen a mallow in bloom gracefully bending before 
 a gentle breeze, so that the gloomy details, which I realized one by one, only awoke 
 in me a sentiment of quiet melancholy. It was otherwise with my companion, who, 
 
248 
 
 PERU. 
 
 on regaining the street, assured me that the sight of these coffins and their odour of 
 human rottenness had made him so sick at heart that he felt it necessary to get a drink 
 of brandy at a place he knew of. I approved the idea, and giving him two reals, 
 charged him to present my thanks to his master. 
 
 After the church of the Jesuits come the churches of St. Augustine and the Almu- 
 dena, both elegantly constructed, and both unused for worship, which implies a certain 
 amount of indifference in matters of religion among the present inhabitants of Cuzco. 
 Though without priests and altars, these two churches, however, are not left to entire 
 solitude. Positivism, while despoiling them of their sacred prestige, has known how to 
 profit by the advantages which they had to offer. A college, with all its furniture of 
 benches, tables, and desks, is installed in the first, and is well accommodated there. 
 The second has been converted into an hospital for poor women by a society of philan- 
 thropists whose benevolent intention cannot be too highly praised, though it is impos- 
 sible to speak so approvingly of the manner in which they sold their original building by 
 auction, and divided the price among themselves. 
 
 This architectural review of the churches of Cuzco naturally leads me to speak of 
 the clergy who conduct the services in them, chanting the praises of God in a Latin to 
 which the use of the Quichua idiom has given a drawling accent and a guttural pronun- 
 ciation extremely offensive to the lovers of euphony. 
 
 These respectable priests, men of the world in their manners, and jovial fellows in 
 conversation, besides the general information they possess, are generally masters of some 
 special science to which they have taken a fancy and acquired as they could from com- 
 pilations and other books which have by accident fallen into their hands. Each has 
 selected, according to circumstances or the bent of his mind, geography, physics, 
 chemistry, or the higher mathematics. The science which they publicly profess is con- 
 tained substantially in the form of questions and answers in a manual which has been 
 edited with great care, and which their pupils, whose ages range from sixteen to twenty- 
 four, are expected to learn by heart after having written it out under their dictation. 
 Such of the priests as do not pretend to any special science content themselves with the 
 profession of scholastic theology, canonic theology, or mystic theology — three sciences 
 comprised in the programme of a liberal education at Cuzco. 
 
 The costume of these indigenous canons and priests is not unlike that of the 
 Spanish clergy, minus the quality of their lace ruffles, and plus the golden links by which 
 they are fastened to their wrists, and the huge umbrella of red tafeta — an indispensable 
 addition to the ecclesiastical toilet in the country of the Incas. 
 
 The manners of the clergy of Cuzco are sweet and agreeable, recalling somewhat 
 those of the biblical times and the patriarchal ages. Most of them have a niece, whose 
 mother fills the office of governess (ama de Haves) in the house, but whom the priest, 
 in deference to the convenances of society, never calls his sister. It may be they receive 
 an orphan or a poor young widow, whose children they adopt, into the house. These 
 pious works of the good priests of Cuzco»are dictated by the real love of their neighbour, 
 by the dread of isolation, and the need inherent in fine natures of being surrounded by 
 affectionate hearts. Their solicitude for such dependants on their bounty is most 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 249 
 
 paternal and tender; not only do they share with them whatever they possess and supply 
 all their wants, but, on occasion, they do not hesitate to make sacrifices to provide them 
 with superfluities. Has a merchant received from the Pacific coast some novelty or 
 article of fashion, the good priest loses no time in informing his adopted family of the 
 
 AN INDIGENOUS PRIEST AND COLLEGIAN. 
 
 fact, and arranging for a visit to the shop. On arriving there the reverend father enters 
 alone to examine the goods and to discuss their price, the widow and her children 
 .standing aside. It sometimes happens that the worthy ecclesiastic, unable to decide 
 between two articles, or doubtful about different prices, beckons to his protegde, who 
 advances timidly. 
 
 " Que le jyarece d U d ." — What is your opinion? he asks. 
 
 " I am always of the opinion of my senor padre" the sly puss invariably replies, at 
 the same time pointing with her finger to the most expensive of the two articles. 
 
 VOL. I. 32 
 
250 
 
 P E II U. 
 
 At last the man of God makes his choice. He has the stuff cut off ami made up 
 into a parcel; and putting it under his arm says graciously to the merchant, "I will 
 send you the money in a few minutes." These canonical minutes, however, almost always 
 extend to a year or eighteen months; they are sometimes eternal. 
 
 On arriving at home the good shepherd receives the warmest thanks of his flock 
 if the article bought by him is of superior quality; but if it leaves anything to be desired 
 
 AN ADOPTED FAMILY. 
 
 in this respect, a storm, which had been brewing all the way from the shop to the house, 
 breaks sharply over the patriarch's head, and the epithets sicatero (stingy), raton (rat), 
 and avariente (miser), are his reward. 
 
 The most perfect picture of this kind, and the most affecting example of these 
 domestic manners, is presented by the house of a canon, a friend of mine, a philosopher 
 by instinct, and by opportunity a professor of experimental physics. His study was 
 a loft lighted from the roof; an indefinable but poisonous odour exhaled from this 
 sanctuary of science, into which I never entered without holding a lemon to my nose. 
 No den in the dirtiest quarters of Orleans, no marine store-shop, ever presented a more 
 confused heap of books, instruments, rags, and waste-paper; no dirty nook was ever so 
 covered with dust or interlaced with cobwebs. Our canonical friend, seated at a table, 
 occupies himself in working out his ideas on paper, and keeping them bright by repeated 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 251 
 
 draughts of Carlon wine. If his hands stay, it is only to notice, with a smile, the three 
 young monkeys — his adopted children — who are screaming and tumbling over each other 
 on a mat. By a caprice worthy of his philosophy our friend has given to these children, 
 whose mother, an Indian, is his cook, names taken from the vegetable kingdom; the 
 eldest is called Sapallo (melon), the next in age, a daughter, Zanahoria (carrot), the 
 youngest answers to the name of Apio (celery). The maternal amour propre of the 
 
 ONE OF THE AUTHOR'S FRIENDS. - A CANON OF CUZCO AND PROFESSOR OF EXPERIMENTAL PHYSICS. 
 
 Indian was a little shocked at first by these ridiculous names, but her master main- 
 tained his point by pretending, with or without reason, that the names of vegetables 
 were very proper for the children of a cook, and would recall happy memories of 
 the pot-au-feu. 
 
 Let us leave our friend to his experimental physics, his brimming wine-glass, and 
 his interesting family, and from the manners of the clergy and the architecture of the 
 churches, pass on to a description of the convents. 
 
 The exterior decoration of the convents of Cuzco is far from equalling that of its 
 churches. All these edifices are heavy parallelograms, the walls perfectly plain, roofed 
 with tiles, or crowned by cupolas, and entered by an arched door, over which is placed 
 the sign of salvation. This door leads into a little court inclosed within high walls, and 
 abutting on one of those dark and tortuous passages which Mrs. RadclifFe loved to 
 
252 
 
 PERU. 
 
 depict in the old castles of her romances, or such as lead into the dungeons of the 
 Inquisition. One can hardly enter without feeling a little fear; but when, having groped 
 one's way for a few minutes, the interior cloister unexpectedly opens upon us full of 
 air and light, the disagreeable impression quickly vanishes. Imagine a vast court 
 surrounded with an arcade, the arches of which are supported by elegant pillars or 
 groups of columns extending in a charming perspective, and in the centre of this court, 
 which is formed into a garden, a granite fountain with three basins, one above the other, 
 from the summit of which springs a jet of water which falls from basin to basin as from 
 the urn of a naiad ! Add to this the fine masses of daturas, cherries, and myrtles, and 
 
 INTERIOR OP THE CONVENT OF MERCY AT CUZCO. 
 
 the baskets of flowers symmetrically arranged, all mingling their living foliage with the 
 sculptured leafage of the architecture. A profound peace, an ineffable calm, pervades 
 the scene. A complete solitude is around him who muses in its pleasant shades. No 
 discordant noise offends his ear; the murmuring of water, the sighing of the wind, the 
 twittering of a bird in the branches, are the only sounds which break the silence. 
 Never was a safer asylum, a more retired and mysterious retreat offered to the poet, 
 the artist, or the dreamer, to develop his theme or nurse his fancies. For these Edens 
 of Cuzco, hidden within four walls, it only requires a few degrees more of temperature 
 to make them worthy of being compared with the true Paradise. 
 
 The convent of Mercy is a marvel of the kind. If the elegance of its cloister, the 
 beautiful proportions of its arches, and the monumental staircase which leads to the first 
 story, are worthy of the admiration of the curious and of connoisseurs in art, its gardens, 
 its waters, its pleasant shades, offer to the meditative mind the most charming of 
 alamedas. 
 
 This beautiful convent, the prior of which was a friend of mine, has no corner 
 with which I am not acquainted. I know the exact number of pillars in its galleries, 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 253 
 
 and every kind of vegetable that grows in its garden-beds. One of my pleasures during 
 the short summers of Cuzco was to mount after dinner to the platform of its steeple, 
 and lean my back against the cupola, to enjoy the unspeakable pleasure imparted by 
 the heated masonry. Wrapped in my cloak, and smoking a cigar, my eye wandered 
 leisurely over the city, and indiscreetly penetrated the neighbouring houses and courts. 
 In particular, the monastery of Santa Clara attracted my attention by the arrange- 
 ment of its cells, and its prettily laid out garden, diapered with charming though com- 
 mon flowers. From the height of my observatory I could see the nuns come and go, 
 and at their various occupations, utterly unconscious that a profane intruder, a crea- 
 
 THE AUTHOR'S OBSERVATORY. 
 
 ture of the abhorred sex, had his eyes fixed upon them, and missed no detail of their 
 pantomime. 
 
 One afternoon in particular I was at my post watching, for the hundredth time, the 
 convent garden, when chance made me the witness of a strange scene. I speak of it 
 here for two reasons; first, because a traveller, being under an obligation to see every- 
 thing, if not to know everything, has some sort of right to say everything; secondly, 
 because the episode in question relates to the manners of the country and explains 
 certain customs. I say then I was looking into the garden of Santa Clara when one of 
 the nuns left her cell and placed herself opposite "a neighbouring one. She had a guitar, 
 which she played as an accompaniment to a copla, a yaram, or some kind of song. At 
 the distance at which I was — about 150 yards — I could not hear either the air or the 
 words, but the languishing pose of the performer, her head thrown back, her eyes raised 
 to heaven, plainly indicated that her song was one of the tenderest kind, and her music 
 suitable to it. 
 
 As she was thus occupied, the door of a cell on the right suddenly opened, and 
 a nun rushed out, her arms extended, and her vail streaming in the wind. Running to 
 
254 
 
 PERU. 
 
 the performer, she snatched the guitar from her hands, and broke it over her head. 
 Then seizing her in her vigorous grasp, and bending her like a reed, she inflicted on her 
 that sort of chastisement with which it is not uncommon to threaten naughty children, 
 while there flashed before my eyes a flutter of colours, blue, yellow, red, and green, as 
 when one turns up the leaves of a "Civil Code" (or a "London Post-office Directory") 
 with their variously-coloured edges. 1 The cries of the unfortunate brought out several 
 of her companions, with the abbess at their head, and not without trouble three of the 
 nuns released her from her assailant. What followed I do not know. 
 
 GARDEN OF THE CONVENT OF SANTA CLARA AT CDZCO. 
 
 In the evening I related this occurrence to some ladies of the city, and asked for an 
 explanation. They replied, with a smile, that the nun had probably been beaten for 
 serenading the beloved friend of one of her companions, precisely as in Spain a gallant 
 would punish the rival who should dare to twang a guitar under the windows of his 
 lady-love 1 
 
 Let us return to the convents of the men and their architecture. 
 Next to the convent of Mercy, the most beautiful of all, the foundation of which 
 dates from 1537, comes that of Santo Domingo, which dates from 1534, and was 
 
 1 Under the parallel of Cuzco, the enaguas, or petticoats worn by the fair sex, are always of woollen stuff, and of the 
 most brilliant dyes. The colours a la mode are deep scarlet, sky-blue, bright red, apple-green, and yellow. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 255 
 
 founded by the four Dominican monks, Valverde, Pedraza, San Martin, and Oliaz, who 
 accompanied Francisco Pizarro to Cuzco. This convent is built on the site occupied by 
 the temple of the Sun and its dependencies in the time of the Incas. Some remains of 
 
 THE CHURCH OF MERCY AT CUZCO. 
 
 the walls of the older edifice, built of a porphyroid trachyte, of a dull gray colour, are 
 included in the modern construction, and enable the archaeologist to study the old 
 material and workmanship. The convent garden is bounded on the north by the 
 remains of an ancient wall, semicircular in form, and the only one of the kind belonging 
 to the epoch of the Incas that we have discovered. The position of this wall corre- 
 
256 
 
 PER U. 
 
 sponds to the place where the colossal image of Inti-Churi, placed on an altar of black 
 porphyry, was exposed to the adoration of the faithful. Real flowers and vegetables 
 now grow in the garden once planted with flowers and grasses of gold, if one may credit 
 the marvellous descriptions given by the historiographers of the Conquest. That 
 garden, or rather that golden inclosure (ccoricancha) , though deprived of its treasures, 
 has given its name to the quarter. 
 
 The convent of San Francisco, founded in 1535, in the quarter of Toccocachi, 
 a dependency of the parish of San Cristoval, was transferred in 1538 into the quarter of 
 
 A. Temple of the Sun, now the 
 
 church and convent of Santo 
 Domingo. 
 
 B. B. B. B. Quadrangular cloister. 
 
 C. C. C. Outer court of the temple, 
 
 with its side walls. 
 
 D. D. D. D. D. Fountain and lavers 
 
 for purification. 
 
 E. E. E. E. Ancient streets leading 
 
 from the outer court of the 
 temple to the Great Square 
 of Cuzco, now the streets of 
 St. Augustiu, the Prison, the 
 Lower Brook, and the Corner 
 (Recoin). 
 
 F. Ccoricancha, or golden garden 
 
 of the Incas, now the resid- 
 ence and kitchen -garden of 
 the canon Justo Apu Ramo 
 de Sahuaraura. 
 
 i » 1 * a j» » 
 
 4 4* * F <* * <* 
 
 <* ■J» 
 
 » -j, A , j, ;i „*, 
 
 L 
 
 G. Chapel dedicated to the moon 
 
 — Quilla. 
 
 H. Chapel dedicated to Venus 
 and the Milky Way — Coyliur 
 chascca y Catachillay. 
 
 I. Chapel dedicated to Thunder 
 
 and Lightning — Illapantae. 
 
 J. Chapel dedicated to the Rain- 
 bow — Chtychi. 
 
 K. Council-hall of the Huillacumu, 
 or grand pontiff, and priests 
 of the Sun. 
 
 L. L. L. L. L. L. L L. L. L. L. L. L. L. 
 
 Apartments of the priests and 
 servants attached to the wor- 
 ship of the Sun. 
 
 GROUND-PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN, AS DETERMINED BY THE EXISTING REMAINS, THE PRINTED 
 TEXTS, AND THE MANUSCRIPT CHRONICLES PRESERVED IN THE CONVENTS OP CUZCO. 
 
 Casana, nearly opposite the College of Sciences. In 1549 it was definitively established 
 at the corner of the place which it still occupies, and to which it has given its name. 
 In this place every Saturday, from mid- day to six o'clock, a market is held (called the 
 market of Baratillo), where connoisseurs in such things, of both sexes, go to buy old 
 clothes, old lace, old hats, and old shoes. 
 
 The existing convent of San Francisco presents nothing exteriorly to the lovers of 
 architectonic art but an agglomeration of square basements, surmounted by a square 
 tower. In the interior there are courts, gardens, and long arcades, the arches of which 
 are supported by groups of columns, and the walls decorated with great frescoes, in 
 which are portrayed St. Francis of Assisi in every possible position and action of his 
 pious existence. The only remarkable thing about these frescoes is their naive piety. 
 In an artistic point of view, as to composition, design, and colour, they are mere memo- 
 randa, and give occasion to strange misunderstandings and curious perversions of the 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 257 
 
 artist's meaning. Notwithstanding, in these crusted daubs, exposed to the external air, 
 and growing paler each returning spring, like consumptive girls, one is sensible of a faith 
 so fervent, and, in the artist who painted them, an intention so manifest to honour the 
 patron of the place, in order to secure his intercession at the throne of mercy, that the 
 severest critic, though his heart may be steeled against emotion, must needs drop his 
 pen in spite of himself. 
 
 After the monasteries, let us speak of the monks. 
 
 In Cuzco, as in the cities of the Littoral, the monk enjoys the consideration of all 
 classes. The high functionaries clap him on the back in the friendliest manner, mer- 
 chants and citizens shake hands with him heartily, the women smile on him and trust 
 their consciences to his keeping, while the children climb his knees, and fearlessly play 
 with the tassels of his cloak-string. The freedom of action which this pious personage 
 enjoys at Cuzco is unbounded. We rarely find him in his cell, but, on the other hand, 
 we meet with him everywhere else, and at all hours; advising with one on the most 
 serious matters, discussing with another the most trivial affairs; speaking to every one 
 in the language proper to him ; moved by his temperament as well as his education to 
 make light of the troubles of the world ; freely seasoning his pleasantries to the taste of 
 his auditors; preferring the wines of France to the water of the country, and the exact 
 word to the periphrasis; bearing with his neighbours' little defects, excusing all his 
 weaknesses, veiling with a mantle of charity the peccadilloes of the fair sex, always 
 ready as a citizen to blame in public the acts of the government, and as an ecclesiastic 
 to censure in secret the doings of the bishop — such is the monk of Cuzco. 
 
 Most of these monks quit the convent after the morning office, and do not return 
 until nine o'clock at night. How do they employ the clay? That is just what no one 
 has ever known. Desirous of learning something about this constant truant-playing, 
 which seemed to me at the least very strange, I questioned the prior of a convent who 
 had often been my vis-d-vis at little family dances: 
 
 "Why do all your monks leave the convent every day?" I asked. 
 
 "To seek their pasture," he replied, laughing. 
 
 And as I insisted on knowing what kind of pasture he meant, the worthy prior 
 added, with a wink, 
 
 "Are they not men like yourself ?" 
 
 I was obliged to content myself with this ambiguous answer. 
 
 At Cuzco the monastic state does not entail upon the novitiate any of those rough 
 trials of his constancy which mortify the body and weary the spirit. It is along roads 
 clad with soft herbage, and paths sown with flowers, that these novices reach the period 
 when they must pronounce their vows, and seriously commence their vocation. How 
 often in our walks, through town and country, have we not seen through the half-open 
 door of a chicheria a merry swarm of these monigotes (lay brothers of religious orders) 
 roaring their bacchanal songs, drinking their brimming glasses, or dancing the maicito 
 and the moza mala with all the abandonment of their age ! 
 
 The priors of the convents of Cuzco have made it a rule to tolerate among the 
 novices of their order these honest pastimes, of which religion, as they profess it, 
 
 vol. i. 33 
 
258 
 
 PERU. 
 
 does not disapprove. They pretend to know by experience that human nature has 
 need of a safety-valve to let off its surplus steam, without which precaution the 
 machine might be blown up. These priors are, generally speaking, men trained to 
 the battle of life, and tempered like fine steel in the furnace of the passions. All 
 have been, or are still, exposed to the temptations of the evil one. If the most part 
 succumb without showing fight, it is because they are persuaded beforehand that all 
 resistance on their part would be useless, God, they say, nut having gifted man 
 and the demon with equal power. 
 
 MONKS OF CUZOO — THE FOU11 ORDERS. 
 
 One of them, already advanced during his lifetime to canonization, who was well 
 known to me, but whom I will not name for fear of shocking his modesty, has been 
 the victim of one of those terrible passions which upset society, and which, let us 
 charitably hope, may at last tend to their greater perfection in righteousness. That 
 passion had been to the prior of whom I speak the source of a thousand evils, and 
 at the same time an occasion of the most foolish extravagancies. After having de- 
 voured the savings of the community, and hypothecated the lands of the convent, he 
 had, say his enemies — which of us, alas! has not enemies? — sold to a goldsmith of 
 the Calle del Plateros a statue of the archangel Michael, as large as life, and of solid 
 silver, which for two centuries had adorned a certain chapel, where it had been the 
 pride of the community and the admiration of the faithful. The devout public 
 made a stir about this affair, and the bishop was arranging to open an inquiry, when 
 lo! the image which it was said had been sold and melted into ingots was found one 
 fine morning in its old niche. The prior was raised to the skies. In vain his enemies 
 asserted that a collection made for the purpose among the ladies had enabled him to 
 buy the image back again. The common sense of the public did justice to that 
 calumny, and the prior's reputation for sanctity was suddenly increased a hundredfold. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 259 
 
 If the monks of Cuzco have neither the softened manners nor the mellifluous 
 tones acquired by familiarity with the world, nor that ordinary niceness of person 
 which St. Augustine calls a virtue, and which their religious brethren of Arequipa 
 carry to excess, they substitute for these virtues a roundness of manners, a frankness 
 of language, and a keen appreciation of men and things, which puts the stranger 
 who is near them at his ease. Among the monks of Arequipa the form is more than 
 the substance; among those of Cuzco the substance predominates over the form. 
 
 The parallel we have drawn between the convents of men in the two cities may 
 be extended, with some modifications, to their communities of women. Less bounti- 
 fully gifted by nature and education than the nuns of Arequipa, those of Cuzco have 
 none of those pleasant links with the outside world which the former have established 
 by means of little presents and sweets. Like the Virgins of the Sun, to whom they 
 are related by family ties, the nuns of Cuzco live chastely within the shadow of their 
 cold walls, and though, following the example of their sisters beyond the Cordillera, 
 they sometimes make for sale creams, fritters, and other dainties, they never invite, 
 as the nuns of Arequipa do, their neighbours and friends to come and partake of such 
 things with them. 
 
 These moral and physical differences between the communities of Cuzco and Are- 
 quipa seem to be resolvable into questions of altitude, of climate, and of race. Are- 
 quipa, situated in a pleasant green valley, enjoys a mild temperature, and an almost 
 always serene sky. Its proximity to the coast of the Pacific, and its daily relations 
 with strangers during a period of three centuries, have caused a mixture of races, 
 and substituted for the pure Indian blood, in the elite of its population, much of 
 Spanish, English, German, French, and Italian origin. Cuzco, owing to its geogra- 
 phical situation, has enjoyed none of these advantages. Situated 300 miles from the 
 sea, and 12,558 feet above its level, surrounded with barren mountains, saddened by 
 a cold climate and a clouded sky, its population has only had passing relations with 
 the civilized world, and has preserved almost intact its primitive manners, as well as 
 its peculiar idiom and the colour of its skin. 
 
 We would willingly have developed at greater length this comparison between Are- 
 quipa and Cuzco, but our minutes are counted, and the reader must undertake that task 
 for himself. We will only add, that from the geographical and climatological differences 
 between the two cities there results a sentiment of mutually hostile sharpness in their 
 populations. The citizens, small and great, of the Littoral provinces, like the religious 
 bodies, call the inhabitants of the Sierra Indios piojosos (lousy Indians) ; while the latter 
 on their side stigmatize the coast inhabitants as Yuracuy (white rabbits) and Masamo- 
 reros (lickers of cream). 
 
 Notwithstanding the severe seclusion of the nuns of Cuzco, and their superiority to 
 the opinion of the world, calumny has not scrupled to whisper the accusations which 
 seem so natural to the carnal mind, and to tarnish with its unclean breath these 
 mirrors of purity. The nuns of* St. Catherine have been the especial butt of the 
 arrows of the wicked. It is curious that the site of their convent was formerly 
 occupied by the Accllhuaci or House of the Virgins consecrated to the worship of 
 
200 
 
 PERU. 
 
 Helios-Ckuri. They are now subjected, however, to the severity of the laws made by 
 Sinchiroca in the twelfth century. Christianity has much softened the lot of these 
 vestals. Instead of being put to death, the nun avIio has forgotten her vows — and some 
 instances of the kind are on record — is simply but severely whipped by two of her 
 companions, and deprived of her chocolate for breakfast during a year-. As for her 
 accomplice, he may be censured by public opinion, but the law does not reach him. 
 
 The earthquake of 1G50, one of the most violent on record — like that of 1590, which 
 was felt at Cuzco, where it overthrew 100 houses — destroyed a portion of the convent 
 
 BEGUINE OF CUZCO. 
 
 of St. Catherine, built in 1599. Dispossessed of their abode, the nuns found an asylum 
 in the house of a chevalier situated in the Calle del Cuichipuncu. On the 17th of 
 December, 1651, after vespers, the first stone of the present monastery was solemnly 
 laid. The Bishop of Cuzco, surrounded by the clergy, the religious communities, and 
 a vast number of the population, deposited under this stone some pieces of golden coin 
 stamped with the effigy of Philip IV., a ring, and a tooth -pick. The money, it is 
 naively stated, in a long inscription engraved upon a leaden plate which was placed 
 under the stone along with the objects, was meant to tjqiify the spiritual riches which 
 the soul acquires by prayer and by renouncing the pleasures of the world; the ring 
 betokened the mystic espousal of the virgins to their heavenly Bridegroom; the tooth- 
 pick alone was apparently meaningless. We have vainly tried to fathom this little 
 mystery. Was this tooth-pick an advertisement of some kind? Was it a symbol? 
 If a symbol, did it refer to the soul or the body? What was its signification? Was 
 it a token of cleanliness ? Here is a fine opportunity for those who are fond of rebuses 
 and charades to find the solution of a puzzling enigma. 
 
 The nunneries of Cuzco have nothing to say to questions of art. Those of St. 
 Catherine and Santa Clara are plain square edifices, dating back to 1651 and 1558. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 261 
 
 As to the beguinages, of still humbler pretensions, they all date from the middle of the 
 eighteenth century. The beguines of various orders who reside in them form a distinct 
 type among the population of the city. Clothed in black, white, blue, or gray, ac- 
 cording to the order to which they belong, a leathern belt round their waists, from 
 which is suspended a string of beads, a crucifix, and a number of medals and death's- 
 heads, which make a melancholy rattling as they walk, these beguines — old, brown, 
 bony, and sullen for the most part — are intermediary between the world and the 
 cloister. As they have the privilege of going out at all hours, and are received every- 
 where, they circulate, in private houses and monasteries alike, all the small talk and 
 scandal they can collect in the course of their peregrinations : some of them, like the 
 Spanish duenna of the olden time, serve as letter-carriers and links of communication 
 between unhappy and persecuted lovers ; others make a secret trade of love, and offer 
 to sell at a high price that which is elsewhere given away. 
 
 If from the architecture of the churches and convents of Cuzco we pass to that of 
 its houses, we shall observe that the majority of them have for their basements old 
 walls of the time of the Incas, the more easy to recognize, as they are never coloured or 
 whitewashed, whilst the rest of the house is always daubed over with lime or some gay- 
 coloured wash. This speciality dates from the time of Pizarro, who, to economize time 
 and workmanship, contented himself with discrowning the old edifices, and erecting new 
 stories upon the old basements. Thanks to this circumstance — a happy one for archae- 
 ologists^ — the city is only transformed, as it were, to the middle of the body, the upper 
 half being catholic and modern, the lower heathen and antique. 
 
 The style of these dwellings is, with some slight differences, that of all the houses 
 built in America by Spanish constructors and the masons of their school. It is mono- 
 tonous, heavy, and freezingly cold. The enormous square mass which forms the build- 
 ing has a door like a tomb, studded with nails. This door opens into a court paved like 
 a street; a staircase in one of the walls leads to the first story, which has an internal 
 gallery of wood or stone. From this gallery open the sleeping and reception chambers, 
 the folding-doors of which, in place of any kind of glass, have only a grated judas, or 
 a little sliding shutter (cliattiere). An exterior balcony, shaped like a long wooden 
 box, is supported by projecting timbers, and is apparently quite closed, but lozenge or 
 heart shaped openings enable the inmates to see what is going on in the streets without 
 being seen. 
 
 Some decorate the sides of the entrance court with granite vases called mazetas, 
 in 'which a vivacious thlaspi, rue, or yuerba buena [Mentha viridis— spear-mint) may 
 be languishing out its days ; others have a garden peopled with green myrtles like those 
 of ancient Idalia mentioned by Voltaire in his Henriade. These unhappy shrubs are 
 tortured by the local gardeners into the shape of men and animals, of ramrods and 
 distaffs, butterflies and cauliflowers. A few clumps of dahlias, asters, gilliflowers, and 
 red and white carnations, make agreeable breaks in these fantastic masses of verdure. 
 
 The furniture of the houses, as in those of Arequipa, is of two kinds and two epochs. 
 Families faithful to ancient tradition have preserved articles of Spanish manufacture 
 made and carved out of the solid wood, painted in bright colours, which are heightened 
 
202 
 
 PERU. 
 
 in effect by fillets of burnished gold and a pattern of roses or tulips. The houses which 
 sacrifice to modern taste and pique themselves on elegance are furnished in the Grseco- 
 Parisian style of 1 804. Both classes of dwellings have their windows protected with iron 
 bars, and seldom have any curtains. Instead of a floor the ground has a coating of 
 argamaza, a kind of cement, and is thickly carpeted as a protection against the cold. 
 
 A gray-coloured paper or a painting in impasto decorates the walls of the aristo- 
 cratic drawing-rooms. Upon the tables or consoles, over which are octagonal mirrors 
 in steel frames, are displayed specimens of Peruvian bric-a-brac, consisting of statuettes 
 of Incas and Coyas (empresses) found at Huamanga, and vases of painted earthenware, 
 more or less cracked, of a date anterior to the Conquest. Oil-paintings by artists of 
 Cuzco and Quito once adorned the saloons of the old aristocracy, but political revolu- 
 tions have disfigured, burned, or sold these often remarkable canvases. Deprived of the 
 
 A LADY OF CUZCO. 
 
 gallery of pictures which had been their pride, some noble families of the city, among 
 whom a taste for art is hereditary, have tried to provide a substitute for them by 
 painting the wall of their staircase either with the colours and designs of their heraldic 
 honours, or with their genealogical tree, represented as a vine with tortuous branches. 
 This emblematic peerage, at the top of which is found Francisco Pizarro, extends from 
 the ground-floor to the first story, spreading along the walls its garlands of green vine- 
 leaves, from which hang like wall-grapes the heads of bearded Spaniards and native 
 women. One of these staircases, that of the late Countess Roza de Sanz y Traganabos 
 — a woman as remarkable for her small stature and beauty as for her exploits in the 
 wars of independence — has been for a long time the admiration of strangers. 
 
 The families of the doubtful nobility, or those which can only boast of a small 
 number of ancestors, being incapable of pretending to the honours of the emblematic 
 vine, console themselves with the possession of a piano of English or Chilian manu- 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 263 
 
 facture. This piano, provided with wax lights always fresh, and with Rodolph's exer- 
 cises on the scale always open, is placed in the most conspicuous part of the reception 
 
 A WOMAN OF THE LOWER RANKS OF CUZCO. 
 
 room. No one ever touches it, for reasons which it is easy to conceive, but the show 
 it makes is satisfactory to the amour propre of the family. It is at once a certificate of 
 
 A WOMAN OF THE LOWER RANKS OF CUZCO. 
 
 civilization and an attestation of taste and genteel manners. It is the mode to have 
 a piano, as in Paris to have an English service of silver from old Saxe, and furniture 
 from Boulc. Every family happy enough to procure one of these instruments, though 
 
264 
 
 PERU. 
 
 it may be all askew and without strings, is raised to the level of the nobility, and keeps 
 with it the crown of the causeway. 
 
 Notwithstanding the almost constant lowness of the temperature of Cuzco, and the 
 storms of rain, hail, and snow which succeed each other so frequently, that the neigh- 
 bouring cities say of that capital: Llueve 13 meses en un ano — it rains thirteen months in 
 the year — the use of chimneys, stoves, or braziers is unknown. The ladies wrap them- 
 selves up as well as possible in their shawls or mantles, and the gentlemen in their great 
 cloaks. As for the Indians, both men and women, they wear woollen shirts and coats 
 
 WOMAN OF THE ENVIRONS OF CUZCO. 
 
 or habits, to which the men add the llacolla, and the women the llicclla — large and 
 small sized woollen mantles. To warm them more effectively, and set their blood in 
 more rapid motion, great and small, rich and poor, have, besides the wines and liquors 
 of Europe, the local chicha and rum from the hot valleys. Aided by these various 
 drinks, the consumption of which never ceases, they bear with but little inconvenience 
 the minimum of temperature to which they are exposed. 
 
 Under this inclement and almost always clouded sky it is conceivable that clean- 
 liness of body is not one of the virtues of the indigenes, and that their aversion to water 
 approaches the character of hydrophobia. People who mix in society, it is true, perform 
 some little ablutions once a week; but Indians go from the cradle to the grave without 
 having felt for one moment the need of washing their face and hands. Generally they 
 take their rest without undressing, and in fact never renew their clothes until those 
 they have on are reduced to rags. A native woman puts on a new petticoat over her old 
 ragged one, and as she habitually wears three or four, it is credible that the first is at 
 least eight or ten years old. This fact sufficiently accounts for the parasites which infest 
 them, and for that sickly odour which so unpleasantly counterbalances, in the eyes of 
 the artist, the picturesque side of their nature. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 265 
 
 From October to January the severity of the climate softens a little ; a blue sky suc- 
 ceeds to the monotonous gray, and some rays of sunlight struggle to the ground, which 
 leaps for joy. The population hails with transport the advent of the luminary they 
 once adored. Society hastens to profit by the short summer. Processions are organ- 
 ized, and little journeys undertaken. Families flock to the valleys of Yucay and Uru- 
 bamba to eat the strawberry and peach (unuela), both accompanied by the always 
 indispensable liquor and the pleasant sounds of the flute and guitar. Others are satis- 
 fied with a daily trip to Huancaro, a hamlet just outside the city, where there is a large 
 bath, constructed of stone, in two divisions, and filled to the brim with pure cold water. 
 
 There, from noon to four o'clock, and for a small payment, both sexes, separated by a 
 partition, disport themselves at pleasure, and, their teeth chattering with cold, taste the 
 delights of a bath which are interdicted during the rest of the year. 
 
 "We are now approaching an essentially delicate point in our review of modern Cuzco 
 — the monograph of those who everywhere constitute the ornaments of society. May 
 we not fail to satisfy at once the curiosity of the reader, and the amour pi'opre of a sex 
 to which, as Legouve* says, we owe our mother ! We are conscious of the difficulty of 
 the enterprise; it is like undertaking to navigate between two rocks, with the risk, in 
 avoiding Charybdis, of running upon Scylla. While satisfying the one, we may offend 
 the other. Nevertheless, the purity of our motives, and the uprightness of our inten- 
 tions, will justify us in our own eyes if, by chance, we founder before reaching the 
 shore. This premised, we hoist sail and dare the voyage. 
 
 The women of Cuzco have generally brown skins, are of middle height, and some- 
 what full of figure. With them the Indian type of physique still predominates over the 
 Spanish, as the qualities and defects of the indigenous race crop out from under the 
 varnish of education which covers them. Nevertheless, to remind a woman of Cuzco 
 of her incontestable origin would be to do her a mortal injury. The ambition of all 
 
 vol. i. 34 
 
 INDIAN OF CUZCO. 
 
2GG 
 
 PERU. 
 
 is to prove that they arc Andalusian from head to foot, and, if intimate enough, they 
 will show their shoe as an indisputable proof of their descent. The tiny shoe may, in 
 fact, remind one of the pretty Andalusian foot, and might serve for the slipper of Rho- 
 dope or Cinderella; but as for birth, a shoe, however pretty it may be, proves very little. 
 More than one shepherdess has had the foot of a dwarf, and many a queen the foot of 
 a king. It is only women between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, however, who fly 
 to this argument of the shoe. Illusions vanish as women get older and miss the homage 
 of our ruder sex; thus the older women of Cuzco do not scruple to acknowledge their 
 origin in a very loud voice when occasion offers: "Somos Indicts, para que negarlo? — 
 We are Indians, what is the use of denying it ?" they say, laughing. An avowal of this 
 kind from the lips of these venerable ladies has always appeared to us, besides being 
 a homage rendered to holy truth, as a pin-prick meant for the younger women, and 
 a fashion, peculiarly feminine, of protesting against the isolation to which their wrinkles 
 and their gray hairs have consigned them. 
 
 These little weaknesses, common to the fair sex in all ages and countries, are amply 
 compensated among the Cusquenas, old and young, by many sweet and amiable quali- 
 ties, attentions, and gracious condescensions, which lend a charm to any intercourse with 
 them. Their monotonous life, barren of incidents, their distance from civilized points, 
 a certain difficulty which they find in speaking Spanish — as the women of Arequipa say 
 of them, they bungle {cliajmrean) — all these causes combine to impart to their manners 
 E know not what ingenuous timidity and modest gauclierie, which is quite charming in 
 itself, and which we should look for in vain among the women of the coast-towns. That 
 timidity before strangers whom they see for the first time — a timidity which becomes 
 fear among the lower class — seems to be the result of that unfriendly relationship which 
 formerly existed between the Indians and the conquerors, though it has been weakened 
 among the higher classes by reason of their alliances with the Spaniards. 
 
 Apart from the weekly visits of intimate friends, the women of Cuzco hardly go from 
 home at all, where some occupy themselves with needlework, others with the prepara- 
 tion of sherbets and sweetmeats, mixing with their various labours any amount of harm- 
 less gossip, for which the text is supplied by their chinas, cameristes, or chambermaids, 
 who collect their information out of doors. To assemble any number of the fair sex 
 nothing less will suffice than a grand fete, an official ball on Shrove Tuesday, the solemn 
 entry of a bishop, the installation of a new prefet, or the nomination of a president. 
 Except on these rare occasions, the women voluntarily seclude themselves, and keep 
 their doors shut. It is only the stranger who commands the watchword, and can visit 
 them freely at any hour of the day. But the stranger enjoys so many privileges among 
 the fair sex of Peru! He is that vara axis of which Juvenal speaks, to whom every 
 young lady presents some little delicacy upon a trap, of which she persuades him to eat 
 with sweet words, in the hope of snaring him and shutting him up in a cage. 
 
 Along with their natural timidity and grace, the women of Cuzco have preserved the 
 old national costume of the time of the viceroys, still used at Lima, where it serves to 
 cover the amiable weaknesses of the sex rather than the woman herself: but this cos- 
 tume, which is gradually disappearing from the capital of the Pacific, to the delight of 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 267 
 
 the unhappy husbands whose torment it has been for these two centuries, is far from 
 being worn by the women of Cuzco in the no-fashion and desinvoltura of the fair Lima- 
 nians. Its picturesque character in the City of the Kings degenerates to the grotesque 
 in the City of the Incas. A woman of Cuzco, muffled up in that folded tonnelet, short- 
 ened and fringed, called a saya angosta or a pollera ajiresiliada, resembles somewhat, 
 seen behind, a huge scaraba?us, to which, however, some one has added antenna?. 
 
 This garment, worn by the majority of the women of Cuzco — from those of the mer- 
 cantile class to the comfortable artisans' wives — is repudiated by the women of the aris- 
 
 CH AM BERK AIDS (CAMERISTES) OF CUZCO. 
 
 tocracy, who dress themselves d la frangaise, but with modifications and additions in 
 the taste of the country. There still flourish in all their past splendour the tunics d la 
 grecque, the robes d la Vierge and a la Sevigne, the spencers and the scarfs as they were 
 worn by the fair Parisians in 1820. The long drooping feathers which made a woman's 
 head-dress appear like that of a hcrald-at-arms, and the tall indented combs d la giraffe, 
 which remind one of the tower-crowned Cybele, are also perpetuated with touching 
 fidelity. This respect for sumptuary traditions, which is common to the women of Cuzco, 
 and which for pretenders to their hand should be of good augury, as evincing their 
 singular constancy, is, however, destroyed or weakened by two strange customs. The 
 first, in honour with the women of the bourgeoisie, is that of washing their hair with 
 stagnant urine, and greasing it with mutton-fat in place of pomade. 1 The second of the 
 customs referred to consists in covering their faces with those ointments and cosmetic 
 plasters which were once used by the Assyrians and Medes, and which queen Jezebel 
 
 1 The ammonia contained in this liquid prevents, so say those that use it, the contraction and drying np of the root- 
 bulbs of the hair, and consequently the falling oft' of the hair. Whether true or not, it is remarkable that baldness is 
 unknown among these aborigines; on the contrary, they have luxuriant hair which they preserve perfectly black to ad- 
 vanced age. 
 
2G8 
 
 PERU. 
 
 employed with success, if we may believe the indiscreet revelation of her daughter Atha- 
 liah. Only, the ladies of Cuzco, instead of using it like the queen of Judah, 
 
 Pour ruparer des ans l'irruparable outrage, 
 
 employ it simply to hide the colour of their skin, and to give them the fine rosy hue 
 of our buxom European lasses. Among these ladies there are some with natures 
 
 A LADY OF CUZCO GOING TO CHUECH. 
 
 superior to artifice, and who, disdaining the use of white-lead and vermilion — thinking 
 that well done that God has done — content themselves with varnishing their faces with 
 the white of egg, to which they add a few drops of eau-de-Cologne. This innocent 
 glaze, like certain cosmetics puffed by tradesmen, clears the complexion, so/tens the skin, 
 prevents wrinkles from appearing, and effaces or conceals the old ones — in short, gives to 
 the face the appearance of a freshly silvered looking-glass. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 '269 
 
 As my readers, and above all my lady readers, may be surprised to see me so well 
 up in these little secrets of the toilet, which they hardly acknowledge even to themselves, 
 and take great pains to conceal from others, I must confess, though neither a perfumer, 
 nor even a manufacturer of Macassar oil and pate d'amandes, that I have sometimes, in 
 amiable condescension to the weakness of the sex, left graver studies, to prepare with my 
 own hands, with such materials as flake-white, ochre, carmine, and some kind of essence, 
 a pomade, the fresh colour of which might rival that of the nymphs of Rubens. With 
 what bouquets of flowers, what sweet words and sweet smiles, to say nothing of boxes 
 of sweetmeats, have I not been repaid for this little condescension ! On the other hand, 
 what angry explosions have I not provoked, what abuse have I not received from the 
 
 A WOMAN OF CUZCO — CT.ASS OF TRADESMEN. 
 
 woman to whom I have, par ordre, refused a similar kindness, in order that she might 
 not compete with a rival, and have the chance of surpassing her in loveliness! Sweet 
 memories — winged sylphs who have fluttered for a moment over this virgin page, urging 
 my pen till it bends and sputters, notwithstanding the hardness of its metallic nib — away 
 with you! vanish, never to return! Graver subjects claim our attention. After this 
 sweet soupgon of homage to the weaker sex, we have to speak of the fathers and hus- 
 bands, brothers and cousins, who constitute the stronger. 
 
 We cannot say that the Cusquenos are graceful and retiring, like the women of the 
 country, but we can assure the reader they are touchy and mistrustful. In the measure 
 that the one, when the ice is once broken, show themselves sympathetic with the 
 stranger, the other manifest their repugnance to encourage similar relations with him. 
 That repugnance has a little the character of moroseness, and very much of pride in their 
 own attainments. The physical and moral superiority of the European offends their 
 vanity, and when it happens that they are compelled to recognize it in public, it is with 
 a reserve which betrays at once how much it costs them to do so. 
 
270 
 
 PERU. 
 
 Wanting the exterior advantages whieli distinguish the men of Arequipa, the Cus- 
 quenos endeavour to compensate the niggardliness of nature by the advantages of in- 
 struction. They arc all ardent students of theology, philosophy, common-law, statute- 
 law, and the civil and ecclesiastical codes. The natural sciences, living and dead lan- 
 guages, the belles-lettres, and other esthetic studies, they regard as unworthy of a manly 
 education, and banish them from the programme of their studies, as the divine Plato 
 banished from his republic the makers of sonnets and dithyrambs. The effect of the 
 serious education they receive is to increase the imposing gravity of their carriage. 
 A learned Cusqueno, wrapped in his cloak, walks the street with the majesty of a doge 
 going to wed the Adriatic. The subtle definitions with which he has stuffed his brain 
 enable him to choose his career either in the magistracy or at the bar. Sometimes he 
 
 devotes himself to instruction, but instances of this kind are rare. Generally he prefers 
 the rostrum to the professorial chair. He knows that the advocate has the world at his 
 foot. In Peru we have seen men who rival Cicero at the bar transformed at once into 
 generals of brigade, and, passing on to the rank of field-marshal, seat themselves at last 
 on the president's throne. Such examples of success account for the prodigious number 
 of barristers found in the old capital. It is true most of them die without pleading 
 a cause, the reason being that causes are as rare at Cuzco as the appearance of comets. 
 These barristers, however, console themselves by strumming the guitar, stringing quat- 
 rains, and agitating against the government, or perhaps in growing a few potatoes or 
 maize and lucerne in some kind of chacara. 
 
 The scientific establishments of Cuzco enjoy a well-deserved reputation in every part 
 of the Sierra comprised between the 15th and 18th degrees of latitude. Its university, 
 Abbas Beati Antonii, founded in 1592, has a chancellor, a rector, a vice-rector, a director of 
 the studies, a secretary, three professors, a treasurer, two mace-bearers, and a pongo, who 
 fills the office of porter. The subjects taught are theology, canon-law, and a little logic. 
 
 A LIONESS OF CUZCO. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 271 
 
 The College of Sciences and Arts, founded or rather reconstituted in 1825 by Bolivar, 
 bore in the eighteenth century the name of San Francisco de Borja, which succeeded to 
 that of the College of the Sun. Simon Bolivar wished to make it a focus of light not 
 unworthy of the luminary under whose patronage it had been placed. But the smallness 
 
 A C0SQUES-O savant. 
 
 of the revenues devoted to the support of this college did not permit the liberator to 
 realize his vast designs. Nevertheless, the programme of the studies is sufficiently liberal 
 to satisfy the demands of the paterfamilias of Cuzco. Religion, the Castillian and Latin 
 tongues, philosophy and orthology, are all taught; and, in addition to these subjects, the 
 scholars receive parenthetical lessons in politeness and courtesy. 
 
 An institution for young girls, which bears the name of Las Educandas del Cuzco, is 
 renowned for fifty miles round. Every year the pupils sustain before an enthusiastic 
 public and delighted parents brilliant examinations on the catechism, arithmetic, and 
 
272 
 
 PERU. 
 
 dressmaking. The sum devoted by the government to this interesting school is £1G00 
 sterling. To keep in remembrance the benefactor and the benefit received, the girls are 
 clothed in the Peruvian colours, consisting of a white frock and a scarlet cloak. 
 
 Printing, which has existed in China from time immemorial, and in Europe since the 
 
 PROFESSORS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABBAS BEATI ANTONII AT CUZCO. 
 
 middle of the fifteenth century, was not introduced into Cuzco till 1822. It is to the 
 viceroy La Serna that the City of the Sun is indebted for this advance. Driven from 
 Lima by the arrival of the patriot troops, La Serna fled to Cuzco, carrying with him 
 a flying press, by the aid of which he circulated on the Pacific coast and in the Sierra his 
 proclamations and manifestoes. When the royalists were beaten, La Serna fled precipi- 
 tately from Cuzco, leaving behind him his press, of which the Cusquenos possessed them- 
 selves by right of conquest. From 1824 to the present time that historic press has 
 printed, one after another, six octavo journals — the Sun, the Phantom, the Watchtower 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 273 
 
 (Atalaya) the Extractor, the Observer, the Guide, and Dr. Higinios' celebrated Castilian 
 and Latin grammar, in the form of question and answer, the questions printed in blue, 
 the answers in red ink. 
 
 If we say nothing of the library and the museum of Cuzco, it is from a sentiment of 
 propriety which every one will appreciate. There are misfortunes nobly borne which 
 one may inwardly pity, but which it would be indelicate to make public, especially when 
 the institutions or the persons who are the objects of them do their best to conceal the 
 facts. Let us mention only en passant some specimens of pottery dotted about the 
 museum, or the room which serves for one, a few bits of gold and silver ore, and two 
 horrible daubs on paper by M. Paul Marcoy, the writer of these lines, which represent 
 — the daubs, not the lines — two Siriniris Indians of the valley of Marcapata. 
 
 Besides its scientific establishments, Cuzco possesses a few useful and philanthropic 
 institutions, such as the Hospital of the Holy Spirit for men, and that of St. Andrew, of 
 which we have already spoken, for women. There is still a third, that of San Juan de 
 Dios de Urquilos; but as it receives few sick (in which respect it resembles the two hos- 
 pitals just named, because the Indian, when he is ill, generally prefers to a bed in the 
 hospital a shakedown of straw and a rag to cover him in the dirty corner of a chicheria), 
 three monks and the prior of a mendicant order have taken possession of it, and there 
 get as fat as possible on the charity of the faithful and a daily income of something like 
 a shilling which the government allows to each. 
 
 Cuzco also boasts of a mint, a treasury, and a post-office. In the latter, on the 
 arrival of couriers from Lima, Puno, and Arequipa, which takes place every fortnight, 
 a list of names, stuck to the wall with four wafers, informs the citizens — postmen being 
 unknown at Cuzco — that a letter addressed to such and such a person lies in the office, 
 and will be delivered on the payment of three reals (two shillings) if it comes from Are- 
 quipa, and three reals and a half if from Lima. 
 
 The Alameda, or public promenade, the creation of which is due to General Jose 
 Miguel Medina, the gravest and most taciturn prefect we have ever known, is an ill-kept 
 kind of slums which every one is careful to avoid. Close by it is another place quite as 
 ill-conditioned and repulsive, where all the world, however, resorts. This is the Cemetery, 
 which dates from the same period as the Alameda. It is divided into compartments 
 apportioned to the several convents. The thick walls, with three rows of cells, are for 
 the public at large. The corpse is introduced head first into this sheath-like sepulchre, 
 separated from the living by a few bricks, hastily plastered up, and abandoned for ever 
 to its lonely tenement. 
 
 Theatres, circuses, and other places of recreation for mind and body, are utterly 
 unknown at Cuzco. Among the pleasures of society, the first place must be given to 
 what we should call "parties" or carpet-dances on a birth-day or other special occasion. 
 Only relations and intimate friends are admitted to this kind of reunion, which com- 
 mences with a ceremonial dinner, at which the guests drink pretty freely, and is kept up 
 by a succession of square dances a la francesa, during which they drink more freely 
 still, till it ends, when they have drunk too much, in a cadenced and frenzied ram- 
 page, in which all classes, ages, and sexes are mixed and confused. This rampage, called 
 
 VOL. I. 35 
 
« 
 
 274 
 
 PERU. 
 
 the zapateo, from the verb zapatear (to strike with the shoe), is the final round of the 
 ball, the grand closing "flare-up." All the dancers exert themselves to the utmost, 
 scorning to break off till, from fatigue and breathlessness, their knees give way under 
 them. This local dance is reproduced in the following notation. Out of the five or 
 six movements of the zapateo which are ringing in our ears while we write, we have 
 seized upon this, as we would on a troublesome fly to get rid of its buzzing. 
 
 Prestissimo. 
 
 3< 
 
 a 
 
 
 Mm 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 s — — ■ 
 
 
 
 =t Id 
 
 
 
 HP 
 
 it* 8* 
 
 =8*=\ 
 
 
 
 
 
 To these amusements of the family are allied other pleasures of a temperate kind, in 
 which music and a little brandy make all the cost. A dozen or fifteen persons meet in 
 an upper room. A man or woman distinguished in the company for a clear ringing- 
 voice and for skill in lengthening out the notes, sits on a sofa, the place of honour, 
 and receives from the hands of the mistress of the house a guitar, decorated w r ith a 
 cockade of blue or pink ribbon, like the shank of a dressed ham trimmed with a bit 
 of curled paper. While the musician is tuning the guitar, and practising all the little 
 fopperies which are the usual prelude to a musical morceau, the auditors are settling 
 themselves down, so as not to miss the slightest gesture of the singer, or the least 
 note or word of the yaravi, which is the great air, I may say the only one, honoured 
 at these musical reunions. The first note and the first syllable escapes at last from the 
 throat of the performer; a profound and admiring silence — Milton would have called it 
 a ravished silence — hushes the company. One might suppose the angel of melody had 
 descended amongst them, and had inspired them with a feeling of rapt enthusiasm. 
 Their necks are stretched, and their eyes expanded. Every ear, every mouth is open, 
 as they seem to devour the singer with hungry looks, and to hang upon his lips in a 
 blessed rapture. Excited by the sympathy of his audience, the singer gives full swing 
 to his powers ; the timbre is more and more intensified ; the burden of the air is 
 indefinitely prolonged, until, in a climacteric spasm of melody, he throws his head back 
 and only the whites of his eyes are seen. This innocent artifice of the performer and 
 immobility of pose in the audience may be sustained for an hour or more, according to the 
 number of copias in the yaravi. It is hardly necessary to state that after every couplet 
 the artiste and the guests alike refresh themselves with little glasses of eau-de-vie. 
 
 Thinking that some of my fair readers may have a fancy for trying over, upon a 
 modern piano, one of these ancient songs, the first conception of which dates from the 
 
 * Divested of all accidental notes, this tune and that on page 277 appear to be in the modes of the 2d and 4th 
 of the scale (Dorian and Lydian). These modes are quite common in Scottish music, and are characteristic of all 
 old national airs. The tunes are here given in simpler form,— the notes marked * have probably been erroneously 
 written in the text. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 277 
 
 time of the Inca Loqui Yupanqui, I subjoin a copla from the most celebrated of the 
 ten or a dozen yaravis of which the Cusquinian repertoire boasts. 
 
 Tr&s-lent. 
 
 3 t±g 
 
 Conqueal fiu tir - a - no du - e-no tauto amor elarnores ta-a-antas; tantas fa-ti-gas tautas fa-ti-gas 
 
 mm 
 
 4~ f 
 
 no ban con-se-guido en tu pe-ch-o o-tro pre-e-e mio-o que un du - ro gol-pe de tir - a-ni - a. 
 
 After these pleasures of the dance and music which the two sexes share in common, 
 we must not forget to mention the bacchic pilgrimage which the women of the lower 
 
 A POPULAR PIC-NIC AT SACSAHUAMAN. 
 
 class make every year to the Cemetery, and the rompish "outing" or picnic of the smaller 
 bourgeoisie to Sacsahuaman. This pilgrimage takes place on the "Day of the Dead." 
 From eight in the morning, the approaches to the Pantheon are obstructed by a crowd 
 of native women carrying in their arms jugs of chicha. Once in the Cemetery they 
 collect in the common fosse the heads, thigh-bones, and ribs of skeletons, the wreck of 
 the dead, which have been thrown out of the ground, and which they suppose to be 
 
'278 PERU. 
 
 those of their relations, friends, or acquaintances. They select and assort these bones, 
 
 LILIACEJL OF S A C S A H U A M A N : — AMARYLLIS AUREA — C R I N U M URCEOLATUM — PANCRATIUM RECURVATOM. 
 
 arrange them in little heaps, and one after another set up the most plaintive waitings 
 
 CURIOSITIES OF SACSAHUAMAN — THE CHINGANA. 
 
 over them, tell them the gossip of the quarter, and the news of the year; how the wife 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 281 
 
 of Juan has left her husband to follow, in the character of rabona (vivandiere) a soldier 
 on the march; how Pedro's sow has had a litter of eight pigs, one of which has five feet; 
 how, in fine, Jose is gone into the hot valleys to work at the coca-gathering. They mix 
 this childish babble with tears, sobs, and draughts of chicha, taking care every time 
 they drink to water with the local beer the bones of the dear departed whom they 
 apostrophize, to the end that they may still enjoy in the other world a lingering odour 
 
 CURIOSITIES OF SACSAHUAMAN— THE SLIDE. 
 
 of the sweet liquor of which they emptied so many jugfuls in this. As this business 
 goes on the whole day, it is sure to happen by nightfall that the mourners are all 
 thoroughly drunk, and return to their homes tumbling against the walls and howling at 
 the full stretch of their lungs. 
 
 The outing at Sacsahuaman, which takes place on Whitsunday, is an al-fresco orgie 
 under the shadow of the walls of the fortress built by the Incas. Men and women, 
 furnished with provisions solid and liquid, climb, on foot or on horseback, the abrupt 
 slope which leads to the summit of the eminence. Arrived on the platform which 
 crowns it, each party selects a site, spreads on the grass their provisions and bottles, 
 and then fall to eating and drinking, singing and dancing, or collecting the charming- 
 flowers of the neighbourhood, the Scillw and Amaryllidm, of the genera Crinum and 
 Pancratium, which bloom every year in nature's greenhouses. When the sun has dis- 
 
 vol. I. 38 
 
282 
 
 PERU. 
 
 appeared behind the three crosses on the hill, the drunken mob takes the road back 
 to the village, rolling about, stumbling, and supporting one another as well as they 
 can, and all the time accompanied by laughter, and shouts, and songs sufficient to 
 awake the dead. In the cathedral square the throng breaks up, and each party accom- 
 panies one of its members to continue at home the orgie commenced in the open air. 
 The spectacle of the annual processions, which are viewed by the ladies in full 
 
 A BULL-FIGHT AT CUZCO. 
 
 dress from the height of their balconies, must also be reckoned among the pleasures 
 of Cuzco. As for public rejoicings, they are so rare that it is hardly necessary to 
 mention them. The two great solemnities which Ave witnessed during our stay were 
 the grand entry of a bishop surrounded by a brilliant staff of priests and monks, and 
 the nomination of a president, on which latter occasion the citizens of Cuzco went to 
 considerable expense. The programme of the rejoicings was spread over three days. 
 On the first day a mass was celebrated by way of thanksgiving, and a fine display of 
 fireworks made in the court of the cathedral exactly at noon. On the second day the 
 pupils of the College of San Bernardo performed a tragedy entitled Antony and Cleopatra. 
 The ladies of the city, previously invited by notes printed on white and pink satin, lent 
 the adornment of their presence to the representation. A student of theology, whose 
 skin was dark enough for the character, but who was less appropriately dressed in a 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 285 
 
 white robe with six flounces, his hair in corkscrews surmounted with a plume of feathers, 
 took the part of the beautiful queen of Alexandria. One of his companions, with a 
 great beard, a cocked hat and feather, a black dress-coat, and booted like a riding- 
 master, played Antony. This tragedy, in a single act and in octo-syllabic lines, was a 
 tremendous success. 
 
 The entertainment of the third day was a scuffle with tame bulls, corrida de toros 
 
 EVOLUTIONS OF SOLDIERS IN THE CIRCUS OF THE PLAZA DU CABILDO AT CUZCO. 
 
 mansos. The Plaza du Cabildo, where the water-carriers are accustomed to fill their 
 pitchers at all hours of the day, and spend the time in idle gossip, had been transformed 
 into a circus, and surrounded with six rows of ascending seats. From the hour of noon 
 till four o'clock a dozen bulls, whose horns had been cut and mounted with guards, to 
 prevent accident, as the programme said — the art of bull-fighting being still in its infancy 
 at Cuzco — were let loose in the arena, where they tumbled over the cliulos (jesters 
 or clowns of the circus), clothed in white and green satin. As four o'clock struck, a 
 detachment of some thirty soldiers in a gray uniform and white calico hats (bonnets de 
 police) entered the circus to the sound of martial music, and drew up in the centre. 
 After a short rest, only disturbed by the word of command, carry arms and present 
 arms, they commenced spinning round like tee-totums, crossing each other, mixing with 
 each other, and Avinding in and out with remarkable nicety, while their hands were con- 
 
■_>s<; 
 
 PERU. 
 
 tinually occupied in taking from their cartouche-boxes, as if they were cartouches, 
 handfuls of the petals of flowers which they dropped on the ground. This choregraphic 
 
 A PONGO OR WATER -CARRIER OP CDZCO. 
 
 rather than strategic evolution ended, these defenders of their country saluted politely 
 the assembled multitude and retreated backwards. The public then discovered written 
 
 BREAD AND BUTTER SELLER AT CUZCO. 
 
 upon the yellow sand of the arena in capital letters made of flowers, and a couple of 
 yards long, these three words — VIVA EL PERU! A thunder of applause, which 
 made the seats of the circus tremble, saluted this fine achievement a la Robert Houdin. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 287 
 
 In the absence of real pleasures, Cuzco lias amusing scenes and curious episodes at 
 every street-corner to attract the idle, and the observers and painters of local manners. 
 
 MILK-WOMAN OF CUZCO. 
 
 Among the number may be mentioned the little trades and industries carried on out 
 of doors, the street-altars of the Fete-Dieu, and the symbolical masquerades, the sworn 
 
 MEAT-SELLERS OF CUZCO. 
 
 '•'slaughterers" of the police, and the verification on the spot of the number of dogs 
 killed by them every Monday morning. 
 
 Let us mention in the first place the sellers of chicharrones, fag-ends of salt pork 
 
•jss 
 
 PERU. 
 
 prepared in fat, the sellers of bread and butter, or bread and lard, a class habitually 
 found squatting against the pillar of an arcade or under an arched gateway. In this 
 category also are comprised the milk-women seated on the steps of the Jesuit church, 
 where they await their customers in the attitude of the Sphinx, taking an occasional 
 draught of milk out of the jug itself from which they help their customers; and the 
 meat-sellers of the great square, whose stall is a simple cloth spread on the ground, and 
 
 A SELLER OP ICES AT CHZCO. 
 
 held down by four stones, on which cutlets, beefsteaks, and fillets, torn rather than cut 
 with the knife frOm the beast, provoke the appetites of the lovers of a roast or a pot-au- 
 feu. In general the rags of these tradespeople, and their wares too, are revoltingly filthy, 
 but their filthiness is ameliorated by a certain stamp of picturesqueness which satisfies 
 the imagination, in default of the taste, and excuses it in the eyes of the artist. 
 
 Among other individualities of this kind I well remember an Indian girl some 
 twelve or thirteen years of age, with brown skin and dishevelled hair, clad in mere 
 cobwebs of various colours, and mounted on long shanks of legs, by the help of which 
 she traversed all parts of the city, and repulsed like a young colt the attacks made upon 
 her by the street-boys of her own age. She regularly passed my house about two o'clock 
 in the afternoon, carrying in her right hand, on an iron tray, two ices, the one blanche 
 a la creme, the other rose au carmin. With her left hand, which was left free, she 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 289 
 
 foraged in her blowsy hair, and from time to time carried her fingers to her mouth. 
 Puzzled by these gestures, always the same, one day, when for the hundredth time she 
 had offered me her ices, which for the hundredth time I declined, I asked her what it 
 was she was eating. " Un piojito, senor" (a little louse, monsieur), she replied with a 
 frank smile. 
 
 The symbolic masquerades, which number with the gaieties of Cuzco, form two very 
 
 SCENE AT THE CARNIVAL— THE AGUE OR TERTIAN FEVER CARICATURED. 
 
 distinct series; one set of them only appearing with the saturnalia of the Carnival, and 
 disappearing afterwards like birds of passage. Such are the chucchu (ague), the chunchos 
 (savages), and the dansante (dancer). The first-named is an Indian of middle age, 
 wearing a battered straw-hat, a sheet by way of a cloak, and carrying a medicinal 
 mallow. Two merry youngsters, grotesquely dressed, accompany him in his pro- 
 menade through the city, the one carrying a chair, the other an enormous syringe. At 
 every hundred steps this symbolic personage, whom the supposed fever causes to 
 tremble like a leaf in the wind, stops and salutes the passers-by; then kneeling upon 
 the chair and dropping the sheet, he repeats, with the help of his syringe-bearer, the 
 familiar scene indicated by Moliere in his Malade Imaginaire. 
 
 The chunchos are great dark-skinned fellows, with floating hair, dressed in their 
 ordinary manner, but wearing immense conical hats made of osier, and covered with 
 
 VOL (. 37 
 
200 
 
 PERU. 
 
 feathers of macaws and perroquets. They play the part of savages in the streets during 
 the three days of the festival, drinking and shouting their hardest. 
 
 TUE CHUNCHOS— WILD MEN. 
 
 The dancer wears a straw-hat, round which are hung little bells and rattles. His 
 dress is a fringed spencer of faded velvet, and a petticoat, or rather a framework of osier, 
 
 TUE DANCER. 
 
 ornamented with silver plates. He goes from house to house, dancing a zapateo of his 
 own composition to the tinkling accompaniment of slips of copper which rattle as he 
 moves. Under the regime of the viceroys, this dancer enjoyed similar privileges to those 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 291 
 
 which the old pagan times accorded to the river-god Scamander. A girl about to be 
 married, went, on the eve of her nuptials, to have the most mysterious of her duties as 
 
 THE HUYFALLA, OK MAN-BIRD. 
 
 a wife explained by him. These consultations were not gratuitous. The maiden, 
 besides surrendering herself to her adviser, presented him with a fat chicken, a dozen 
 
 THE HUAMANGUINO, OR DANCING BUFFOON. 
 
 of eggs, a bladder of butter, or any other little cadeau. Happy dancer! Now that his 
 privileges of grand seigneur are abolished, the maidens of the country turn their backs 
 upon him, and freely sell to others what in old times they gave him gratuitously. 
 
292 
 
 PERU. 
 
 Besides these profane masquerades, there are sacred exhibitions, the actors in which 
 accompany the processions, frisk about before the litters of the Virgin and the saints; 
 apostrophize noisily the holy images; nay, put out their tongues and shake their fist at 
 them. Of this sort are the huyfallas, or men-birds, whose Wings are formed of two 
 strips of calico, and who turn about, or throw themselves forward with their heads bent 
 till they almost touch the ground, in imitation of flying, at the same time uttering a cry 
 like hawks. 
 
 With the huyfallas must be classed the Huamanguinos, inhabitants of the ancient 
 Huamanga (now Ayacucho). From the time of the Incas that province had the privi- 
 lege of providing Cuzco with dwarfs, buffoons, actors, and mountebanks, destined for 
 
 TARUCA AND TAEUCACHA (DEER AND BUCK). 
 
 the entertainment of the court. Now that the Incas have disappeared, the Huaman- 
 guinos, fallen from their estate, follow the fairs as common clowns, or figure in the 
 annual processions. Their customary performance is a kind of Pyrrhic dance, which 
 they perform to the clinking noise made by the two blades of a pair of scissors, one 
 suspended from their thumb the other from their forefinger, which they use as castanets. 
 Some of them play juggling tricks with daggers and balls, pierce their tongue with 
 needles, or, like Mutius Scevola, hold their hand over a brazier to the astonishment of 
 the gaping crowd. 
 
 The huyfallas and Huamanguinos are escorted by tarucas and tarucachas (deer 
 and bucks), young fellows disguised in the skins of the animals whose name they 
 take. All these strange and wildly accoutred revellers leap, gambol, grimace, and yell 
 to the utmost extent of their ability in the midst of the processions, or opposite the 
 temporary street-altars, the arrangement and decoration of which are due to the cor- 
 poration of fruiterers. These altars consist of a long table, covered with a cloth 
 ornamented with stars of tinsel; a sort of reredos is formed with an elliptic framework 
 of osier, decorated with mirrors and ostrich-eggs; besides which, old two-globed piastres 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 203 
 
 and silver reals, having holes made in them for the purpose, are hung up by threads. 
 Altogether they present a singular mixture of objects of art and industry, and specimens 
 taken from all the three kingdoms of nature. Sometimes macaws and monkeys mount 
 guard at the opposite ends of the erection, and as the natural restlessness of the animals 
 is but ill adapted to the immobility of pose to which they are condemned, and would 
 naturally seek to gratify itself by investigating too curiously the decorations of the altar, 
 
 FRUITERERS OK CUZCO. 
 
 a couple of young scapegraces, armed with a switch or a whip, are charged to recall 
 them to order every time they stretch out a paw to snatch at anything. 
 
 The sastres or tailors, and the pasamaneros or lace-makers, work in the open air; 
 the former seated in oriental fashion on wooden benches, the latter standing behind one 
 another, manipulating the thread, make a picture of genre, perfect in composition and 
 sufficiently picturesque in its character of vagabondage. Generally the tailors have 
 dishevelled hair, naked feet slipped in old shoes, and shirts so open as to expose their 
 chests. With this neglige" costume they wear, however, very correct, though patched, 
 pantaloons and clress-coats or walking-coats, which, notwithstanding that they are with- 
 out buttons, and sometimes have but one skirt, enable us to recognize them at a glance 
 as the proper working representatives of French fashions. 
 
 The lace-makers are poor devils, who go about without shoes, and with their dirty 
 
294 PERU. 
 
 shirts hanging out behind through the holes in their trousers. Standing before a box 
 of spools perched upon two trestles, they pass the whole day weaving backwards loops 
 or ribbons, and making their bobbins fly with various-coloured silks. There is nothing 
 more curious and laughable than to see these industriels surprised by a storm of rain. 
 
 STREET-ALT A K ON CORPUS- CHRISTI DAY AT CUZCO. 
 
 Suddenly stopping work, they break their threads, mingle their woofs, bundle their 
 bobbins together, and rush with frightened cries towards the box, which they carry 
 under shelter of a gateway. When the storm is over they replace the box on its 
 trestles, the ragged operators resume their position in line, and the bobbins begin 
 twirling again. 
 
 The weekly massacre of dogs by four sworn slaughterers, commissioned by the 
 police, the sedileship, or the highway board — I know not what to call it — constitutes 
 a spectacle at once grotesque and pitiful. At Cuzco, as at Valparaiso, dogs wander 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 295 
 
 about the city in numerous troops, to prevent the too great multiplication of which 
 these slaughterers make the round of* the city at an early hour every Monday morning. 
 Two of them, holding the two ends of a rope, walk along by the houses on either side 
 of the street, their companions following, armed with bludgeons or knobbed sticks. 
 Every dog that happens to be passing through the street at that fatal moment is 
 unmercifully thrown into the air by means of the rope, and then bludgeoned. Between 
 eleven and twelve o'clock these victims, of all sizes and colours, are laid side by side 
 
 LACE - MAKERS OF CUZCO. 
 
 in the square of the Cabildo, where a verifier appointed for the purpose comes to count 
 them. The artists of Cuzco are permitted, by leave of the verifier, to cut off the hair 
 from the bodies before they are dragged into the square. They make their pencils of it. 
 
 As this weekly massacre has been going on for many years, the instinct of the 
 dogs, developed to an unusual degree by the danger which menaces them every Monday, 
 has all the appearance of reason. A singular agitation is apparent in the various troops 
 on the morning of the fatal day; they walk slowly and cautiously, with their eyes fixed, 
 their ears pricked up, and their noses in the wind. On perceiving a suspicious group 
 they stop, and should two or three individuals wrapped in 'ponchos appear at the end 
 of a street, they scamper off at full speed. The confidence of the poor wretches returns 
 again on Tuesday morning, and during all the rest of the week they are so forgetful 
 
29G 
 
 PERU. 
 
 of the proscription which hangs over them that it is necessary to use one's cane or 
 foot to make them move from the middle of the road, where they are in the habit of 
 sleeping. 
 
 I remarked, when commencing this enumeration of the pleasures presented at 
 Cuzco, that the city possesses nothing whatever in the character of a theatre or assembly- 
 room. But it has just occurred to me that it boasts of a cancha de gallos, a little circus 
 
 THE DOG-DESTROYERS OF CUZCO. 
 
 of about thirty feet in circumference, where cock-fighting is practised with birds properly 
 trained and equipped with steel spurs. All these cocks are in name and genealogy 
 thorough-bred. Every Sunday, from three till six o'clock, a public, greedy for the 
 cruel sport, crowd round the door of the cancha, the entrance price of which is a silver 
 real. The proprietors of the birds excite them by voice and gesture to combat to the 
 death, and considerable sums are staked upon their valour, the lookers-on betting as 
 at a game of high -and -low or ecarte. Umpires appointed for the purpose decide on 
 doubtful strokes, and any difficulties that arise between the parties to the sport. It 
 often happens, in spite of the conciliatory intervention of these judges, that players 
 of perverse temper or bad taste come to blows, to the great delight of the spectators, 
 whose semi-barbarous tastes are even more gratified by a gladiatorial combat than a 
 cock-fight, 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 297 
 
 This brief account of the canoha de (/alios leads us to speak of the state of the fine 
 arts at Cuzco; but as the transition to such a subject may appear a little sudden to the 
 reader, he must understand that the most celebrated painter in the city in our time had 
 his studio and his dwelling next door to the cancha above referred to. This artist, whom 
 we frequently visited, and whom we surnamed the Raphael of the Cancha- — a name 
 which we believe he still bears in the circle of our friends — will serve as the link to unite 
 the preceding observations with those which are to follow. 
 
 The churches and convents which the conquerors built in the two Americas remained 
 for a long time without pictures, because the Spanish school of painting, which was one 
 
 THE VERIFIER COUNTING THE DOGS KILLED AT CUZCO. 
 
 day to present the world with so many chefs-d'oeuvre, was still dormant in its original 
 limbo. It was not till the reigns of Philip III. and his successors down to Charles IV. 
 that the canvases of Morales, Ribeira (Spagnoletto), Zurbarn, Velasquez, Alonzo Cano, 
 Murillo, and their various pupils, were carried into the New World with the works of 
 the Flemish school. 
 
 The sight of these pictures awoke in some of the indigenes a taste for painting. 
 Gifted with that faculty of imitation possessed in so high a degree by the inhabitants of 
 the Celestial Empire, and which makes them soil or tear a picture if the original which 
 they copy has by chance a stain or a hole in it, these children of the country set to work, 
 and in time arrived at such perfection, that, favoured by the obscurity of the churches, 
 travellers have been so deceived as to mistake for unknown originals the copies which 
 had no other merit than that of a servile fidelity. These pretended originals, when 
 exposed to full daylight, and relieved of the dirt which covers them, instantly betray 
 to a practised eye their plebeian origin, as certain hands, when the gloves arc pulled 
 off, show the callosities and marks of hard labour. 
 
 Subsequently, for want of original works — which had become the objects of private 
 
 VOL. I. 38 
 
298 
 
 PERU. 
 
 speculation — the artists of Cuzco had to derive their inspiration from the copies made 
 by their predecessors. A few engravings which have from time to time fallen into their 
 hands have completed that artistic education which for a century past has made no 
 advance. To speak to living artists of anatomy and osteology, of studies from the 
 round, and the anatomical or living model, of linear or aerial perspective, would be to 
 talk in a language incomprehensible to them, and expose the interlocutor to a bad com- 
 pliment. This absolute defect of the first notions of art interdicts all original creation, 
 and obliges the artists of Cuzco to resort to existing canvases, and take from them the 
 various details which they form into a fresh whole. Hence that constraint, that crude- 
 
 COCK-FIGHTING AT CUZCO. 
 
 ness, and that want of animation, which instantly strike one at the first sight of their 
 works. Every figure in their pictures, made up of bits, seems as if it had been cut out 
 with a punch and pasted on the canvas. There is no back-ground or foreground, no 
 breath of air, no movement in these wretched silhouettes, which are notwithstanding 
 recommended to attention by their often fresh and charming colours, the result of 
 traditional rules. 
 
 Fine old works, we have remarked, are extremely rare in the churches and convents 
 of Cuzco. Nevertheless, one may sometimes find in an obscure corner, where it is 
 covered with dust and spiders' webs, an artistic gem, which its possessors never refuse 
 to sell if the proposal is whispered in their ears, and the price offered is sufficient. A 
 single fact, which may be related in a few lines, will tell more on this subject than 
 many pages of assertion. 
 
 A friend with whom I was conversing one day about the pictures in the churches 
 and convents of Cuzco, asked me to which of these works I would give the preference. 
 I mentioned a picture some two feet square, representing the Flight into Egypt, having 
 discovered it under a staircase in the convent of La Recoleta, where, like a burning 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 299 
 
 lamp, it seemed to light up the gloom. My friend, curious to verify the fact, accom- 
 panied me to the place indicated, where I pointed out the chef-d'oeuvre in question, the 
 glowing colour of which, no less than the strange and luxurious accoutrement of the 
 figures, seemed to proclaim it the work of Rubens, or of some artist of his school. 
 My friend looked at this picture for a long time, called it bonito (pretty), and went out 
 without saying anything. Some days later, on calling upon him, the first thing I saw 
 was this precious canvas which he had cut out of the frame, but so awkwardly, that the 
 naked feet of the Virgin were left in the margin. To think that a man whom I called 
 my friend could be guilty of so unworthy an action, brought the blood to my face, and I 
 was on the point of refusing to shake hands with him. A few words, however, sufficed 
 to prove his innocence. A monk of the Recoleta to whom he had offered, through 
 an old beguine accustomed to this sort of thing, an ounce of gold (8G francs 40 cents.) 
 in exchange for the unknown Rubens, had not hesitated to charge his conscience with 
 this sacrilegious theft. At the same time, fearing to be surprised by one of the brothers, 
 and to have a bone to pick with the prior, he had cut out the canvas secretly, and this 
 with such precipitation as to cut through the ankles of the Virgin. A month afterwards, 
 going to smoke a cigar in the place which had been despoiled of this artistic gem, I saw 
 the old frame with the margin of the canvas, on which the rosy feet of the Virgin-mother 
 seemed to protest energetically against the cruel amputation to which they had been 
 subjected by a simoniacal monk. 
 
 Political revolutions, domestic troubles, and, more than these, the serious tempera- 
 ment of the Cusquenos, devoted to the study of theology and canon-law, combine to 
 depress the fine arts, whose muse at Cuzco walks a-foot, when, upon that classic soil, 
 she ought to be winged. The churches and convents, filled with paintings, have no com- 
 missions to bestow on modern artists, and the need for economizing compels families to 
 follow the example of the religious communities. The two or three painters of whom 
 the city boasts would run the risk of starvation if the merchants and conductors of 
 tropas, whom business brings to the city, did not commission subjects upon which, when 
 returned home, they realized large profits. These commissions consist of dozens of 
 Stations of the Cross, Good Shepherds with or without sheep, Virgins mi Raisin, a la 
 Chaise, au Poisson, copied from engravings; saints, male and female, of all kinds, either 
 as busts or full-length figures, and with or without hands. Each of these canvases is 
 paid for, be it understood, according to its size and the more or less skill which the sub- 
 ject demands. Some are not more than four reals (say two shillings), others may be as 
 much as two pounds. When once the merchant has given his commission, and has settled 
 with the artist when the work is to be ready, he pays him something on account, and 
 departs with perfect confidence in his good faith. It is seldom indeed that the good 
 faith of the artist fails him, but his customer is absent, and may not return for six 
 months — and "out of sight, out of mind." Other work comes in, and other money is 
 taken on account. In fine, the artist forgets so entirely the merchant and his commission, 
 that nothing is done. Hence arise recriminations without end on the part of the patron, 
 and excuses without number on the part of the artist, who at length, when threatened 
 with a good thrashing, applies himself to the work. 
 
300 
 
 PERU. 
 
 As "artists' repositories" are unknown in the country, the painter is left to his 
 own resources to procure the articles necessary for his work. Ochres and other earths 
 he finds in the ravines near the city; a few colours in powder he may get from the 
 apothecary near the Convent of Mercy; the pidpero, or grocer, will supply him with 
 oil and essence; incense in powder serves for dryers; bones half-burned supply him 
 with bitumen, and the smoke of his candle with black. As for pencils, as we have 
 already incidentally stated, the hair of the dogs killed every week enables him to 
 renew them at little expense. For his canvases he is contented with English calico 
 at 6d. or Id. a yard; this he prepares himself and stretches, not on a frame, but a 
 board with the aid of six or eight nails; for a pallet he is satisfied with a fragment 
 of a plate, or a bit of a broken square of glass. 
 
 The reader must not do us the honour of attributing to our imagination the 
 invention of these details. Every item is from observation in the artists' studios, where 
 often, while smiling at their various preparations, we have wondered at the good result 
 they obtained. 
 
 One of these artists, the same whom, by reason of his talent, we have surnamed 
 the "Raphael of the Cancha," honoured us with his special confidence. Although he 
 well knew that in our leisure moments we dabbled in colours like himself, he did not 
 liesitate to reveal to us the little secrets of his art, knowing that we were morally 
 incapable of using or abusing them to take away his trade. The gift of a few bad 
 lithographs had opened wide for us the door of his atelier, where we often went 
 to see him paint. That atelier, the rent of which amounted to five francs a month, 
 was below the level of the ground. The descent was by three steps, which limped like 
 one of Martial's distichs. A light a la Rembrandt flashed in the interior. The ground 
 was invisible under a litter of vegetable pickings, among which fowls and guinea-pigs 
 disputed with each other for every nibble they could get. A dog, whose framework 
 was plainly visible under his skin, slept by the side of the artist. A black cat without 
 a tail or ears, like a Japanese idol, purred upon his shoulder while he painted, 
 subject to the harassing abuse of his wife, a thick-set and chubby-headed native woman, 
 whose face was purple with erysipelas, and who divided her time between trying to 
 make the pot boil and annoying her husband. 
 
 The favourite theme of this dreadful Fornarina was to reproach our poor Raphael 
 with his idleness and his drunkenness. To hear her talk, he passed whole weeks 
 without doing the least work with his ten fingers, and the little that he at last earned 
 he was sure to spend in drink. The artist disdained to reply to these shameful 
 imputations. Dipping his pencils in the pomade-pots, for which he was indebted to 
 the munificence of the ladies of the city, and which served him for saucers, he continued 
 his work. When his patience was exhausted he filled a bowl with chicha, emptied it 
 at a draught, and having dried his lips with his sleeve, courageously resumed his work 
 as if to give the lie to the allegations of his horrible wife. Poor Raphael! If his 
 head now rests in the common fosse provided for the low-class Indians and artists 
 of Cuzco, may the remembrance of thousands of chefs-d'oeuvre which he has painted 
 upon calico make the dreams of his last sleep pleasant! 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 301 
 
 What we have said of the painters of Cuzco is applicable to its statuaries, whose 
 first models were the images sent by the kings of Spain to adorn the churches and 
 convents. These artists have a manner of their own of working which deserves to be 
 explained. In the first place they are all very far from being rich. Most of them may 
 even be called poor, since their naked toes are seen protruding through the holes 
 in their shoes, or their shirt hanging out from their tattered inexpressibles when the 
 
 THE ATELIER OR STUDIO OF THE RAPHAEL OF THE CANCHA. 
 
 wind blows aside the rag of fustian which serves for a cloak. Their studio is a low 
 chamber of the most unpretending appearance. A board laid on a couple of trestles 
 serves as a table or bench. On the wall are hung plaster-masks of all sizes, arms, legs, 
 feet, hands, and busts of all dimensions. These members are provided with pegs which 
 serve to fix them to the bodies. A quarter of an hour's work suffices for the artist 
 to fit together all the pieces of a "Christ," a "Virgin," or any kind of saint. The 
 clothing and draperies of these images are fragments of stuff joined together with a 
 liquid plaster, which hardens while drying. The art of moulding the clay, of sketching 
 the first conception of their thought, is utterly unknown to these statuaries. It is not 
 always, indeed, that they have any thought to sketch, and plastic clay is not found 
 in the environs of Cuzco. Their work is simply to adapt the ready-made limbs to the 
 ready-made bodies, of which their predecessors have left them the moulds. If any 
 
302 
 
 PERU. 
 
 difficulty of design presents itself, if any detail is demanded which is not to be found 
 in the collection prepared beforehand, the artist provides it on the spot by cutting to 
 the pattern a piece of plaster as a sculptor in wood would carve a block of oak. 
 
 These statuaries have to avail themselves of colour as well as form, because no 
 customer would tolerate a "Christ" or a "Virgin" entirely white, were it even of 
 Carrara marble. With the help of white-lead, ochre, vermilion, and carmine, they 
 prepare a colour, more or less brilliant, which they spread and equalize with the 
 finger of an old kid-glove, which serves them in place of a badger. It then remains to 
 fix the glass eyes in the face — for these images have eyes, and sometimes teeth and 
 hair, like the "Virgin of Belen" and the "Christ of Earthquakes," two images 
 venerated at Cuzco. To make the eyes they have a metal sauce-pan, or rather a 
 frying pan, pierced with a score of holes of various sizes, over the most suitable of which 
 they place fragments of window-glass, cut to the shape of the eyes, and then set the 
 pan over a fire. When the heat has softened the glass sufficiently, the operator takes a 
 rounding tool, and pressing each piece of glass into the hole gives it a convex form. 
 He then, by means of colours, depicts the pupil and the globe of the eye in the concavity, 
 and this object, inserted in the eyeholes of the images, gives to their faces that life-like 
 and radiant look which astonishes the stranger. 
 
 The chisels, files, polishers, and other artistic tools used by these indigenous 
 statuaries, are the bones of sheep or poultry, old worn-out blades of penknives or 
 table-knives, old nails, old brushes, and old gloves. Their ingenuity, stimulated by 
 wretchedness, makes fish of all that comes to their net. Rubbish of every kind, that 
 is contemptuously thrown aside in European cities, is collected by them with the 
 greatest care, washed, cleaned, scrubbed, and serves for years to make those beautiful 
 images which on the great festal days they drape with sumptuous garments and 
 precious stones, to carry through the streets. 
 
 The most celebrated of the annual processions of Cuzco is that of the Senor de los 
 Temblores or "Christ of Earthquakes," which takes place on the afternoon of Easter- 
 Monday. Two days beforehand children are sent to despoil of their flowers the shrubs 
 of nuccho (Salvia splendens), of which they obtain basketfuls. The street-altars to be 
 erected and dressed in the cathedral square set in movement the corporation of fruiterers, 
 upon whom this business exclusively devolves. The houses before which the procession 
 has to pass display the hangings of velvet with golden fringe or other rich stuffs, and 
 handsome carpets which, during all the rest of the year, remain shut up in their 
 wardrobes. The important day at length arrives. From an early hour the camaretos 
 (small howitzers) awake with their thunders the echoes of the city. Petards, squibs, 
 rockets hiss on every side, notwithstanding that their luminous trajectories are lost in 
 the light of the sun. The people in their Sunday attire flock into the streets or fill the 
 balconies. Floods of chicha, wine, and brandy have been running since the first vigil to 
 celebrate the end of Holy Week and the grand day of the Eesurrection. At four o'clock 
 precisely a triple salvo of howitzers makes the place tremble; churches and convents 
 strike up a joyous carillon; all the bells of the Cathedral, from the thorough-bass, 
 called the madre abadesa (the mother abbess), to the silver esquilon of the Chapel of 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 303 
 
 Triumph, are rung at once in a volley of sound. Ten thousand excited and howling 
 Indians fill the square, while the windows are crowded with the curious of both sexes 
 waving their handkerchiefs. All three entrances of the Cathedral have their folding- 
 
 A SCULPTOR OF CUZCO. 
 
 doors thrown wide open, allowing the dark interior of the nave to be visible, in which, 
 shining like glowworms, are the lights of a thousand wax-candles. • At this moment 
 a religious shiver runs through the multitude. All necks are stretched, all eyes are 
 turned towards the central gate, from which the procession is beginning to issue, 
 preceded by crosses of gold, which are carried by vergers with collarettes, and great 
 silver candelabra, which the brown-skinned acolytes in white clothing carry with their 
 two hands. 
 
 The first image that appears, standing on a litter carried by eight men, is that of 
 
304 
 
 PERU. 
 
 San Bias, from whom a quarter of the eity derives its name. The crowd salutes it with 
 acclamations and prolonged clapping of hands. The costume of the holy bishop consists 
 of a black velvet coat descending to the knees, with puffed sleeves embroidered with 
 gold. Flesh-coloured small-clothes define his legs, a large quilled ruff encircles his neck 
 and covers his shoulders. His head-dress is a sort of university hat {beret) of black 
 velvet, with white plumes. His feet are cased in red buskins ; in his right hand, covered 
 with a gauntlet of varnished leather, he carries his breviary, a quarto book with gilt 
 edges. An angel with spread wings is perched upon a spiral spring behind the saint, 
 whom he shades from the sun with a pink silk parasol. At every jolt of the litter the 
 mobility of the angel's support causes his sunshade to sway gently up and down. 
 
 San Bias is immediately followed by San Benito, whom the crowd receives coldly, 
 under the pretence that the reverend abb6 was descended in a direct line from Ham 
 the son of Noah. The image in fact is of a jet black, like the cloth of its cassock, and 
 this, with its great white eyes and blubber lips of a reddish violet colour, give it a suffi- 
 ciently repulsive aspect. 
 
 To San Benito succeeds San Cristoval. The hermit Christ-bearer supports himself 
 by holding an up-rooted palm, which bends to and fro under him like a reed. He is 
 clothed in a white robe embroidered with golden stars, and relieved with poppies. He 
 has purple fillets in his hair like an Assyrian king; moustaches of great length and 
 ferocity, and a long-pointed beard like that of King Charles. 
 
 San Cristoval is followed by San Jose\ the husband of Mary. The lonely carpenter 
 is dressed in the robe of a Carmelite pilgrim. He carries a framed saw in one hand, 
 and in the other a knobbed stick, with which he supports himself. The only pro- 
 fane decoration which disfigures this severe costume is a peacock's feather stuck in his 
 felt-hat. 
 
 Behind San Jos6 comes the image of the Virgin of Belen, or Bethlehem, standing on 
 a litter carried by sixteen men, who seem to stagger under the burden. In fact, this 
 litter is made of heavy huarango wood covered with silver plates, and surmounted 
 with massive chandeliers of the same metal, in which are lighted candles of sweet- 
 smelling wax. The mother of the Saviour is radiant with beauty ; never statuary modelled 
 the oval of a face with more consummate perfection; never Chinese painter traced two 
 arches of ebony more delicately than the eyebrows of this image, the ideal colour of 
 which is freshened up by a bright copal varnish which sparkles in the sun. As for her 
 costume, the queen of saints and angels is dressed in a style which can only be described 
 as ravishing. Her petticoat, of blue and white brocade, worked with gold, has panniers 
 more than six yards round; a stomacher of silver lace adorns the front of the corsage, 
 the voluminous sleeves of which allow to escape from their bouillonne (bordering) of 
 Venetian lace naked arms whiter than those of Here — may we be pardoned the profane 
 comparison — and these arms, circled with rich bracelets, are terminated by patrician 
 hands whose fingers are covered with rings. In one of her hands she holds a scapulary 
 embroidered with gold and precious stones ; in the other she flutters a costly fan. The 
 head-dress of the Virgin harmonizes with the elegance of her apparel. Her soft blonde 
 hair is slightly curled, and has a touch of powder. Her crown is a diadem of fabulous 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 305 
 
 value. Two costly pearls are suspended from her ears, and a collar of rubies sparkles 
 on her neck — that swan-like neck which is encircled by an immense ruff of guipure 
 lace, mixed with threads of gold. So placed in the centre of that funnel of lace the 
 head of the Mother of God looks like the pistil of some strange flower. 
 
 The distinctive feature of Mary's face is the extreme mobility of her glass eyes, 
 which a concealed wheel or spring causes to roll in their orbits with frightful rapidity. 
 The stranger is terrified a little at first by the perpetual movement of these divine eyes, 
 but on hearing the remarks of the crowd, " Que ojos lindos y que duke mirar!" (What 
 beautiful eyes, what a sweet look!) he soon begins to share in the general infatuation. 
 
 On leaving the church the bearers of the images are arranged in the following order: 
 San Bias, San Benito, San Cristoval, to the left of the grand entrance; the Virgin and 
 St, Joseph to the right. In this position all wait the arrival of the " Man-God," the 
 " Christ of Earthquakes," who is always a little late in order to excite the religious 
 fervour of the faithful. These arrangements are made beforehand by an ecclesiastical 
 programme which assigns to the bearers of the images not only the hierarchic place 
 which they are to occupy in the procession, but the various evolutions they are to 
 make on leaving the Cathedral and returning to it. 
 
 Very soon a white-looking form begins to be visible in the penumbra of the grand 
 nave; a religious tremor runs through the multitude; the men lift their hats or caps, 
 and the women devoutly cross themselves. The Virgin, leaving the company of St. 
 Joseph, advances in front of all the saints, in order that she may be the first to salute, 
 on leaving the church, her beloved Son. The " Christ of Earthquakes " at last appears 
 in the great doorway. A tremendous cry resounds in the great square ; the balconies 
 of the houses tremble upon their Avorm-eaten beams, and hats and handkerchiefs are 
 waved before the revered effigy. 
 
 The "Man-God" is extended upon the infamous cross, become by his death the 
 symbol of redemption. As faithful narrators we feel ourselves compelled to describe 
 minutely the features of this image, and if any irreverent expression escapes us, un- 
 accustomed as we are to the phrases it is necessary to employ, the fault is in the 
 inflexibility of the French language, and not in our orthodoxy, which, thank God, is 
 sufficiently sound to bear the test of councils, and defy the fire of the stake, if councils 
 and stakes still existed. 
 
 Since Charles V. sent from Cadiz by a galley this venerated image, no profane pencil 
 has retouched its primitive colour. Time, dust, the smoke of incense and of tapers, 
 and the irreverence of the flies, have combined to change its once brilliant colour into 
 a kind of violet red. The blood with which it was literally sprinkled from head to foot 
 has acquired by age the tint of bitumen, so that the skin of the crucified Saviour looks 
 like that of a panther. From the sculptor's point of view it is a block of oak scarcely 
 hewn into shape, a barbarous and almost hideous form, reminding one both of the 
 Hindoo idol and the classic ecorche. This Christ, in place of the traditional drapery, 
 wears a petticoat of English lace fastened round its hips by a ribbon, and descending 
 half-way down its legs. The thorns of the three-spined acacia which form its crown are 
 imitated in precious stones of fabulous value. The nails which fasten the image to the 
 
 VOL. I. 39 
 
306 
 
 PERU. 
 
 cross are emeralds from Panama three inches long, and the lips of the wound made 
 in the side by the spear of Longinus are defined by balass-rubies larger than gray peas. 
 The hair, which is lifted and blown by the wind, is black and of extraordinary length. 
 Before adorning the head of the Redeemer it embellished for a long time that of a sinful 
 girl, who died prematurely from the effect of the wild orgies in which she indulged. 
 The father of this Magdalene, an officer of police whom I knew, but refrain from naming, 
 himself cut the hair from his dead daughter and sent it as a gift to the chapter of the 
 Cathedral, as much to redeem the faults of the poor girl and open for her the gates of 
 heaven, as to replace the old hair of the " Christ of Earthquakes," which the worms, 
 who respect nothing, had ignominiously eaten away in patches. 
 
 This Christ, the sight of which inspired a sentiment of repulsion and almost of 
 terror, was carried on a litter of silver by thirty cholos without shoes, with disordered 
 hair, and their clothes in rags. It was surrounded by a great number of burning wax- 
 lights. Invisible springs or wheels communicated a nervous movement to all its limbs, 
 and made them continually tremble. It bears by metonymy the name of Senor de los 
 Temblores, and protects the faithful on the occurrence of earthquakes. 
 
 Its exit from the Cathedral is the signal of the departure of the procession. The 
 bearers of the images defile in succession. Every five minutes the men who bear the 
 litter of the Virgin stop and face about, that the Holy Mother may assure herself that 
 her well -beloved Son has not abandoned her. Following the Christ of Earthquakes, 
 comes the dais of the holy sacrament surrounded by the ecclesiastical notabilities and 
 the civil and military authorities of Cuzco. The four orders of monks — blue, white, 
 black, and gray — form a double hedge to the cortege, and close the march. A swarm 
 of beguines, like birds of night, press upon the steps of the monks. A sea of people roll 
 in upon the procession behind the beguines, to the great disgust of the latter, who turn 
 round with an irritated air, and interrupt their chant of Pange lingua gloriosi, to treat 
 those of their troublesome followers who press too close upon them with such epithets 
 as fils de chien and masque du diable! 
 
 As often as the procession skirts the walls of a house and passes near a balcony, 
 basketfuls of the petals of the nuccho are emptied upon the Lord of Earthquakes, 
 covering his shoulders with a purple stream. The buffoons, the dancers, the deer, and 
 other masqueraders, previously described, who have been to refresh themselves in the 
 neighbouring cabarets, reappear, and play their antics round the sacred litters, shaking 
 their fists at the images and questioning or apostrophizing them with hideous grimaces. 
 As the procession advances into the interior of the city the enthusiasm increases, and, 
 spreading through the masses, reacts upon the most indifferent spirits. The sight of 
 this " Christ," trembling like one just come out of icy water, draws cries from the 
 beholders which are heard above the normal diapason. Hoarse with shouting, the 
 voices of the crowd would soon die in their throats if brandy were not at hand to 
 sharpen its ring. Among the Indians of both sexes, who snatch from each others' hands 
 the jug or the bottle, it seems to be a trial of strength who can shout the longest and 
 hardest whilst shaking their fists at the pious effigy. 
 
 Soon this crowd, unable to control the religious and bacchic frenzy which possesses 
 
PROCESSION OF THE 
 
i OF EARTHQUAKES AT CUZCO. 
 
ACOPIA TO CUZCO. 
 
 311 
 
 it, rushes as one man upon the bearers of the litter of Christ, who bend under their 
 burden. They seize them in their arms, grapple them by their hair, tear their clothes 
 and shirts to rags, every one in his turn wanting to bear the litter, or only to touch the 
 wood, believing that simple contact with it will earn for the sinner a remission of ten 
 years of sin. But the Indians charged with this precious burden, having no doubt sins 
 enough to expiate, repulse energetically the proffered assistance, and ward off the 
 attacks made upon them by blows with the open hand or the fist, and even by kicks 
 and bites. All this cannot be expected to go on for long without something serious 
 resulting. The partial fight soon resolves into a general struggle, and furious blows are 
 exchanged as the crowd sways to and fro, mingled with which are heard howls of pain 
 and imprecations of rage. 
 
 In this conflict, which the indigenous spectators both lay and religious find perfectly 
 apropos to the occasion, and which astonishes not a little the stranger, the image of the 
 crucified Redeemer rolls and pitches like a ship in a tempestuous sea, and often totters 
 on its litter though it never falls, supported as it is on every side by the surging mass of 
 human heads and shoulders. It is a saying here — that as the Lord of Earthquakes 
 mueve mucho nunca cae (is much shaken but never falls), so heresies disturb without 
 overthrowing the foundation-stone of Christianity. 
 
 While the Indians and cholos dispute for the honour of bearing the litter, their 
 women throw into the face of Christ hanclfuls of the flowers of the nuccho, which they 
 collect again from under the feet of the combatants at the risk of being crushed. These 
 blossoms of the sage, sanctified by contact with the "Man-God," and done up in paper 
 bags, are afterwards used in infusions, and possess, say these thrifty housewives, the 
 sudorific properties of borage and elder (Sambucus nigra). The procession, retarded 
 at every step by incidents of this kind, takes two hours to traverse the Great Square, 
 the Calle de San Juan de Dios, the Square of San Francisco, and the Calle du Marquis 
 — an ordinary ten minutes' walk. 
 
 At six o'clock the sacred litters have returned into the square of the Cathedral. 
 The gates, which had been closed during the march of the procession, are opened again 
 to the ringing of bells and explosions of howitzers. San Bias, San Benito, San Cris- 
 toval, and San Jose" disappear in the gloom of the interior, and the gates of the church 
 are closed upon them. There the Virgin and the Christ remain face to face, and the 
 bearers of the two images perform a pantomime, the subject of which is a question of 
 precedence between the Holy Mother and her Divine Son. The question is which of 
 the two shall yield the pas to the other. After repeated hesitations and demonstrations, 
 the Virgin decides to go in first. Arrived under the porch she is in the act of turning 
 round to assure herself that Christ is following, when the gate of the church, which 
 had opened to give her passage, suddenly closes behind her and she is separated from 
 her Son. The representation of the religious drama must be carried out to the end. 
 After the epitasis and the catastasis, comes the indispensable catastrophe. 
 
 The Christ of Earthquakes is alone outside the gates of the Cathedral, surrounded 
 with 10,000 Indians, who question him in the local idiom. " Where are you going?" 
 they cry to him from every side; 11 stay with us; do not leave thy children!" The bearers 
 
312 
 
 PERU. 
 
 of the litter cause the image to move from left to right, and vice versa, by way of replying 
 to the faithful; the answer to these exclamations is understood to be in the negative. 
 "Ingrate! a God without bowels /" the crowd again exclaims, weeping hot tears. " You 
 mean then to leave us till next year?" The image of Christ makes an affirmative sign. 
 "Ah well, go then!" roars with one voice the immense multitude. The central gate is 
 half opened, the bearers of the image seem as if they would slip in, but the crowd 
 presses upon them, and again the door is shut. After some minutes passed in this 
 strange contest, both leaves of the grand entrance are folded back and the litter of 
 Christ is borne into the church as by a tumultuous billow of human heads. The despair 
 of the crowd then breaks out in a final crescendo: the women utter piercing cries and 
 tear their hair; the men howl and tear their clothes; the children, frightened by the 
 grief of their parents, cry pitiably; and the dogs take part in the fray by furiously 
 barking. 
 
 Ten minutes later these noisy demonstrations of grief are extinguished in one 
 immense roar of laughter. Fires are kindled in front of the Cathedral; chicha and 
 brandy run in streams; guitars strike up, dances are organized, and when Aurora, with 
 her rosy fingers, opens the gates of the East, she finds our good Indians lying dead 
 drunk among their extinguished fires and empty bottles. The fete of the SeTior de los 
 Temblor es is ended. 
 
 As our review of ancient and modern Cuzco is ended also, we will at once mount 
 the mule which our Indian guide has brought and harnessed while the reader has 
 been amusing himself with these strange scenes, and leaving behind us the old capital 
 of the Incas, never to return, set off in a north-easterly direction, cross for the last time 
 the chain of the Andes, descend their eastern slopes, and enter upon the unknown 
 country we have proposed to visit.