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so execrable, that the mules could with difficulty keep their feet. They had a long and fatiguing ride, and wearied their eyes in looking out for a place called Casacancha, where they were to sleep; but instead of a village, as they had all along fancied it to be, it was neither more nor less than a single hut, perched on the side of a mountain, at the height of 14,381 feet above the level of the sea. They were now approaching the mines of Colquijilca, the first that were worked in the Cerro. The account of the discovery of the existence of silver in this district is something like the story told of the discovery of the Potosi mine: it is, that a shepherd who was attending his flocks upon the Cerro made a fire at night, and in the morning found that several small pieces of silver had by its action been run together.' This is a very old and oft-repeated story, and is something like that of the Phoenician discovery of glass; but we suspect that the heated embers of a few twigs are not equal to the melting of silver or the vitrification of sand. Not far from Pasco our travellers passed an establishment for the amalgamation of minerals, to which the ore is brought on llamas. The ancient Peruvians had neither mules nor horses, nor any other beasts of burden except the llama.

'We met several droves of llamas carrying the ore, and saw a great many more feeding on the plains: their load is 130 lbs., equal to half a mule load: they require very gentle treatment, and will not be driven by force, for when the animal becomes tired it will lie down, and nothing can move it; for this reason, on making long journeys, it is usual to take more than the number necessary for carrying the load, so as to be table to relieve the fatigued beasts.'-Smyth, pp. 36, 37.

Cerro Pasco, we have frequently been told, is the richest mineral district in Peru (that is, we presume, in silver); and the town of Pasco is situated on the western side of the second Cordillera, at the height, it is said, of 14,278 feet above the level of the sea. The population of the town varies according to the state of the mines: the average number may probably be from 12,000 to 16,000, but it is subject to great fluctuation. It has two squares, in one of which is a cathedral somewhat resembling an English barn; the streets are dirty and irregular; the suburbs a confused collection of mud cottages. The mouths of the mines are frequently in the middle of the streets, which makes walking in the night very dangerous. They are sometimes enclosed in the courts and yards of the houses.' The greater part of these, though perfectly useless and unproductive, are thus left unfilled up, to the nuisance and danger of the inhabitants. Lieutenant Smyth gives a dreadful account of the brutality of the miners, their riotous assemblages, fighting, and murders, which would appear from his description to be pretty much on a par with such like matters in Ireland-certainly not worse.

The

The sources of the Marañon branch are to the westward, and on the opposite side of the Cordillera to that on which Cerro Pasco is situate. The sources also of the Huallaga are not far from Pasco, and being yet a mountain-torrent, the road of our travellers was along its banks, in proceeding northerly. Equally near to Pasco, and to the southward of it, is the lake Chinchaycocha, which gives rise to the Jacua, one of the branches of the Ucayali. These three rivers, with their confluent streams, after watering some of the most fertile and luxuriant valleys and plains perhaps in the whole world, all swell the flood of the great Amazon towards the upper part of its course, but each of them at a distance from the others.

On the left bank of the Huallaga, and at some distance above it, stands the village of St. Rafael, at an elevation of 8764 feet above the sea. Ambo is another pretty little village, situated in the angle formed by the confluence of the Huacar with the Huallaga; it contains 400 or 500 inhabitants; the country about is well cultivated, enjoys a good climate, and produces most of the tropical fruits. The whole valley from hence to Huanuco is described as exceedingly beautiful, luxuriant in various kinds of vegetation, and abounding in fruit trees. This town, or city, as it is sometimes called, stands at an elevation of 6300 feet; it is an ancient Spanish town, having been founded in 1542, and the seat of a bishopric; it has one broad street of miserable-looking houses, with several cross-streets, containing mostly garden walls, with a few straggling houses intermixed. It contains, however, fourteen churches, including the cathedral, and a college, with two professors, and a foundation for thirty scholars-but that small number is not complete. The population, with that of Huascar and Vallé, is estimated only at 10,000, with 1000 occasional wandering Indians; it is said the population remained stationary for 250 years previous to the revolution, and that this had been caused principally by the small-pox and debauchery. The climate is described as dry and healthy, the heat being allayed by a constant breeze from the north. Mr. Smyth mentions by name thirty-six different sorts of fruit, all of which he says are of spontaneous growth-eighteen different sorts of vegetables, besides sugar-cane, coffee, and cocoa-wheat, barley, and Indian corn. The inhabitants are the descendants of Spaniards, Meztizos, and Indians. Under a settled government the valley of Huanaco might become an earthly paradise.

At Panao, it was necessary to change the mules and the Indians; but a panic had struck the latter on learning that the intention of the travellers was to proceed to Mayro; as far as

Pozuzu

Pozuzu they had no objection to go, but beyond that place they all positively refused to accompany the party. They set out, however, and were tardily followed by the baggage mules. The road through the ravines and along the precipitous sides of the - mountains was most difficult and dangerous. The mules were in many places up to their bellies in mud; sometimes they had to climb up huge rocks, piled on each other like some gigantic staircase, and the descent on the other side was still worse; in some places large trees had fallen across the path, and in others the road was nothing more than a narrow ledge, with a wall of rock on one side and a deep precipice on the other; and at one point a waterfall, rolling over the rim of rock, threatened to wash the traveller into the abyss below, not less than a thousand feet deep. In descending along a narrow pathway overlooking one of these horrid chasms, Major Beltran, a Peruvian officer, who had now joined the party, had a narrow escape for his life; his horse trod too near the brink; the earth gave way, and the poor animal fell about 1500 feet, bounding from rock to rock like a stone; the Major saved himself by an extraordinary exertion of dexterous activity. A print exhibits the horse falling headforemost into the gulf, while the Major is suspended over the yawning chasm, having, however, caught hold of the stump of a tree by which he was saved. A mule would have managed better than the horse. We forget whether it is Head, or Miers, or Caldcleugh, who gives an account of a mule, which in passing one of these ledges (called laderos), slipped off, but having laid hold, in the fall, of the edge of the precipice with its teeth, was drawn up and thus rescued from destruction. But the loss of the Major's horse was not the only disaster that befell the party. A little beyond this spot the rest of the poor horses were reduced to such a pitiable state by fatigue and want of food, that three of them fell down the precipices, two of which were killed on the spot; the third fell among some small trees, and with great exertion was saved. We notice these accidents, to show the nature of the road which Mr. Smyth undertook to explore, in the view of opening a communication with the Ucayali, and of the conveyance of Peruvian produce down the great stream of the Amazon.

Arrived at Pozuzu, the party found that, so far from being able to prevail on the muleteers to accompany them to the port of Mayro, they had all deserted in the course of the night; and it was afterwards discovered that these deserters, having fallen in with fifteen Indians, which were sent by a Peruvian officer as a reinforcement, had prevailed on them likewise to turn back.

A third

A third set, to the number of twenty-five, had also been dispatched, but not one of them made his appearance. It seems they all took alarm from numerous ill omens that had been spread regarding the expedition; some believed they would all perish; others, that no bridge would be found on their return from Mayro, and all of them, without any knowledge of the people of Mayro, said they were cannibals. It now, therefore, became too clear that the expedition must end at Pozuzo, and that they had before them the disagreeable prospect of being obliged to return on foot to Panao, a distance twice as great as they were then from Mayro. They lost no time, therefore, in setting out on their return, and on the 23rd November, reached Huanaco, which place they had left on the 11th October.

They now determined to make the best of their way to the Amazon, by a more direct route, and for this purpose proceeded to Chinchao, where they embarked on the Huallaga in two small canoes. The stream,' says Mr. Smyth, according to our measurement, ran about six miles and a half in an hour; the impediments to navigation consisted in drift timber, trees growing in the stream, and numerous snags, as they are called in North America; to which we may add, the great number of malpasos, 'bad passes,' or rapids, which, like those in the North American rivers, require the canoes to be unloaded and their contents carried over the several portages; some of these falls in the Huallaga are reported to be very dangerous. The length of this river from where it first becomes navigable, to its junction with the Amazon, cannot be less than 400 miles, of which 300 nearly abound with these evil passes; but the mountains that enclose it ending at Pongo, the river from thence is said to flow, without interruption, in an even stream to the Amazon.

A little above Pongo, the party entered the Chipurana, flowing from the eastward, and crossed over a narrow slip of land to the Catalina, which falls into the Ucayali at no great distance from Surayaco. Here they were desirous of communicating with Padre Plaza, who has long been at the head of the missions on that river; but here we must leave them for a moment to take a passing view of the supposed advantages of the route by the Pachitea, admitting it to be, as they were assured it was, navigable. It took our travellers twenty days from Lima to Huanaco, which Mr. Smyth estimates at 222 miles, over a continuous mountain country, rising from 3000 to 15,000 feet above the sea, encumbered and interrupted with every species of impediment, from rocks and precipices, ravines, torrents, and swamps;-from Huanaco, as far up the Huallaga, as it was expedient to strike off to the eastward, twenty-eight days;-and hence easterly to the mission

of

of Surayacu, nine days; making the distance from Lima to Surayacu fifty-seven days. From this to the confluence of the Ucayali with the Amazon nine days, will make sixty-six days from Lima to this part of the great river; and from hence to Para, it occupied seventy-five days of navigation, making the whole distance from Lima to Para one hundred and forty-one days. Now it appears that the mean of five passages made from Callao (the port of Lima) to Rio de Janeiro, gave fifty-six days. If we take Para, therefore, at eighteen days beyond Rio, we shall find that, by crossing the country from Lima and descending the Amazon, we exceed the passage round Cape Horn by sixty-seven days, or very nearly double it. Had the party accomplished their object by the Pachitea, by Padre Plaza's estimate, they would have gained only three days. So much for this new road to Peruvian commerce.' In point of shortness, that by Panama into the Atlantic is not one third even of that round Cape Horn. If we examine Mr. Maw's route from Truxillo by the Marañon branch, and part of the Guallaga to the Amazon, and thence to Para, we shall find it employed him one hundred and thirty days. So that t. route from Truxillo would not much differ in point of time; and hed pursued by Mr. Maw from thence to the Amazon is fully as bad, if not worse, as the following extract will show. Mr. Maw, after passing one of the bleak ridges of the Andes, and halting for the night in one of the uncultivated boggy valleys,

says:

Here the muleteers gave us notice to prepare for worse roads. This at the time appeared to us scarcely possible; but we had not gone much farther when we were convinced they were correct. Sitting upright even on the saddles of the country was out of the question; ascending, we were obliged to lay ourselves along the mules' backs, and hold on; descending, it was equally steep; and what made it worse, the top of an ascent was scarcely gained, when the next step was jumping down again, consequently an instantaneous change of position was necessary. In getting up some of these places, and lying stretched along the mules' backs, we appeared to be nearly upright: nor was steepness the only obstacle; some of these staircases were cut through cliffs, but so narrow, that in descending we repeatedly got jammed, and the sides so high that a person, when a few yards in advance, appeared rather to be going to the interior, than continuing along the surface of the earth. In other parts, branches of trees, particularly stout sogas (creepers), caught our heads and necks; and it was necessary to keep a good look out to avoid being hanged by these growing ropes. Going down one of the steepest descents, a soga stretching across the path caught me directly in the mouth, which it forced open fortunately it was not a strong one, and my biting it hard, and the strength and weight of the mule, broke it. Between the ridges were bogs, in which the mules sunk up to their bellies. Bridges over

the

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