Over the Andes

IT was with regret that I broke up my residence in Santiago, and prepared for a trip across the Andes to Buenos Ayres. I was sorry to say good-by to the many hospitable and kindly friends whose attentions had made my stay among them so pleasant, and yet I was on the whole quite content at departing, since I was at last to scale that immense snow-crowned mountain range that formed a permanent background to every view, and with whose stately and sublime grandeur one could never become too familiar.

After leaving Santiago, I passed a few days upon the hacienda of Don José J. Carbajal, with his estimable family, which now includes his sister, the widow of Arturo Prat, the hero of Iquique ; and at length, feeling eager to set out upon my proposed trip, I bade them adieu, and rode over to Santa Rosa de los Andes, where the road begins. Here I hastily procured provisions, a guide, mules, etc. ; and being already provided with an American saddle, blankets, and revolver, I felt fully equipped for my journey.

At 6.05 A. M. I left the Hotel del Comercio with Pascual Martinez, the guide, and passed leisurely through the dusty streets in the cool morning. On leaving Santa Rosa, we struck the Rio Aconcagua almost immediately, and followed it through its sinuous course until ten o’clock, when we reached the Resguardo,¹ where the Rio Colorado joins the river which gives its name to the province. The Rio Aconcagua is the redder of the two. I had brought letters to the Resguardo from friends in Santiago, and I stayed and breakfasted with him. At 11.30 I took my leave, thanking him for his attention, and, mounting my macho, rode off across the river and up the spiral path which leads easily into the Cordillera. Many of the tourists who cross the mountains by this pass come as far as the Resguardo in coaches; but soon after leaving this point the road becomes impassable for carriages.

I very soon found, to my regret, that the guide who accompanied me was as stupid as he was trustworthy, and that, although he had traveled the road for over twenty-five years, he could never give any explanation of the curious and often striking names of the different localities that we passed. I suspected this soon after leaving Santa Rosa, but on arriving at the Salto del Soldado ² (the Soldier’s Leap), which we passed at two o’clock, I found that even this name had never excited his curiosity to learn its origin.

In great disgust, and comprehending fully the little benefit I was to get from the fellow any further than to conduct my luggage, I left the path and wandered off through the dry thorn-bushes to get a nearer view of this famous ravine. Imagine two valleys, separated at this very point by a constriction whose two parts run out like immense buttresses, as if to meet each other; the level of the valley on the left hand being about a hundred feet above that of the other. The upper valley had evidently been shut off from the lower one, at some remote period, by an enormous bowlder, which completely filled the little pass between the hills crowding down on the two sides. This rock, lying thus directly in the channel of the river, is split into halves, and its two fragments are pushed apart laterally, leaving the great fissure twenty yards wide, over which a Spanish soldier of the time of the Revolution is said to have jumped, thus escaping from his pursuers and following up his flight in safety among the mountains. Through this vertical fissure now foams the Rio Aconcagua in its rocky bed.

All day I regretted the exuberant stupidity of the guide ; but nothing could be done now, and I must hunt up the notable objects on the way by myself.

From this point the hoary summits rise abruptly in rocky grandeur from one side of the road, while on the other, at an immense but varying depth, roars the whitening river. In many places and for long distances the road is simply a spiral path cut in the side of the mountains. Here and there a thin silvery thread seems to waver down the rocky slope: it is a rivulet cascade rushing from the region of snow to join its cold, clear stream to the turbid river in the ravine. Fantastic forms of uncouth monsters come suddenly into view above me or at the side of the track : they are simple bowlders and rock masses rolled down long since from the barren heights overhead. The side of every hill is a landslide, formed by the alternate action of the sun and the snow from the detritus of the immense rock mountains. These land avalanches, now smooth and stationary, are being gradually covered with hardy vegetation, which in the distance yields to the eye a pleasant prospect, but which becomes thin and meagre on a near approach, shearing the brown and gray hillside of its green glory.

Riding on, on, at a gentle trot, the heat of the sun is soon passed, and turning round the side of the mountain one dips into the grateful cool shade of the twilight, while the mountain summits, rising on every side, still retain their bright glow, “ et sol crescentes decedens duplicat umbras.”

At four o’clock I passed, without stopping, an adobe building on the other side of the river, bearing the inscription,

“ Posada i talaje. 1350 metros.” This posada, the Guardia Vieja, is at the point of junction of the Rios Aconcagua and Blanco, being situated on the rocky bluff between the converging streams. It is accessible by a narrow willow bridge spanning the Rio Aconcagua.

A long road still separates me from the Juncal, which is the limit of this day’s journey, and I push on without pausing to take a sup of water from the numerous icy streams which cross the path, or even slackening rein unless some abrupt ascent or sudden fall in the road renders it necessary.

Pascual seems to have considerable trouble with the pack-mule, and he has already degenerated from a guide to a muleteer. I have ridden alone all day, with my revolver in my pocket and smoking an occasional pipe.

It was already dark when I passed Ojos de Agua, but I pressed on another two miles to the Juncal. The light had already faded from the mountain tops, and the valley was submerged in darkness. The profound quiet of the place and the hour, the loneliness of the road, the sublime spectacle of the mighty mountains rising all about and above me, impressed me strongly and strangely. The light, blue sky had become dark, and the stars glinted out over the mountain tops; a sensation of delicious melancholy weighed upon me.

A turn in the road brought to view a white hut, or house, or rancho, at my right hand, without window or apparent door; it stood there like a phantom in the full darkness now upon me. I do not remember that I even wondered what it was; I was overwhelmed with the sensation of strange emotions.

As I thus moodily rode along, a small boy clad in white rags stood suddenly at my side, and in a hungry tone asked me if I could give him some bread for his sick brother, pointing to the white cupola, as if his brother were there.

“ What is the matter with your brother ? ” I asked.

“We are Chileans,” he replied, “and were coming back from the other side on foot, when my brother slipped and fell down the mountain side and hurt his leg, and he cannot walk, and I brought him along to this casucha, where he is now. I could not leave him to go to Chile, for it would take me a long time, and he would die, for he has nothing to eat and is very weak. And if I could leave him two or three rolls of bread I would go back to my country, and then I could bring my friends for him and take him home.”

But I have not any bread with me, I thought, and must wait for Pascual, and — I knew not when he would come up; it was still half a mile to the Juncal, and already late.

“ Come to the Juncal in an hour,” I said, “and I will give you bread.” Then it occurred to me that I could at least examine the sick boy, and perhaps help him. “ I will go with you to see your brother,” I said. “ I am a doctor, and may be able to help him.”

“ Oh, God bless you, sir! for he is very bad;” and the little fellow hurried on before me, while I turned my macho’s head and let him pick his steps towards the small house, for it was too dark to guide him. But if it was dark without it was black within. The darkness seemed palpable, solid, as if you might strike your head against it. I fumbled about for my matches. I heard the child ask his brother if he brought him any bread.

“ No, José, but God has sent us a doctor to cure your leg,” — I thought that he was putting it rather strongly, — “and he will give me some bread for you at the Juncal. But, sir,” — his voice turned towards me, — “ we have no light.”

I had already taken out a box of matches, and he spoke as one struck fire. The flame showed me a haggard little fellow lying almost naked on the damp earthen floor in the corner, and I crossed to where he lay. As he lit match after match, I examined his leg by their flickering light. It was an old dislocation at the hip-joint, and the adhesions were strong. There was only one thing to do, and he was weak with, hunger; but I took out my pocket flask, poured into a cup a few spoonfuls of brandy, and gave it to him with a little water.

“ Now, my little fellow, be a man, for this will hurt you badly, but it is the only way to save your leg.” So he lay back on the floor; his brother struck the matches, while I with some difficulty replaced the thigh bone in its position. I was struck with the conduct of the two brave boys, one of whom bore the excruciating pain of the reduction without a shriek, while the other continued scratching the matches, one after another, without leaving us for a moment in darkness. “ Two genuine little Chilenos,” I could not help saying to myself as I rode away, after giving them what help and directions I could. There was a glow at my heart as my macho picked his way carefully down the slope.

A few paces further, I crossed another stream, — this time a fairly large one, — and walked my macho up the opposite bank, when, at a short distance, he slued violently, and could not be induced by spurs or whip to follow the road. Indistinctly I saw a black mass lying in the path before me, and knew from the macho’s persistent refusal to follow the road that it was a dead body, but whether of horse or man I could not see. I made a détour over the small sharp rocks at the side of the road, and in a few minutes reached a couple of mud-huts, in one of which was a light. I rode up and called for supper and a bed (comida y cama), and dismounted.

Two villainous - looking bandits appeared at my call, and showed me into one of the huts. I suspected them from the first. Dirty, wrapped in rags, faintly seen in the darkness by the stray light of a miserable candle which sent its struggling rays through the half-open door, they eyed me attentively and questioned me closely. I answered their questions in an offhand way, and entered the hut. Four posts stuck in the uneven earth and connected by two poles, upon which some ragged boards were irregularly laid, formed the only furniture, and promised me a night’s cold rest.

For supper they could offer me nothing but a chicken cazuela (stew), and the chicken was perched somewhere in the corral without. I hurried them up, got them out of the room, and then examined my quarters. A damp earthen box in a mud-hut, with no window, one door which padlocked on the outside, and with a wooden shelf to sleep on, gave me a poor assurance of comfort. Nor did I much like the conduct of the two suspicious vermin who had received me. One would enter and ask if I were alone, or if I carried money, or if my luggage were soon coming up, and who was my arriero, and then, joining his fellow, they would hold conferences outside in the darkness. I only responded by telling them to hurry up the stew; but they annoyed me until finally I took my revolver from ray pocket, laid it on the table which they had brought in, and sat down on a box to write in my journal.

Soon Pascual came up, and brought the luggage to my room ; then the cazuela came in, and I sat down to supper. The demands of impatient hunger once satisfied, my first question was for news.

“ Are there any other travelers staying here to-night ? Who have passed over this way within a few days ? ”

I found that my friend Señor J. Abram Pérez, the consul of Venezuela in Santiago, was a couple of days ahead of me ; that the Argentine minister, returning from his post in Bolivia, had also lately gone over; and that there was actually in the other rancho a caballero who had arrived that very afternoon, and who intended to push on the next morning. These were all who had recently passed on their way to the other side, although two gentlemen had come over from the Argentine several days previous. This information was got in snatches and at intervals, and it required much skill not to completely lose their identity and mix them all up in an amorphous jumble.

I was anxious to see the caballero who was going ray road, and if agreeable we could easily ride in company. At any rate, whether agreeable or not, it would be difficult to avoid him. Had the caballero dined ? I asked.

Yes, he had dined two hours before, and had eaten up all the asado (roast) that there was, and then wanted more ; and they had to kill two chickens for him.

What was he doing now ?

Well, they could n’t say ; but if I wanted to know I could go over to the other hut and ask him.

The coolness of this unexpected answer made me smile, and I went on with the cazuela.

I presume the Hungry Unknown had similarly inquired of them about me, — though I hope with better success than I had had, — for when I went from the hut to take a breath of air I found him standing near by : rather a short and slightly formed figure, with a black beard and a slouching felt hat, which could not conceal the brightness of his eyes, that seemed to shine in the darkness. I could not tell if he were thirty or sixty years of age, but his face was seamed and scarred with either age or accident. All this I learned better the next day, when in the early morning we set off together.

As I came up he stepped forward, saluted me in a quiet voice, looked into my face closely and scrutinizingly by the faint light, and then fell back again. But if he examined my face, he did not try to conceal his own, and I was not unpleasantly impressed by his quiet voice and manner; so after assuring myself that Pascual had attended to the mules, I went back to the cazuela, and in a few minutes sent out to ask the caballero to do me the honor to come in and take a glass of wine with me.

I was amused at the alacrity with which he answered the invitation in person. As he entered my half of the hut his face beamed and glowed with good fellowship. He seemed not at all the gloomy, dark, subdued Spaniard whom I had met without. I should rather have taken him for an Italian than a Spanish gentleman. I arose, extended my hand, and welcomed him ; he replied cordially but quietly, and gave a sidelong glance at the box upon which a few posthumous bones and supernumerary potatoes represented my dinner. His glance met a couple of bottles of “ Urmeneta,” however, and he beamed a hundred fold.

He proved to he a Spaniard who had long lived and mined in Bolivia ; had been the proprietor of two silver mines until recently, and had sold them out in Chile for the purpose of going up into Santa Cruz, where he said much gold had been lately discovered. His silver mines had paid him well and were still productive, but the mere desire of a change had proved stronger than all else. I found him to be a man of wide experience, who had traveled through all parts of the world; a nervous, fascinating talker, — certainly a bad conversationalist,— of vigorous and original ideas and marked individuality. I was especially glad to learn that he had twice before crossed the path we were now traveling, and knew thoroughly the road and its traditions. We agreed to start out together the next morning, and he arose and bade me good-night. I,for my part, pulled off my outer clothing, and, with my revolver beneath the pillow, lay down on the bed they had made for me.

The next morning I arose at 5.30, and while Pascual saddled the mules I got out the coffee, to take a cup before starting. While making it I suddenly remembered the little fellow who was to have come for the bread, and I called out to the squalid bandit who had served us the night before.

“ Did a little boy come here last night for bread ? ”

“ Yes,” in a surly tone; “he comes every night. I have no bread for beggars. He wanted to disturb your worship. but I would n’t let him.”

“ You did very ill,” I answered severely, for my conscience stung me for having forgotten him, and I did not know now how to get food to him. “ It is very evident that you are not a Chileno.”

“ No, I come from the other side,” he answered coolly. “ As for the boy, he is hanging about here somewhere,” and he called the little fellow, who came into view from behind the corner of the hut. I spoke to him, and asked him about his brother, while pouring a double quantity of coffee into the pot. His brother had been in pain all night, he said, but felt well this morning, — better than he had done since he hurt himself; and the Holy Virgin Mary would help me for my kindness to him. So I gave him an armful of bread, poured out half the coffee into a tomato can for him, told him to keep the cloths wet for two or three days, and hoped he would get to Chile safely and soon. The little fellow skipped off gayly across the rocks, while I drank my coffee and ate a couple of crackers and watched him.

Desiring to cross the pass before noon, we began at 6.30 the ascent of the series of mountains intervening between the Juncal and the summit. Daily about noon rises a strong wind, which blows over the pass and before which nothing can stand. As I rode along I saw why this little valley was called “Juncal,”³ for it was everywhere covered with the naked rocks except where the reedy rushes rise from the swamp. An hour of steep and rocky ascent brought us to a summit overlooking the tortuous path by which we had mounted and the delicious little valley of the Juncal,—a beautiful setting for the miserable rancho in which I had passed the previous night.

The first object that caught my attention upon the upper level was a big white dog-kennel-like building of brick, which recalled the similar structure that I had entered the night before. Later I found others scattered along the road, making in all four on the Chilean side of the summit and six or seven on the Argentine side, the latter being much worse kept and less sightly structures. Stationed at intervals, they are meant to serve as a protection to the mail-carriers during the passage of the Cordillera in winter time, when the pass is closed, and all who live now along the road have betaken themselves to the cities on the plains. They are, as I said, large dog-houses of brick and mortar, whitewashed ; the walls being about three feet thick, and the only opening except the door being a hole cut obliquely through the side of the wall.

It was Don Ambrosio O’Higgins, the father of the Chilean Liberator, who, as inspector of highways, ordered these post-houses to be built, and for a century they have been kept in excellent repair. From May to November the couriers alone enter this frozen wilderness. Three of them go together : one carries the post-bag, the second bears the provisions, — the load of each being strapped to his shoulders, — and the third goes to fulfill either office in the case of one of his companions being frozen to death. The trip sometimes requires thirty days, and is rarely made in eight; each courier earning twelve dollars for going and coming. In July, 1880, a courier named Vidal Toro, one of the most hardy and expert of all, froze to death in the Puente del Inca, when the thermometer registered 24° Centigrade below zero. A year later, August, 1881, two others, Victor Lagos and Juan Guerra, were whirled down by an avalanche for the distance of a mile and a half, and their bodies were found several months later, when the thawing of the snows discovered them in the valley below.

Passing along by the courier’s lodge, we turned out of the way to see one of the wonders of the Cordillera, the Laguna del Inca, a beautiful crystal sheet of water occupying the whole space between the bases of the surrounding mountains, and stretching away towards the north. The water bubbles up through many springs at the bottom, and the popular belief is that it is in direct connection with the ocean. Its water is wonderfully sweet and fresh, as I can certify.

Until now I had had few opportunities of exchanging more than casual remarks with my new companion, but here, standing on the shore of the Inca’s Lake,⁴ he opened the conversation : —

“ When I passed here, two years ago, I did not stop to visit this lake, as I was hurrying to Valparaiso to take the steamer north, for the news had reached me of a rich vein struck in one of my mines; but I remember quite well the story that the men on the road were laughing at. Some scientific Englishman, in his journey over the mountains, had stopped, as we have done, by the side of the lake, while his guide told him that this lake had existed from the time of Noah, and that strange forms of fish were often seen deep down in its clear waters, but could never be hooked or snared. This was a very bald tale, like guides’ stories in general ; but three months later that Englishman came back, with a tent and provisions, a boat and a fish-line, and day after day he spent with his line out, rowing about to what he thought good places for fish. For weeks he stayed here, fishing for antediluvian specimens to enrich the British Museum, while all the passers-by would come a mile out of the way to sit on the rocks and laugh at him. When or how he left nobody knows, but the very boat he rowed round in is in the room where I slept last night, at the Juncal.”

“ And did he catch his fish ? ”

“ Quien sabe ? They say his boat capsized, and that he lies down there now on the cold bottom, with his face in the sand. I cannot tell. Englishmen are always doing senseless and unexpected things.”

I was inclined to pity the fate of the poor fellow, and the bitter laugh of Señor Queseyó jarred on my mind. I turned about, and we left the lake to return to the path from which we had strayed.

Between the path and the lake is a sandy area, perfectly level, through which a brooklet cuts its way between sandy ramparts about six feet high, their upper surface being perfectly parallel with the valley through which the brook runs. On all sides birds are flying about, as large as the English sparrow, and of a dull, dark-green color. The natives call them “jilgeros” (linnets).

This valley, near which is the Laguna del Inca, is the first of three, all of nearly the same size, each on a higher level than the one before, and all surrounded by lofty mountain crests towering into the infinite ether. These valleys are called the Valley of the Lake (Valle de la Laguna), the Valley of the Skull (Valle de la Calavera), and the Valle de Tambillos.

The first received its name from the Inca’s Lake, and of the third I can find no explanation,—certainly Señor Queseyó could give me none ; but of the second the story runs that many years ago three couriers were crossing the Cordillera at the worst season of the year, and had already narrowly escaped death in many ways when they passed up together along the side of the hills skirting this valley, for the purpose of reaching the lodge which already appeared below them on the edge of the rising ground. While stepping carefully along, a sudden avalanche of snow came rushing and roaring down the slope, and before they could turn to see if it threatened them they were sunk and separated by the overwhelming mass. One disengaged himself, after a time, and in looking for his companions found one of them buried deep in the snow, but alive. All search for the other was in vain, and in the following November his head was found directly in front of the door of the lodge, whither the avalanche had bowled it, but his body was never again seen. For this reason the valley is called Valle de la Calavera, and the lodge in the valley is named Casucha de la Calavera.

In the Valle de Tambillos, two little streams of water that crossed the road were frozen over.

From the time that we left the Laguna, the conversation, or rather the monologue of my companion, had not flagged. Tradition, incident, and stories relating to the various parts which we had passed, or which we were to pass, flowed in an unceasing stream from his lips.

“ There is little doubt that the Chilean Indians crossed this very road to reach the grand highway that led to Cuzco, and send to the Incas the yearly tribute that they exacted. The last journey that they made was in 1535, when Don Diego de Almagro left Cuzco and passed southward to conquer Chile. A little north of Jujui be met the Inca’s slaves bearing the annual tribute to Cuzco, and himself took it in the name of the dead Inca. At the Puente del lnca, which we shall reach this afternoon, there is still buried the last royal tribute that Chile collected for the living Inca. You probably know better than I the circumstances of the occurrence, but I have read in the history of your countryman Prescott of the offer Atahuallpa made to Francisco Pizarro to fill the large room where they were standing with gold ’ as high as he could reach,’ if Pizarro would receive it as a ransom for his life. The Spaniard at once accepted the offer, and the Inca sent out to all parts of his kingdom to bid his subjects collect and send to Cuzco their vessels and ornaments of gold, with which to buy his freedom. To Chile, as to all other possessions of Atahuallpa, came the royal command, and here, as elsewhere, they hurried to collect the precious metal which was to save the life of him who was more to the Indian than father, friends, or home, — of him who represented the great sun which they worshiped. The Chilean tribute, tied up in the fresh hides of guanacos, was carried along this very road. I can almost see the poor slaves sweating up this hot, dry road, in their haste to pour their gold at Pizarro’s feet. In the very Valle del Inca came to them the fatal news that Pizarro had put their Inca, their high priest, their beloved idol, to death, and with sad hearts they scooped out the earth, and hid the precious gold which they had brought to save his life. Their offering was no longer required, and they buried it in some unknown place in the Valle del Inca. Ojala supiera yo donde se lo enterrarou ” he continued, with flashing eyes, “ that is the kind of mining that would suit me, and I hope to find it. I have a clue. Listen ! Two years ago I was in a great hurry when I crossed this road, but I stayed one night in the Puente del Inca. I had no money then to get a room in the rancho they call a hotel, and I lay down on the lee side of it to keep from freezing. It was late in the season, and in a week longer the road would be deserted. It was already bitter cold, and at midnight I had to get up and walk about to keep my blood going. I had only slept an hour, but that was an hour too long, and I could not get warm. I determined to cross the bridge and take a good run across the plain to get myself alive again. I took my revolver from my alforja, put the strap about my waist, and started off on as fast a run as I could with my stiff legs and my senseless feet. In a few minutes I felt better, but kept on running faster than before and straight ahead, until suddenly I stopped dead short, I saw a light about a hundred yards ahead, and some one moving. ‘Strange,’ i thought, ‘any one out here at midnight with a lantern ! ’ I began again walking slowly round about, that I might approach them behind the shelter of a neighboring rock. When I reached the rock I heard them talking, and I peered out. They were sitting on the ground. The light was out, and they were talking earnestly. I heard and understood them : they were talking about this very treasure ; they knew where it was ; it was at their feet as they sat there. How they had found it I could not learn, — they said nothing about that; they were disputing about the quantity they should each have. There were three guanaco skins, they said, and each claimed two of them. Each could not have two of them, of course, and consequently they went at each other with their knives. My heart danced and sang for joy. ‘ Let them kill each other,’ I thought, ‘and the secret shall be in my keeping alone. I could not distinguish them in the darkness, but I heard them struggling and gasping and rolling over along the smooth ground, until suddenly the noise of the struggle ceased. In my intense curiosity I had already stolen out from behind the rock, and gradually felt myself drawn towards them, and now I was at the very scene of the fight. One was sitting up on the ground trying to bind up his arm or leg, I could not see which; the other was lying beside him, dead. The very fiend seized me, and a fierce desire came upon me and shook me, as I stood there ” — He stopped short and looked at me closely ; his eyes were filled with a fierce distrust, his cheek was flushed with the vividness of his recollection, and he glared at me for a moment like a very tiger. Then remembering himself, he half laughed, and said uneasily, as if to finish the subject, “ And that is all I know of the guanaco skins.”

“ And the other one, — the survivor from the fight ? ” I almost asked, but I already knew without asking. His wild manner had told me all that his tongue had left unspoken, and I knew that he was the only one alive that held the clue to the Inca’s treasure.

After this his presence made me uneasy, and he kept his eye on me askance in an indirect, suspicious way, which did not promise any more friendly talk between us, nor tend to tranquilize me; and I was glad when he gradually dropped behind, and rather secretly tickled my macho with the spur, so as to increase the distance between us. In a few minutes I felt that he was not in sight, though I pretended to myself not to know that he had left my side.

Through this chain of contiguous valleys, lying level and green, I passed, with the imposing presence of the mighty mountains always accompanying me, until the ascent began again, an hour later. Steep from the first, it soon became precipitous, and for a long hour my macho clambered up a sandy path, stumbling incessantly over the loose overlying blocks of stone, which were too small to obstruct, but largo enough to impede, the passage.

At length at 9.30 I stood upon the summit,⁵ and looked off on all sides upon the clustering crests of snowy mountains, rising like very companions at my side. The air was wonderfully clear. Aconcagua⁶ rose before me on the north, and the clump of Tupungato seemed at hand on the right. Above each sharp white peak a light, fluffy cloud hung like a halo. Standing here on the summit, seemingly suspended, like Mahomet’s coffin, between earth and heaven, I was glad to be alone. I had been warned by friends in Chile of a feeling of faintness and giddiness, which might be followed by a hæmorrhage, and which always attacked travelers at the pass ; they called the disease puna. I in fact forgot all about it on the cumbre; ⁷ indeed, I forgot everything, and seemed to exist like a cloud or a piece of red porphyry, without self-consciousness, as if I were a part of the sublime panorama before me. On the Chilean side the mountains seem to crowd upon you, recklessly, tumultuously ; on the Argentine side a beautiful valley lies far below you, but almost at your feet, so sharp is the descent. Through the valley trickles a yellow thread, apparently so thin that only the color renders it noticeable : it is the River of the Caves ⁸ (Rio de las Cuevas), which runs along at the side of the path for about twentythree leagues.

Here where I stand, on the windswept pass, a young man from Valparaiso, Rafael Tapia, came to a tragic end in 1879. After arranging his business in Valparaiso and taking a tender farewell of his wife and little ones, he set out for the Argentine over the mountains. Without knowing the cause of his desperation, one can but vaguely imagine the poisoned recollection that drove him away from his home and his friends on his fatal journey, and whipped him up the mountains till lie had reached their highest point. Here, drawing his revolver, he shot his horse in the head, and watched the poor brute roll and pitch down the steep slope, lie then dressed himself in full evening dress, while tiie night-wind shrieked and swept by him, opened and drank a bottle of champagne from among his stores, and, putting on his white gloves, shot himself through the heart. He was found over three weeks later seated there, with his head bent on his breast as if asleep, and a dark stain on the gravel beneath him. He was buried at the side of the road, and one still sees the wooden cross that the pious hand of a stranger erected to mark his resting place.

The descent from the cumbre was so steep that, partly to rest myself after the long ascent, and partly because I distrusted my macho on a plunge like this, I dismounted, and jumped and tumbled down the slope with the bridle on my arm. Even thus it took me a full hour to reach the valley.

Here, as I had taken only a cup of coffee and two thin wafers in the morning, I paused to await Pascual. I unsaddled the macho, rolled a large stone over upon the end of the long bridle, and, finding a convenient crevice between the enormous bowlders, lay down upon a pair of blankets to rest while I waited.⁹

From my post I could see the whole mountain side down which I had just descended, but it was at such a distance that the dusty path looked like a zigzag white thread. Many objects caught my eye upon the slope, and I examined them all carefully to see if they really moved. I fixed them against some rock upon the hill’s crest, and then watched the relation between the fixed and the questionable object. Then suddenly a new object would abruptly attract my attention, and I would say, “ There comes Pascual!” until by a repetition of the parallax test (if I may so call it) I found that the new object had probably not moved for centuries. Thus inexhaustible hope unconsciously deceived me and stifled the cravings of hunger ; but at noon, after a fruitless study of the mountain side for an hour and a half, the hot rays of the sun stole round the angle of the rocks and poured down upon my bed. Hunger and heat together were too much for my patience. I got up, saddled the macho, and with a hot head and a fainting stomach I desperately spurred him on over the dusty road, under the blazing sun, which beat down into the bed of the valley where I rode.

There was but one hill on my road this time, and in half an hour I had mounted its crest and descended into the valley on the other side. The road now lay through a sand desert and without a breath of air, while the thick dust followed me in a cloud, and filled my eyes and parched my throat; the heat seemed to rise from the earth as well as descend upon my head and back, and for another hour and a half I tore along at full trot through the sandy desert. Not a living thing moved on the track. The white and whitening bones of countless animals lay strewed along on both sides of the path, while far overhead, a floating speck in the light blue sky, the silent condor wheeled his graceful and tireless flight. On each side of me the view was closed in by an unbroken range of mountains, bare of vegetation, and glistening red and yellow in the blistering sun. I hardly noticed them as I hurried past. At length I saw in the distance a round red brick lodge, which I approached and, dismounting, entered. Two roughly dressed men were seated there ; one was the Resguardo. I was at the Puente del Inca.¹⁰

In 1453 the Inca Tupac Yupanqui passed south from Cuzco, and with his enormous armies conquered the whole of the continent as far as the thirty-fifth parallel. During his triumphant passage his army descended into this very valley, and under a natural bridge which spans the river the Inca found the hot springs, in which for several weeks he daily bathed, and to which, as well as to the bridge, his royal title is now firmly attached. Some time before reaching the Puente del Inca I had passed the Rio de los Horcones at its junction with the Rio de las Cuevas ; and this is the stream ¹¹ which, running for a long distance at the bottom of a deep gorge, finally passes under the bridge of the Inca.

Imagine a deep ravine with perpendicular sides, and a brawling river at the bottom. On passing a bend it is unexpectedly spanned by a natural bridge, whose upper surface is continuous with the level on each side of the gorge. The bridge is perhaps fifty to sixty feet wide, and presents nothing remarkable as you cross it. Indeed, you might pass it and never see it. But on the side towards the Resguardo is a steep descent, down which a circuitous foot-path leads you directly underneath the bridge. From ten thousand stalactites of varying length, which hang from the arch of the bridge above you and before you, fall the sluggish drops, cold and clear, upon the irregular surface where you stand and into the river which raves over its rocky bed far below you. The water is said to possess the peculiar property of petrifying all with which it comes in contact. In two days a sheet of tissue paper becomes stiffer than parchment, and by the infiltration of the salts which the water contains it will petrify completely the body of an animal placed in it. The process is a long one, requiring a year or more to become complete, but the fact of its success is attested by the concurrent and sonorous voices of many eager and voluble witnesses.

There are four springs : the first one bubbling from the hillside, seventy-five feet above the river in the ravine; this spring is called Mercurio. The second and third, Neptuno and Chainpaña, are situated on the ledge just below the arch of the bridge, in natural grottoes, and come foaming and bubbling out of apertures into which you may thrust your arm to ils full extent. You may do it, but I should advise you to refrain from the attempt if ever you visit the Inca’s bridge. Out of curiosity I made the trial. I expected that the water, bubbling out so forcibly, could not be restrained. Nothing easier. I inserted my hand, completely blocked the passage, and the flow of water ceased ; but before I could withdraw my arm the ground began to shake and groan under me in the bath, and the choking noise of the water startled me to the extreme that I could hardly tumble out of the bath and fall upon tlie rock at its side. What would have happened I do not know. I shall never repeat the experiment. Probably the force which expels the water is in such perfect equilibrium with the diameter of the passage that the obstruction of the opening for a few seconds would suffice for the accumulation of expulsive power enough to make for itself another channel, which would perhaps be in the centre of the bath.

At a lower level and even more completely concealed from view is the Bath of Venus, where in the concave floor of a grotto, whose arched roof sparkles with the dripping stalactites, bubbles and foams the clear spring. It is like entering a sea-shell, and an effort of will is required to leave the bath, so delightful is the sensation and so beautiful the interior of the grotto. Hand of man has had nothing to do in the preparation of these springs, but the most luxurious Roman of the time of the empire, even Petronius Arbiter himself, could not have dreamed of more delightful baths than have made themselves here in this beautiful spot.

The composition of the water I could not learn with any degree of accuracy, but it contains a large quantity of sulphate of magnesium, carbonates of lime and of iron, and common salt. “ Solid matter amounts to forty-five grains in every ten cubic inches of water.” ¹² The gas which bubbles up with the water is sulphurated hydrogen, and the temperature of the Bath of Venus is about 90° Fahrenheit. The altitude of the bridge is 9700 feet above sea level.

In this wonderful valley, by the side of one of the grandest of all natural objects, is a filthy rancho, ill kept by a wretched beggar of a Spaniard ; and this is the only place where one may tarry and fare for the time that he wishes to stay at the baths. It was here that I went for a cup of coffee, on my arrival, weak and faint, at the Puente del Inca. While taking it and wishing to learn what I could from the Spaniard’s wife, a thin, pinched, yellow woman, with her jaws tied up in a flannel kerchief, I asked her, —

“ Will you kindly tell me what is the altitude of this valley ?”

“ Altitude ? ” (altura). She did not understand me.

“ Its height above the sea,” I explained.

Her face brightened at once. Yes ! she evidently understood that. “ Seven days,” she replied, with a satisfied look.

At about three o’clock Pascual arrived with the luggage, but Señor Queseyó did not accompany him, nor had he been seen since leaving the Juncal in the morning with me. I was hourly more and more perplexed at this singular man. Was he really a Spaniard, a Bolivian mine-owner ? Was he even in his proper senses ? What unknown path had he taken after dropping behind me on the road ? I had noticed none by which he could have escaped. Was he perhaps some mountain bandit who wished to see if I were worth the trouble cf robbing? He was certainly an educated man, and could make himself a pleasant traveling companion, but he was cynical and selfish, He talked well, however, and I half regretted that he had left me.

In the early twilight I went again to the bridge to take a bath, and I lay there in the warm, bubbling water and looked at the brilliant dripping stalactites above me, and then at the early shining stars away off past the top of the bridge, past the mountain summits, past the cool evening breeze,—away up there in the dark sky. How long I dreamed there I cannot tell, but when I came to myself it was so dark under the bridge that I could hardly find my clothes. I dressed rapidly, and left the bath-cavern along the slippery, zigzag path leading up to the level ground, when right before me in the narrow way I came abruptly upon a man standing there alone and silent. To say that I was startled would hardly express my sensation, for almost without seeing him I felt that it was my morning’s companion. My foot slipped ; he made a spring at me and caught me by the arm, saying politely, as he helped me back to my feet, —

“ It is dangerous, sir, walking here in the dark; one stumbles and slips so easily on these wet stones. A friend of mine fell into the river from this very spot, on an evening like this, and broke his head. But we are happily all safe.”

A suspicion flashed through my mind as he spoke that perhaps he could, if he wished, tell the story of his friend more minutely; but by the time he had finished speaking I was able to thank him for his assistance to myself, and together we went back towards the rancho. By the way I thought, “ If he wished to take my life, he could not have had a better opportunity. Indeed, if he had been content with the effect upon me of his sudden appearance, he could have simply let me fall, as I would have done when I slipped, and — No, he evidently did not want my life, nor could he get it now,” as I put my hand in my pocket and grasped my revolver.

But these thoughts were due to the simple disturbance of my circulation, and in a few moments I was again collected and almost communicative. 1 forgot his tale of the morning, and we walked along quite gayly to the rancho. Here we lay down under the cool sky, on the hard, bare ground, as it rose from the valley to meet the hills. Señor Queseyó continued talking: —

“ When I set out it was about this time of night, but much darker than now. My friends in San Isidro tried to keep me till the morning, but I was anxious to reach the mine as soon as I could, and I felt quite fresh from my afternoon sleep and a hearty dinner. I was well armed and well mounted, and had been over the road twice already, so nothing could persuade me to stay until the next day. My dog ran along beside me, and I galloped up the slight rise and then dipped into the cool valley beyond, leaving San Isidro and my old companions far behind me.

“ Well, it was to be a good long pull, but my mule was fresh and the moon would be up in an hour, and after that there would be no chance of missing the road. But there was one thing I had not noticed, — that there was not a star above me. The sky was blank and empty. I rode along looking anxiously for the first light streaks of the rising moon, but they did not appear. An hour, two hours, I waited for it, and only then did I perceive the dead darkness in the heavens. The sky seemed to have almost settled upon me ; instinctively I crouched in the saddle that I might not touch it with my head. The air was hot and stifling. I was uneasy. I had never seen it like that before.

“ I could not see the road, and I gave over trying to guide my mule, and trusting to her instinct I let her choose her own pace. This of course rapidly fell off from a gallop to a trot, from a trot to a walk, and then she came to a full stop. I whipped her, but she did not move ; I spurred her, but she only shook herself and stuck there. I jumped to the ground with a good old Spanish oath, — forgetting that she might easily enough have halted on the side of a precipice, and that I might consequently have leaped not four feet, but a thousand,— and getting down on my hands and knees I felt about among the rocks for the road. I found none, neither on the way forward nor on that by which we had come. Sharp, jagged rocks covered the ground over which we had passed, and I wondered that the mule had found her feet among their cutting edges. The wall at my side I found to be continuous, rising higher than I could reach, and it seemed half smooth, as if done by the hand of man. Then I remembered that I had matches, and lit one. In a moment I saw it all. Not a breath of wind stirred; the flame of the match rose vertically in the still air. I was in an immense cavern, formed in some mountain side by artificial excavation, — perhaps some long - deserted mine. The walls were near together, leaving a passage of only ten or twelve feet in width where I was. The roof I could not see; I could only guess, by the gradual approximation of the sides, that there was one. Ahead of me, in. the part opposite the entrance, the light of the match was lost; it met with no object to reflect it; the cavern continued in that direction. Should I go on, should I pass the night there, or should I return by the way I had come? I made up my mind at once not to stay there for the night, and I disliked the idea of going back, because in the darkness I should have to trust to my mule entirely, and she would certainly choose the way to San Isidro; and to go back to my friends would shame me. Moreover, it was possible that — At any rate, I was going to explore that cavern and make up my mind as to it. I searched about for a piece of wood to serve for a torch ; there was none, and I had only a few matches, but I took up the bridle of my mule and advanced into the darkness. Conscious that my matches must be husbanded, I decided not to light one until I came to an obstacle, and as the floor, after a few steps, became fairly level and smooth, I walked along confidently, with my dog beside me, the mule behind, and my revolver in my hand, when suddenly a damp puff of air smote me in the face, and I stopped as short as if the blow had come from a club. It was not repeated, and I lit a match. Then indeed I saw what I never expected to see, what I think I would rather not have seen, — a stone stairway cut in the living rock, and running far down beyond the reach of my match into the darkness. But the air seemed less heavy and dead, arid now and then another damp whiff would send a chill through me as it struck me. I still stood there, undecided what to do. It must have been a long time, but at length the darkness became less intense, and I watched until by the faint and uncertain light of the hidden moon I could see the stone steps beneath me, and trace them down the hillside to the valley below.

“ At once I was easy again and calm. This valley would very likely lead me — somewhere, at least. I would follow the steps and pass through it. Carefully I began to go down. At every step the mule threw her head back and refused to descend, but I pulled and jerked and dragged her down after me. I counted the steps mechanically. Fifty, sixty, seventy, seventy-five, eighty, ninety, one hundred. Would they never end ? One hundred and twenty-five, one hundred and fifty, and still I went down, down, down, into the darkness. Who had cut and built this stairway ? What hands had hewed this rock into form, and shaped the descent down which I passed? Those of men long since dead and forgotten, whose very race had disappeared from the earth. Probably for centuries the foot of man had not trod where I now stood. It seemed almost sacrilege for my mule to tread upon these sacred steps, and descend where the holy priestesses of the sun had led the long procession by night and tuned the sacred hymn to their great sun-god. I almost expected to see their white robes as they ascended the steps, and catch the gleam in the darkness of the precious image of their god shining out from the forehead of their high-priestess. In my fancy I already saw it, and paused to hear the low chant of their many voices. I was no longer in this busy world, — I was no more a miner in Santa Elena; I was an Indian of the days of the great Huayna Ccapac, and would have fallen upon my knees and worshiped like a very pagan had my fancy turned true. And I thought of the fervor with which to-day, in Honduras, they worship their ancient gods, and it seemed not unlikely that some few faithful souls might still preserve among these inaccessible mountains the ruins of the great religion of their ancestors. I stopped suddenly. Why was this path along which I passed so clean and in such perfect order ? — not overgrown with cactus or spine bushes, nor half hidden in the falling sand and gravel from the mountain ; and how had my mule left the trodden road to dive among the bushes, if she had not discovered another way, hidden perhaps to the gaze of man, still sacred to the worshipers of the great sun? Without being uneasy I was deeply impressed by my thoughts, — perhaps more by finding myself alone at midnight in the dead darkness among unknown mountains, treading upon the footsteps of an extinct race. The ground burned my feet. I took another step down ; it was the last.

“ The darkness had again become thick and heavy ; I felt as if I were at the bottom of a well. I could see nothing, so I mounted my mule and let her take her own gait; but in a few minutes she had again stopped, and refused to advance. My dog gave a long whine, and then I heard his feet running up the steps down which I had come, while his whine rang in my ears. The mule shook violently and reared. I dismounted, and lit a match. I could see no valley at all, but in front of me was an opening in the rock. I dropped the mule’s bridle, and entered. It was like the cave of some wild beast, — ‘A jaguar, most likely,’I thought ; but I was insensible to danger, and would have tried to go in had I seen the jaguar himself at the door. It was only a hole in the rock, shallow and low; but the light of a match showed me, within a foot of my face, the fattest vein of virgin gold that my eyes have ever seen. As I followed this vein with my sight, I saw at the farther end a chisel sticking from the rock. I went up to it : it was a chisel of copper. Then I knew that I was in one of the mines of the old Incas, and that I held in my hand the tool of their slaves. That copper chisel would cut steel itself. My foot hit against something on the floor. I stooped, and picked up an earthen lamp, with the bejuco wick still projecting from it; but it was not that that my foot had struck. I stooped again, and touched — a skull.

“ Well, I had seen and handled many a skull before, and perhaps shall again, and I cannot explain the sudden panic that thrilled me as I stood before the Inca’s wealth and with the skull at my feet. A fear fell upon me, and shook me and tore me inwardly. I would not have stayed there a moment longer for Atahuallpa’s ransom. I stumbled to the door; my head struck the ledge ; I dropped to the ground, and rolled out of that fearful place. I have never had the slightest desire to see that gold again. It lies there yet for some wanderer like myself, but pluckier, to reach, find, and enrich himself. I told it all to my partner and to ray friends in San Isidro, and for five years they have searched for that stairway ; they have never found it. I would not find it if I could.”

That is true, then, that the old Peruvians knew how to temper copper ? ” I asked, after an interval; for his simple, direct tale had impressed me strongly.

“ Not only true, but I know how they did it. I once saved the life of a very old Indian near my mines in Santa Elena, and then afterwards kept him supplied with candles and bread, and such little things ; and one day he said that he would tell me a secret that everybody had forgotten but himself. I half laughed, but waited for what he had to say. He got up, and brought me a copper blade set in a bone handle. ‘ Shave with that to-morrow,’ was all he said. Well, sir, I never shaved myself so easily before, and that copper blade had not been sharpened for sixty years. I have it yet, and I myself know how it was hardened.”

This is truly a remarkable man, I thought. I longed to know how he could temper copper, but I was unwilling to ask him, and when he spoke again he had forgotten the subject entirely.

We sat out there talking until late. He seemed to have forgotten the guanaco skins. No ! and then it all came to me why he had waited for me at the bath and entertained me ever since. He wanted to keep his eye upon me while I stayed at the bridge, and only after my departure would he search for the hidden gold. I had learned also that he had arrived at the Puente two hours earlier than myself, though he was ill mounted and must have taken some other road.

These and a hundred other things ran through my head, as I lay down on the camp bed in the earthen box provided for me. Pascual slept, as usual, on the ground, just outside of the door of my room.

At six o’clock the following morning I was again in the bath, and on leaving it I saw Senor Queseyó, seated on the other side of the river, sketching the bridge from below. He saw me at the same time, and crossing the river came to meet me.

“ I know,” said he, “ that of course our meeting at the Juncal and our journey together were quite accidental, and in fact our acquaintance is but a day old ; but I am going to stay here at the Puente, as you have probably guessed, while you will soon resume your way to Mendoza. Still I have learned in that one day to esteem you, and it is possible that at some time I may be able to be of service to you. If that should ever be the case, you will call upon me without hesitation,” and he handed me his card, upon which an address was written in pencil. I could do no less than give him my card in return, but I was glad that no address was written upon it. We separated with the customary reciprocal regrets at parting, and did not meet again.

I may insert here, to finish this subject, a part of a letter which I received through the United States Consulate a few weeks after arriving in Boston. I translate the part to which I refer.

“ I was quite uncertain, when I said adieu to you at the Puente del Inca, whether the scheme that I then had in hand was to be a failure or a success, and, wishing to have two strings to my how, I waited until I should know the result definitely before telling you a secret that I saw interested you greatly. ’ If this plan fail,’ I had said to myself, ’ I will go to England, to Sheffield or Birmingham, and start a company for the tempering of copper. That will serve me better than gold-mining in Santa Cruz, for there are many men who would pay me well to learn my secret ; ’ but I am not reduced to my last resource. I inclose you, then, the old Indian’s secretIt is yours, to do with as you like.

“ Let it not surprise you that the ancient Peruvians, while gradually evolving a civilization distinct from our own, and reaching a widely different social state, achieved also certain side results, chance issues, that were unknown to the European conqueror, who, moreover, in his zeal for his God and in his thirst for gold, scorned to learn anything from miserable Indians, who could not even speak Spanish. Later, when the Indians realized this sentiment and felt the heel of the cruel conqueror upon their necks, they shut themselves up in the closest reserve; they served their lords faithfully, but threw their gold vessels into the lakes, carried off the images of their sun-god to the mountain caves, and became the dumb, suffering beasts that you have known them. Pedro González put a whole tribe to death to learn how they made their copper tools hard enough to chisel rock: but to cruelty the Indian can reply only by dying ; to his persecutor he never gives his confidence, — only his life ; and González never learned the secret that he wanted.

“ The Indian Quipú lies still undeciphered in every museum, and the records of the Incas from the great Manco Ccapac are shut up forever in those ragged threads, while conjecture, untamed and vagrant, runs wild over ancient monuments, and the sweet babble of Garcilasso is the only authentic record known. Garcilasso was himself an Inca, and spoke from family tradition rather than from the imperial documents. There are still Indians who can read the Quipú : if you want fame, search for them, unearth them, make them speak. You will rank with Rawlinson, Elgin, and Schliemann.

The old Peruvian sun-temples have excited much wonder and caused many inane conjectures. How could these immense blocks of stone ne piled so closely and symmetrically upon each other ? Where did they quarry them, and how did they cut them, and by what means did they pile them into walls and roofs ? Those arid plains often yielded nothing larger than pebbles, and what engines had they to drag these rock masses for leagues to the chosen spot ? One will tell you that the stones were quarried and cut in distant hills, carted by thousands of men to the site ; and that when one stone was placed earth was brought and a gentle incline made from the plain to the top of the stone, up which slope the next rock was carried in the same way, and the earthslope again raised to the second level; that in this way they could have built temples much larger and higher and of still greater stones. It is all a guess. The old Peruvians did not have carts, and wheels were unknown to them; everything was borne on the backs of Indians ; no other vehicle was known than the royal chair borne litterwise by the royal servants. It is all a guess. The real explanation, much more surprising from our standpoint than the guesses of antiquaries, is this: they did not quarry, and cut, aud cart, and pile those immense blocks; they simply made them. While Toledo and Damascus were turning iron bars into delicate steel for fine swords, while Gutenberg was making the first rough essays at printing, and while gunpowder was beginning to depopulate the world at the same time that it civilized it, — for the world will be civilized only when man has disappeared from its surface,— the ancient Peruvians were stumbling upon a way to harden copper and a way to make granite. How did they make granite? I do not yet know. How did they harden copper ? The inclosure marked ’ reserved ’ and scaled with my seal will tell you.”

That letter is still in my keeping.

In another part of his letter, alluding darkly to the success of his scheme at the Puente del Inca, he said, “ I am doubly glad at the event of this hope, for it provides me with the means of carrying out the purpose of my life, — which sooner or later I should in some way have done, — and it saves me from the necessity of depending in the slightest degree for my resources upon that land that I cursed with an oath and a solemn vow many years ago. My time is coming now, and I am not alone in the work. A friend and companion of the great Italian liberator as I have been, I have a higher and a wider mission than his before me. Would to God he were here at my side ! But we are strong, and the hand of man shall not prevail against us.” I well remembered, on reading these words, his vehement invective when together we left the Laguna del Inca, after he had told me of the fate of the English fisherman.

“ Miserable slave of an accursed nation ! ” he broke out. Would to God they might all perish the same wretched death ! They have blistered the surface of this fair earth with their injustice and bull-dog cruelty. The blood of their victims cries out from all lands. For thirty years they have slaughtered Kaffirs and Zulus and Chinese and Turks and Indians and Afghans and Egyptians alike, and there is none to stay their hands. The Irish at home and the Greeks abroad they have outraged. They have threatened Guatemala and they have insulted Bolivia. The weak and the sick have been their sport and spoil, and their hand, like a plague, has Spotted whatever it has touched. But all this only makes the reckoning greater when the day of reckoning comes. What was at first a national movement is becoming an universal one. The voice of vengeance cries aloud ; it goes up from all lands. The day is drawing near, and this,” tearing open his coat, “ is the sign of the victors ! ” I saw upon his breast a cross and a red ribbon, which I had not time to examine, for he covered it almost at once and dropped into a moody silence.

I spent the morning strolling about through the valley and climbing around on the ledge of rock that ran along like a gallery under the arch of the bridge, but high above the river. Many swallows had built their nests in the niches at the base of the stalactites, and they flew about my head in silent flocks as I clambered along. About once an hour a desire came upon me to take another bath, and I went back and lay down in the clear water bubbling warm about me.

The whole hillside is covered with the thin layers which form on the rocky surfaces where falls the water from the arch and the springs, and which comes from the hills above. So firm and regular are these thin sheets that the people split them from the rock, and employ them in making the roofs of their houses. Above these regular layers the detritus forms a dusty covering. It appears to me easy to account for the existence of the bridge itself; that the gradual deposit of these accumulating and adhesive layers has increased until, overhanging the ravine at its narrowest part, the new formation has projected itself to the opposite bank, while the continued accretion has filled up and symmetrized the span thus thrown across the river. The form of the bridge would suggest such an origin. On the high land above the bridge the ground sounds hollow to the footstep, as if one were walking on an immense concealed drum. There are still to be seen in the valley the ruins of the old Indian huts, which must at one time have formed quite a village.

At half past twelve I mounted again, and rode down the valley, over the crest of a round-topped hill, and into the Valle de los Penitentes (the Vale of the Penitents), so called from the vertical attitude of many oblong blocks of stone ranged with a certain regularity in rows and files. At a distance the illusion is complete, — they are women at prayer. On the right continued the range of mountains which had accompanied me the day before. At this place was a gap between two adjacent tops, and in this gap appeared a castle of brown porphyry, with bastions and turrets and ramparts and battlements, — a ruin of the grandest type, a feudal castle, gradually undergoing decomposition under the septic agency of time.

It was with difficulty that I could persuade myself that this was simply one of Nature’s sportive deceptions, and that the hand of man had never traced and modeled those upright symmetrical towers that I saw before me. On the left the hills retain their porphyritic structure ; on the right they are sliced into layers of gypsum, red sandstone, porphyry, and granite, the separate strata standing out prominently in distinct coloration on the mountain side. The dip seems here to become southwesterly.

For many leagues now I had passed them, these bald, rugged rock-mountains, bare of grass or bushes. They were all of the same type,—immense rocky summits towering bleak into the light-blue sky. But the alternate influence of the winter’s frost and snow and of the hot summer sun is gradually breaking down their lofty strength, tumbling bowlders into the valleys, and covering the mountain-sides with landslides, smooth and fixed now, running down as straight as the side of a triangle into the plain below, which they meet at an angle varying from twentyfive to eighty degrees. The detritus which forms them is vainly clothing its nakedness with a thin growth of hardy spiny bushes, which in the spring is violently torn off and rolled down the slope by the annual landslides. I may also state, while it is pertinent, that both before reaching Uspallata and beyond it, while the road passes along the plateau, I the rocky summits have become entirely disintegrated into sand-hills, with round tops and covered with a sparse vegetation resembling heather.

The rivers, too, that one passes or crosses during this trip, like nearly all the rivers of Chile, carry yearly many hundred tons of earth from the Cordillera across the abrupt slope to the sea, and deposit their earthy burden upon the coast. That they are one of the factors steadily at work in the elevation of the Chilean coast — a fact long since noticed by Humboldt and Huxley — becomes evident on taking a cupful of the yellow water and letting it stand a moment. A light sandy precipitate at once forms, and a calculation could easily be made showing the annual work of these rivers in the production of land.

From the Valle de los Penitentes, with the sun sinking at my back, I rode into the full view of the volcano Tupungato, by whose base the road twists towards the north. Sublime and aloft, conspicuous among his fellows, like a very Atlas among lesser giants, towers the massive head of Tupungato, — its bleak, rugged sides swept by the winds of centuries, its bare bald head erect and unshaken by the threat of the stormwind, with the snow for a covering, the condor for a companion, the cloud for a hiding-place.

The posada at the Punta de las Vacas¹³ where I arrived at three o’clock is another squalid shanty, where one gets the worst of accommodations, food, and treatment at an exorbitant figure.

The succeeding day I left Punta de las Vacas at half past five, and passed along at an easy trot by a level road beside the river bank, whose channel had been cut deep into the plain by the spring freshets. The path lay over a sandy, shrub-covered plain, and but little water was to be met with on the road. It was therefore more grateful to me to find in a deep, abrupt gorge, at eleven o’clock, when the sun is hottest, the loveliest cascade I have ever seen. The lowest fall was the only one I could see from the saddle; so I dismounted, and without taking off my spurs I clambered up the sheer sides of successive rocks, until there lay at my feet the cascade that I had seen from the road, while above, in the narrow, difficult ravine, were two more, one above the other, falling straight, and smooth into the hollow basins that they had themselves worn out in the rocks. I eagerly threw myself down on my side by the middle pool of the three, and, dropping my hat, I was about to plunge my head into the clear water, when right before me I saw, in the crevice between two rocks, a snake’s head perking itself into my very face. I started to my feet and backed two or three paces, with my eyes on the snake, who, no less surprised than myself, sought a place to hide; but with a stone well aimed I succeeded in dispatching him. I measured him with my eye, three and a half feet, drab with black spots, and hastily withdrew, without my desired drink, cruelly disenchanted of my beautiful dream.

This gully leads one, climbing along the face of the cliff, precipitous and almost impassable, to a deep valley, heavily wooded, which lies behind.¹⁴ For many years the wood of this concealed valley was cut and carted away for lumber, thus giving the name Las Cortaderas (The Cuttings) to the whole region, including the outer valley through which winds the present road. If one should succeed in reaching the bottom of the hidden valley, and should stand in a certain position with reference to the distant mountains, he might still catch a glimpse of the old highway of the Incas, running away north among the mountains, and only lacking the reconstruction of the hanging bridges to become continuous.

At two o’clock we crossed the Rio Picheutas, and on the farther bank Pascual built a fire, and on a stick roasted a leg of kid, on which, with some unleavened bread and water from the river, we lunched ; and after a half hour’s sleep in the shade of the rocks I again mounted, and we set off.

At four I was well out of the heart of the Central Cordillera, and paused to take a note in the saddle : “ The hills of the Quebrada Seca (Dry Ravine) rise at the near right, of green stratified porphyry, and apparently highly amygdaloidal. At the left flows the Rio de las Cuevas, in its pebbly bed ; at this point it loses this name, and becomes the Rio Mendoza. Beyond the river rises an escarpment that the most expert military engineer might study with profit. Nature, in her fits of abstraction, produces unconsciously and without effort results far surpassing our difficult attempts at imitation. Behind rises the mountain range, ever lessening at this point until it degenerates into the sandhills of the Uspallata plateau. In front extends the valley, winding around the base of the hills, to whose slippery sides the footpath clings. Behind, thunder and lightning announce rain in Uspallata and Mendoza, while a few large drops fall upon my bare head here.”

I rode along the river bed for about an hour, and picked up a number of beautiful stones as mementoes of the valley. At half past five we reached a muddy stream, rolling its rapid and swollen torrent down the hillside to join the Rio Mendoza. The large stones at the bottom of the stream, bowling along and tumbling against each other in their furious passage, gave me some fears of breaking the legs of my macho during the passage, but there was no time to wait. The stream must be crossed, and its current increased in rapidity and in volume moment by moment ; for it had rained long and heavily on the heights above. The whip would not serve, for my macho refused to enter the stream, rearing furiously when I again and again put his head to the water. The spurs, however, helped me, and when at last I reached the other side the blood was fresh on my rowels.

The Rio Uspallata was yet two leagues ahead, and already the darkness was closing in around me. Again I put the macho to the full trot, and held him to it for an hour across the plain. Happily the Uspallata flows through the smooth ground, and though wide and rapid it was not deep. I crossed easily, and rode up the slope to the inn, which put a period to this day’s ride. Here I found the accommodations good, and at nine o’clock sat down to a hot and substantial dinner.

At Uspallata is another custom house, to the keeper of which I sent by Pascual the certificate which the Resguardo at the Puente del Inca had given me, and I consequently passed without delay. This inn is the only point on the road where anything like activity is found,— for one meets more people here than on the whole road elsewhere,¹⁵ — and the stable-yard was filled with mules and horses of people intending to start off the next morning. I find that many persons, ill used and half starved with the wretched treatment which they receive along the road, are glad enough to stay a day or two at Uspallata, and obtain, at a moderate price, a good bed and abundant food. It receives also the travelers to and from San Juan, who come and go by a road of their own.

This plain extends for nearly two hundred miles N. E. (perhaps more accurately N. N. E.) and S. W., its altitude being 6000-6500 feet above sea level. It is composed, as one easily sees by the palisades of the Rio Mendoza, of a stratified gravelly deposit, closely resembling shingle, many hundred feet in thickness, due to the gradual disintegration of the rocky summits. One also sees here and there the projecting surfaces and angles of lava and of a calcareous tufa that is indeed very common through the whole region.

I had ridden so easily and with so little fatigue up to this point that I determined to make the remaining thirty leagues between Uspallata and Mendoza in one day’s journey. Pascual tried to dissuade me, but I was determined to put the two days’ journey into one, and rose at 4.30. Moreover I carried letters of introduction to the Señores Gonzales, of Mendoza (Don Carlos and Don César), and wished to present them before the expected departure of those two gentlemen from the city.

There was no coffee ready, and it would take too long to make a fire and prepare it, and Pascual had overslept, so there was no remedy against starting on a hungry stomach. I purchased bread and meat for the march before leaving, intending to stop on the road at about ten or eleven o’clock, await Pascual, and take breakfast, pushing on afterwards towards Mendoza. I expected to reach this city at about ten o’clock at night. I thrust a roll of hard bread into the pocket of my traveling coat, mounted, and set out in the cool, early morning air. Several friends of Pascual had joined him on the road, and there was quite a caravan sweeping along behind me as I turned to take a last look at the inn where I had slept so well after my hearty dinner. The ground was still covered with a coating of soft mud, —a footing that only a mule could stand on, — and ours were the first tracks that crossed it. Gradually the morning air lost its grateful coolness, and the plain was already dry when, in an hour, the sun rose and promised us a clear sky and a hot day.

For five hours the path lay along the sandy uplands, with occasional insignificant dips and rises, and at ten o’clock I came, riding alone, to the old and longworked mines of Paramillo, which a century ago yielded such immense quantities of silver. Now, however, without being exhausted, they lie neglected and in ruins.

Gradually, for the last hour, the scenery had become more rugged, though the vegetation had not changed nor the geological formation varied ; but at this point the road suddenly drops down a thousand feet from the plateau to the lower and outer range of the Andes, where the rock formation become slaty, with, I think, an easterly dip, though not a very well-marked one.

I came to this abrupt descent at about half past ten, and plunged into the bed of a ravine which I followed for another hour, until I espied a rancho on the opposite hillside, and beside it a thin streak of green, which meant water. My roll was long since finished, but my hunger was not appeased, and my throat was so dry that when I tried to speak my voice gave forth an uncertain sound, and when I made an effort to swallow I choked in the attempt. Down the decline, then, I hastened, regardless of my macho’s stumbling, and when I reached the rancho I drank a glass of water. Then I could speak, though my voice sounded strangely, and the little old woman fried a half dozen of eggs, after eating which with a piece of bread and two cups of tea, absolutely all the refreshment that the house afforded, I felt much better. Here I waited half an hour for Pascual to come up, but as he did not appear I set off again down the ravine. At about fifty rods’ distance the thin stream sank away into the bibulous sand, and soon after my thirst again overtook me. I regretted then not having filled a flask with water while it was possible, but I reflected that I was now on a steep grade, with abundant shade from the pine and other trees covering the hillsides, and it would be impossible not to meet sufficient water on the way, so I did not return. The descent became now more rapid, and the road passed through deep gulches, blotted here and there by the opening of some mine-shaft into the steep hillside, when suddenly my macho stumbled and fell, first throwing me carelessly over his ears into the dusty road. Like Celia and Rosalind, we “ rose at an instant,” and as I found him uninjured, and felt myself equally sound, I again mounted, and having been long convinced of the truth of the old saying, “ Non bis in idem,” continued the descent at the same pace, though with greater precaution than before.

At two o’clock I passed Villavicencio, the second rancho that has appeared on the road, and the last until one nears the outskirts (which are narrow and ragged) of Mendoza, fifteen leagues ahead. Villavicencio is a fanciful name to give to this cheap hut standing at the roadside; but there are rich silver mines on the estate, and to their profits the owner adds the contributions which he exacts from the tourists for the satisfaction of poisoning them with his leathery raw beef and thin soup, and bread the remembrance of whose burnt skin and thin glutinous core gives me an attack of acute dyspepsia. Ah, the man who invented bread was the enemy of mankind, for by this simple and guileless instrument he scattered on all hands the indiscriminate seeds of torture, I could have cursed him with a royal good will as I bumped along over the road, with a heavier weight on my stomach than I hope ever to have on my conscience.

In this I wish I could be understood as referring solely to the proprietor of Villavicencio, but I cannot, for his was the only house on the road which my gluttonous heart refused to enter, and I knew that his, like all the bread that I had eaten in other places on the road, was an irritant poison. I did not, indeed, dismount at all, but, drinking a glass of warm water, and giving the little girl who handed it to me a real, — not for the water, but for having such pretty eyes, — I pushed forward on the road to Mendoza.

Two hours later I rode out into full view ot the immense pampa where lies the ancient city ; but although I could judge of its direction by the bearing of the road, I could not make it out in the broad plain that stretched off eastward.

On and on I rode. The hot sun and the dry wind had parched my throat, until I began to doubt if I should ever be able to speak or swallow again. I felt strong, however, and fresh in all other respects, and pushed on at full trot down the very gradual descent which would lead me to the plains. The vegetation along this road from Villavicencio was simply the thorn bush and the flowering cactus. Here and there the cactus was in full bloom, with its large white blossoms like the magnolia flower, — a delicious blossom, fresh and sweet in the hot sun. Over the level plain, too, its flower shone here and there above the smooth surface, like a water-lily on some immense lake.

At half past five I had reached the pampa, and the squawking parrots flew swiftly over my head. A dry, arid plain it is, needing only a little of the Chilean system of artificial irrigation and some of the Chilean industry to bloom with clover and wheat. Since leaving Villavicencio at two o’clock I had seen no water, and it was only at six o’clock that I rode up to the Hornos de Cal (Limekilns), where a bucket-well stood by the wayside. In a moment I was on the ground, had thrown the bridle over the macho’s ears, and the bucket was on its rapid way to the bottom of the well, whence it returned full of the cool, delicious water. I threw myself on the ground and tipped up the bucket to my lips, and while half of its contents ran down my neck and stood in a pool in each of my shoes I slaked the first really furious thirst I have ever known. Strengthened and refreshed by that deep draught, I again mounted, and stood off across the plain towards the city, whose steeples could now with difficulty be discerned in the horizon.

At seven o’clock, already dusk, I entered the Avenida de la Chimba, a single street standing out from the city like the handle of a saucepan, — three miles long. The row of poplar-trees at each side was well enough, but the street was full of pits and man-holes, and half of it was covered with a rapid stream of water. For three days it had rained furiously in Mendoza, and very soon the street became a uniform sheet of water, stretching away in the distance as far as the half-moon could light up the road to me. I did not like the prospect. I felt tired with my long ride, and weak with hunger. The street was ragged and full of holes, and covered with a treacherous sheet of flowing water, of unknown and varying depth. The city was two miles distant, and the road deserted and badly lighted by the young moon, which was just setting. The macho was heady and restive with passing through the water, and I fully made up my mind to a good ducking, at least, before reaching the city. Here and there, on a dry spot projecting into the water, a group of ladies would be found prisoners, waiting for the flood to abate and leave them passage. A less gracious and more disheartening entrance into a city I have never made, and the barking of strange and numerous dogs behind the hedge of poplar-trees, together with the raving of the exposed drains ¹⁶ on each side of the road, only added to the sensation of annoyance and distrust that ruled me. Fetid odors, too, rose to meet me, and once the macho shied very violently at the body of a dead dog which floated by him in the faint light. At length I struck dry land, and found my way by inquiry to the Hotel Nacionul, having accomplished my task, and traveled the thirty leagues during the day. I had left the saddle four times : once to tighten the saddle-girths, once when I breakfasted, once to take a drink of water, and once when the macho threw me over his ears and fell on top of me.

Stuart Chisholm.