BOMBON TO THE BATTLEFIELD OF AYACUCHO
The next morning we were furnished fresh horses by our kind hosts, and
accompanied by five or six of them, climbed out of the beautiful valley
of Chincheros up to the heights of Bombon overlooking the river Pampas.
Here in 1824, the patriot forces under General Sucre, marching along
this road to Lima, encountered the Royalists under La Serna, trying to
cut off their retreat. The advance guard of each army met on the 20th of
November on the heights of Bombon. The Royalists were driven down into
the valley and across the river Pampas.
After reaching the level of the river, our path followed the Pampas,
down stream, in a northerly direction, for some distance among groves of
mimosa trees and cacti. This is a famous place for mosquitoes, and there
is said to be a great deal of malaria in the vicinity. The altitude is
slightly over six thousand feet.
My interest in the Pampas valley was considerably increased by finding
the trees and cacti covered with white land shells, some of them
reminding me of those tree shells that I had gathered as a boy in the
beautiful valleys of the Island of Oahu. I filled my pockets, and later
spent the evening cleaning the shells, much to the amusement of my
hosts. My labor was amply rewarded by finding, after reaching home, that
among the shells were three new species which Dr. Dall, the Curator of
the Division of Mollusks in the United States National Museum, has named
and described.[7]
The bridge over the Pampas has long attracted the notice of travellers.
The approach to it is at the foot of perpendicular cliffs. The
surrounding scenery although not so imposing as that of the Apurimac is
nevertheless magnificent. The bridge is about 150 feet long, and at the
time of my visit, February, 1909, was 50 feet above the river. There are
two pictures of the old bridge in Mr. Squier’s book, and although wire
rope has replaced the old cables that the Incas made from maguey fibre,
it is still the most unwelcome feature of the road from the point of
view of the mules.
One of our mules simply would not cross the bridge. No amount of pushing
and pulling, beating and shouting, would make him budge an inch. Finally
he was blindfolded and a rope tied to each front leg. His hind legs were
tied securely together, to prevent him from kicking, and by alternately
pulling the ropes attached to his front feet, he was forced in a most
ignominious manner to come onto the bridge and go a third of the way
across. Then the ropes were loosened and the blind taken off.
[Illustration: THE LARGE PLAZA OF AYACUCHO]
[Illustration: THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER PAMPAS]
We expected to see him turn and bolt for the nearest side but he was too
frightened to do anything of the sort, and became at once most docile,
and finished the trip in peace.
He was not the only one who did not like the bridge. The priest of
Chincheros, who had been delayed from accompanying us by the arrival of
a visiting cleric that morning, overtook us here. Although a sturdy
native Indian, he was rather portly and preferred not only to leave to
some one else the leading across of his mule, but even to have a poor
Indian bearer give him his shoulder to steady him on the swaying
structure.
From the other end of the bridge we ascended the precipitous cliff by a
narrow winding path and found ourselves on a lofty terrace where the
enterprising Parodi Brothers have planted waving fields of sugarcane.
Here we were met by the Gobernador of Tambillo and the Parodis who
escorted us to their sugar factory at Pajonal, a most attractive
hacienda nestled in a valley at the foot of beetling crags. Our hosts
had inherited from their father an unusual stock of energy and skill.
Owing to his efforts, a good irrigation ditch had been constructed that
furnished the canefields with an abundant supply of water. The houses
were in good repair and everything bore the marks of prosperity. It was
a pleasure to see such evidence of enterprise and energy in this wild
region. One brother, who ordinarily practices medicine in Lima, was here
on a visit. Another brother is being educated in the States.
We left Pajonal the next morning, accompanied by the Gobernador of
Tambillo, a very agreeable person of German-Peruvian descent. From
Pajonal the road ascends a little valley and then climbs a mountainside
to the village of Ocros, a most forlorn and wretched place, with an
elevation of nearly ten thousand feet.
The adobe church, like that at Chincheros, was set back from the plaza,
and had a new adobe wall around it. Earth for this seemed to have been
taken right out of the plaza. No attempt had been made to fill up the
huge holes that remained. The only building at Ocros that seemed to be
in any kind of repair was the local telegraph office where the officer
from Ayacucho who accompanied us, went to send a despatch to the
Prefect.
On the way we had been struck by the extraordinary method of hanging
telegraph wires that prevails in this country. The linesmen had thought
nothing of planting three poles together on the top of one hill and the
next three not less than a quarter of a mile away on the top of another,
stretching their wire across the intervening distance in midair. This
occurred not once or twice but whenever they could save poles by so
doing. The strain on the wire must have been tremendous. We learned that
the service was “frequently interrupted.”
The road up from Ocros was the worst that we encountered anywhere. It
was really the bed of a mountain stream and our animals had the greatest
difficulty in picking their way among the rocks and boulders. It was
hard to imagine that this was really the highway between Cuzco and Lima.
The “road” grew worse and worse until it reached a bleak _paramo_ at an
elevation of thirteen thousand feet, where snow, hail, and sleet, driven
in our faces by a high wind, added to our discomforts. A steep descent
on the other side of the range greatly tried the patience of our
animals. The ground seemed to be a hard clay that offered no support to
their feet and they slid and slipped, sometimes eight or ten feet at a
time, without being able to stop. Night was falling as we reached the
little collection of wretched huts called Matara. No one seemed to have
any desire to receive us. In fact, the Indian who had charge of the only
dry hut in the place, locked the front door and disappeared into the
night. Unlike vigorous Caceres, who would sooner have died than allow an
inhospitable Indian to refuse admission to the foreigner in his charge,
the officer from Ayacucho was a timid soul who had gone through the
world bemoaning his ill fortune and doing nothing to make it better. He
could think of no solution of the problem except that we make ourselves
as comfortable as possible in the shelter of a kind of a porch in front
of this thatched hut. So we passed an exceedingly uncomfortable night
and experienced some of the hardships that the British soldiers, who
aided the patriot army in that last campaign against the Spanish
viceroy, must have suffered in this very locality.
The next morning our road led across half a dozen deep gulches whose
streams feed the river Colpahuayo. In one of these I was so fortunate as
to find in a gravel-bank at the side of the road, which had been
heavily washed by recent rains, a portion of an ancient Inca stone
war-club shaped like a huge doughnut.
The road continued to be extremely slippery and was not improved by the
almost continuous rain. At half past two we reached Tambillo. Here we
were welcomed by the pleasant wife of the Gobernador who had ridden
ahead to have a good breakfast prepared while we had waited in vain on a
hilltop hoping the rain would hold up sufficiently to let us photograph
a magnificent panorama that included the distant city of Ayacucho and
the heights of Condorkanqui and the famous battlefield.
After lunch we crossed another gulch whose treacherous sides more than
once caused our mules to fall heavily. In the village of Los Neques, we
were met by a very courteous emissary of the Prefect of Ayacucho who
turned out to be proprietor of the hotel. He had been sent out in the
rain to apologize for the fact that there was no committee to meet us
and to explain that the notables had mounted and ridden out to await us
until driven back by the inclemency of the weather, for all of which we
were duly thankful, as it meant that we had escaped the necessity of
hurting anybody’s feelings by declining to drink more _copitas_ of
brandy on an empty stomach.
Here at Los Neques the Indians were getting ready to celebrate the days
of Carnival which were soon to be upon us. A hundred men and women had
gathered in the courtyard of an old house. In one corner a red cloth
shelter had been erected
[Illustration: AYACUCHO]
[Illustration: THE COURTYARD OF THE HOTEL]
under which sat the old men around a table on which was scattered
popcorn, roast maize, and dishes of succotash. The other men and women
squatted on the ground with dishes of succotash and bowls of _chicha_ in
front of them. As long as we looked on, all was orderly and quiet except
that two musicians with a violin and a primitive old harp were
endeavoring to cheer them up.
Soon after dark, in a pouring rain, we passed the high walls of the
Ayacucho cemetery, clattered over the cobble-stones of the narrow
streets, entered the plaza, and were ushered with a flourish through a
stone arch into the courtyard of the hotel. Acting on the orders of the
Prefect, the proprietor had reserved for our use an enormous parlor or
reception room where at least forty people could be comfortably seated,
and a great bedroom of nearly the same dimensions in which were four
large bedsteads. Notwithstanding the attractiveness of the hotel
bedsteads, such is the perversity of human nature that I decided to use
my own little “Gold Medal” folding cot that had served me faithfully for
many weeks, and my own blankets which, as they were folded up every
morning as soon as I arose and not unfolded until I was ready to sleep,
could be relied upon to be free from fleas, etc.
The plaza of Ayacucho is surrounded on three sides with private houses
that have arcades supported by stone pillars. The ground floors are
taken up with shops, while over the arcades are balconies that lead to
the principal rooms of the dwelling houses. Our hotel had been once
occupied by one of the principal families of the town and was a good
specimen of the old Spanish method of building. It had a large courtyard
from which a flight of stone steps led up to the galleries, and was
ornamented by potted plants and caged birds.
Hardly had we examined our rooms when we received a call from the
Prefect, Don Gaspar Mauro Cacho, a tall, finely proportioned Peruvian
with a remarkable sense of humor and an unfailing store of courtesy. On
the following day he took upon himself to show us the sights of the
town, including the fine old cathedral, the large public market, clean
and well kept, the picturesque old churches, and the Prefecture, a large
double quadrangle where were located the offices of the Department, the
barracks of the few troops stationed here, and the rooms allotted for
the use of himself and his family.
His wife and children had arrived from Lima not many months previous,
and the terrors of the overland journey were vividly in their minds. His
señora assured me that she had feared she would never reach Ayacucho
alive, notwithstanding the fact that the government had made every
possible provision for their comfort on the journey. One of the “guides”
lost his way, and they were quartered at an abandoned _tambo_ where
there was nothing to eat or drink and no firewood. Having lived in Lima
all their lives, they felt the discomforts keenly. It was an interesting
commentary on the state of the roads that even a Prefect could not be
sure that his family would travel with a moderate degree of comfort.
I had sometimes felt that the life of an official in Peru was as easy as
the life of the poor Indians was hard, but I had to reverse that opinion
before leaving the country. While the Prefects are appointed directly by
the President and are responsible only to him, they are likely to be
considered troublesome by the local magistrates who, although elected by
the citizens, exercise very limited prerogatives. Were it not for the
dozen or more soldiers that take their orders directly from the Prefect,
he would often be in a precarious position. He must govern as well as he
can, and yet if he does not make himself popular with the people of the
city in which he lives, his lot is not at all an easy one. With such men
as the Prefects whom we met in Arequipa, Abancay, and Ayacucho, the
central government is fortunate in being able to be sure that the power
which it delegates to them will be used firmly and wisely and without
causing friction.
This city, one of the largest in Peru, occupies an excellent central
situation and from it diverge roads in every direction. Yet so great is
the difficulty of bringing foreign merchandise over these mountain
roads, that we found few shops here of any importance, and almost all
seemed to be owned by natives of the country. The streets were all of
the same pattern, paved with rough stones, sloping, not away from the
centre as with us, but towards the centre, where in the middle there is
invariably a ditch, practically an open sewer. For those walking on the
sidewalk, it is certainly much pleasanter to have this ditch in the
middle of the street.
In anticipation of the joys of eating and drinking connected with
Carnival, Indian women with huge cauldrons of _chupe_ and immense jars
of _chicha_ were preparing to take up all-night stands, sometimes in the
centre of the street or else on a busy corner where they would be sure
to attract trade. The effect of the women’s head-gear was most curious.
It was exactly as though the lady had found her shawl a bit too warm and
had taken it off, folded it into a square, and proceeded to carry it on
her head for convenience. We went through one old crumbling archway,
attracted by some beautiful clay jars, and found ourselves in a backyard
that would have delighted a painter. Not all painters, but the kind that
loves a natural combination of picturesque ruins, fine old jars tumbled
about helter-skelter, dirty little Indian children in dirtier hats and
ponchos, very much too big for them, a cat, and a long-legged pig who
nosed about among the jars trying to see which one contained _chicha_
fit to gratify his thirst.
From the tower of one of the oldest churches we secured a splendid view
of the city and the surrounding country including nearly the entire
region occupied by the forces of Sucre and La Serna in the week
preceding the final battle of Ayacucho.
The old name of Ayacucho was Guamanga, which is said to have been a
Spanish adaptation of the Inca Huaman-ca (Take it, Falcon), a name that
was given to the district by an incident that followed a fierce battle
in which a warlike tribe of this vicinity was defeated and almost
annihilated by the armies
[Illustration: A PICTURESQUE CORNER IN AYACUCHO]
[Illustration: CROSSING THE PONGORA RIVER ON THE SHAKY SUSPENSION
BRIDGE]
of the Inca Viracocha. It is said that when serving out rations of flesh
to his troops after the battle, the Inca threw a piece to a falcon that
was soaring over his head, saying “Huaman-ca.” However this may be, the
town of Guamanga was one of the earliest to be founded by Pizarro and
was later the site of a bloody encounter between Vaca de Castro, the
legitimate Viceroy, and young Almagro and his followers, who had
assassinated Pizarro.
The name Ayacucho was given to the town after the famous battle of
December 9, 1824, which was fought near the village of Quinua, thirteen
miles north. “Ayacucho” means “corner (or heap) of dead men” and refers
to the bloody character of this conflict and of those that had preceded
it in the Inca Conquest and in the Spanish Conquest of Peru.
On February 21, the three days of Carnival began. Although I had often
read of the impossibility of doing anything in Peru during that period
of jollification, I succeeded in persuading the kind-hearted Prefect to
procure us animals that we might ride to Quinua, thirteen miles away,
and spend a day or so investigating the battlefield. He tried to
dissuade us, but as he knew that it was for this purpose that we had
come to Ayacucho, everything was soon ready. The Gobernador of Quinua
had been given orders to be on hand, to act as our guide. Accompanied by
him and the Secretary of the Department and a small military escort, we
left the hotel and took the road to the northwest.
Our little cavalcade was strung out over a block or more by the time we
reached the suburbs as the streets were narrow and not in particularly
good repair. Suddenly the horses of our guides wheeled and bolted and
were with difficulty kept in the road. The cause was a characteristic
piece of carelessness on the part of somebody. A horse had recently died
and his thrifty owner had at once skinned him to save his hide, leaving
the hideous carcass in the very centre of the narrow road. It was
necessary to make a considerable detour through the neighboring fields,
for none of our animals would go within fifty feet of the disgusting
spectacle.
For the first two leagues we followed the regular road to Lima and the
north, branching off when we reached the ford over the Pongora River,
then passing through several small plantations and near two vineyards,
we crossed the river Yucaes on a new suspension bridge and climbed the
face of a steep cliff by a zigzag trail. We had good animals and kept
them going at a comfortable trot so that we arrived at the little
village of Quinua in three and a half hours after leaving Ayacucho.
The plaza of Quinua is surrounded on three sides by houses and ruins,
the fourth side being taken up by the church. Like the other houses in
the vicinity, these were built of stone and earth and roofed with red
tiles. Many of the roofs had been allowed to fall into decay, and the
house which was pointed out as the place where the truce was signed
after the battle, and where the Spanish General surrendered to General
Sucre, had entirely lost its covering.
A hasty lunch was prepared for us at a little mud hut called a tavern,
and as soon after as possible we re-mounted and rode north for half a
mile up the face of a little hill and found ourselves on the plain where
was fought the last great battle of the South American Wars of
Independence. A monument, apparently made of some kind of plaster, and
naturally in a very bad state of repair, marked the centre of the plain.
Near by was a kind of shed or shelter for the horses, and a little to
the westward the walls of a memorial chapel that had not yet been
completed. North of the plain the heights of Condorkanqui rise abruptly.
A new road had recently been constructed over them to the warm valleys
beyond, but it was still perfectly possible to see the old trail down
which the Spanish troops marched in their attack on the patriots.
The altitude of the field is nearly eleven thousand feet, and
romantically inclined writers have sometimes spoken of this as the
“battle above the clouds.” As a matter of fact, we had considerable
difficulty in taking photographs owing to the low hanging clouds that
continually swept down from the summits of Condorkanqui. Fortunately it
did not rain _all_ the time.
Few battles have ever been fought on a height that offered such a
magnificent view. From all parts of the battlefield, a superb panorama
is spread out to the east, south, and west, embracing the entire valley
of Ayacucho.
After spending the afternoon on the field, we returned to the little
tavern where the evening passed very pleasantly and we were entertained
by the Indian villagers who were celebrating the Carnival. They came in
throngs bringing us parched corn, popcorn, and _chicha_, swearing
eternal friendship, and expressing their appreciation that we should
come such a long distance to see their famous battlefield. The village
appeared to be divided into three wards, and the alcalde of each ward
was anxious that we should eat and drink just as much of his offering as
we had of the others.
They were easily satisfied, however, and appeared to be having a very
good time. I never saw Indians enjoy themselves more. As a conclusion to
the entertainment, two Indian women were instructed to sing for us.
Their performance consisted in a wailing duet, beginning loud and high,
ascending with a powerful crescendo to screeching falsetto notes and
then gradually descending and diminishing into a wheeze like a very old
parlor organ with leaky bellows.
We spent the next morning photographing different parts of the
battlefield and trying to get a better idea of the reasons for Sucre’s
victory. I was very forcibly impressed by the skill with which he had
chosen his position.
The little plain, really a plateau, is literally surrounded by ravines.
It was just large enough to allow Sucre to use his seven or eight
thousand men to the best advantage. An enemy attacking him must perforce
come up hill on every side, even though it would seem as though the
Spanish troops descending from Condorkanqui would have had some
advantage. But they were under fire all the time they were descending to
the plain, and just
[Illustration: THE BATTLEFIELD OF AYACUCHO]
[Illustration: THE BATTLEFIELD AS IT APPEARED TO THE SPANIARDS]
before they reached it, they found themselves in a little gully up the
sides of which they had to scramble at a disadvantage before they could
actually be on a level with the defenders. La Serna was too good a
general not to have appreciated the strength of Sucre’s position. In
fact, as General Miller points out, the mistake of the Viceroy in
attacking originated in allowing himself to be over-persuaded by the
eagerness of his troops. Their patience had been exhausted by terrible
marches which seemed to them to be endless. Only a few days before the
battle, the tents of the Viceroy and his chief general had had lampoons
pasted on them, accusing them of cowardice. It may fairly be said that
he was goaded into action contrary to his own judgment.
The battle of Ayacucho, besides being the final combat, was one of the
most brilliant in the history of the Wars of Independence. The troops on
both sides were well-seasoned veterans. The generals in command were
among the ablest that the long wars had developed. Every man fought with
bravery. Although the Patriots were outnumbered, they made up for it by
enthusiasm and by a knowledge that there was no opportunity for them to
retreat. They were aided by the lay of the land, but the result was due
to a most determined valor and a heroic daring that must always gratify
lovers of Peruvian history.
We returned to the city in the middle of the afternoon in time to take a
little walk in the streets and be bombarded by little Carnival balloons
filled with scented water, egg-shells filled with colored powder, and
the other missiles that are commonly employed to bear witness to the
fact that Lent is approaching. The ladies and children, who occupied
points of vantage in the second-story windows, kept up a brisk fire on
everyone who ventured along the streets, and we had to do some very
rapid dodging to avoid being entirely soaked and colored with all the
hues of the rainbow.
In the evening, notwithstanding a terrific downpour of rain, the
“society of Ayacucho,” including the Archbishop, the Prefect, and fifty
or sixty of their friends, “tendered us” an elaborate banquet which
quite took the palm for variety of food and drink. There were no less
than fourteen courses besides seven kinds of wine including champagne.
The after-dinner speeches were also quite remarkable. Hitherto, the
chief interest in us had been the fact that we had “visited the lost
city of Choqquequirau,” but here Choqquequirau meant little or nothing.
The battlefield of Ayacucho meant everything, and the fact that we were
_delegados_ from a country whose aid Peru hoped to receive in case Chile
became troublesome meant a great deal more. Whether it was at this
banquet or at one of those that preceded it in the past three weeks, I
do not remember, but the opinion was expressed more than once that,
rather than have another war with Chile, they would surrender to the
United States and become a protectorate. I mention this not as an
indication of national sentiment, but merely to show the state of
feeling that prevailed in the interior of Peru at the time, and the
attitude with which they regarded the possibility of another war with
Chile.
A large part of the hatred that exists between Chilean and Peruvian is
due to their native ancestry. In the Chilean there is a large percentage
of Araucanian blood. In the Peruvian there is as much of the blood of
the Quichuas. The Araucanians are the hereditary foes of the Quichuas.
For centuries there was no peace between them. The Incas pushed their
army of Quichuas as far south as possible, but they never could conquer
the lands where the Araucanians roved. Even the all-conquering Spanish
soldiers were blocked in southern Chile. It is not necessary to repeat
here the long story of the Araucanian wars and the heroic deeds of
Lautaro and his kinsmen. Instead of being easily conquered by the
handful of Spanish adventurers as were the Incas and Quichuas, the
Araucanians kept the Spaniards at bay for centuries, and were in fact
never subdued.
The Araucanians and the Quichuas had as different racial characteristics
as can be imagined. Although the Araucanians did not constitute a nation
in the proper sense of the word but were divided into a large number of
clans, each independent and recognizing no master, they never allowed
any outside people to interfere with their national life. They were
intensely independent. Even the chiefs lacked authority in time of
peace. There were no serfs or slaves. More important still, there were
no laws; private wrongs had to be settled privately. All of these
elements must be taken into consideration when contemplating the
character of the Chilean of to-day. His Spanish ancestors brooked no
interference and recognized no central government, but his Araucanian
forebears were still more intensely fond of individual liberty. His
Spanish ancestors were brave and fearless. No better soldiers existed in
Europe in the sixteenth century. The Araucanians were even more warlike,
and after their first few defeats by the invaders, they successfully
assumed the offensive, storming Spanish towns and carrying off cattle
and horses. They organized troops of cavalry, learning to excel on an
animal that their fathers had never heard of, and which the Quichuas
even now rarely dare to mount. The entire Araucanian nation was less
numerous than the army of Quichuas that surrounded Atahualpa when he was
successfully attacked by Pizarro, yet they killed more Spanish soldiers
than fell in the conquest of the entire remainder of the continent. With
such an ancestry, it is not remarkable that the Chileans are notoriously
the best fighters on the continent to-day. Contrast their inheritance
with that of the Peruvians.
The Quichuas were and are a timid, peaceful folk lacking in dignity,
defending themselves rather with cunning and falsehood than by deeds of
arms. The servile sentiment is deeply rooted in the Quichua nature. He
maintains a sense of loyalty for his former masters, but he has
absolutely no idea of liberty or independence. The Quichuas had reached
a higher state of culture than the Araucanians but their manly
characteristics were far less developed. In fact, at the time of the
Spanish conquest, they seem to have been already in a decadent
condition. With such blood in their veins, it is not surprising that the
Peruvians were easily defeated by the Chileans, their country overrun
and humiliated, their valuable nitrate fields seized, and the seeds of
intense national hatred planted that will take generations to
eradicate.