Flamingo Lake
The Parinacochas Basin is at an elevation of between 11,500 and
12,000 feet above sea level. It is about 150 miles northwest of
Arequipa and 170 miles southwest of Cuzco, and enjoys a fair amount
of rainfall. The lake is fed by springs and small streams. In past
geological times the lake, then very much larger, had an outlet not
far from the town of Puyusca. At present Parinacochas has no visible
outlet. It is possible that the large springs which we noticed as we
came up the valley by Puyusca may be fed from the lake. On the other
hand, we found numerous small springs on the very borders of the lake,
generally occurring in swampy hillocks--built up perhaps by mineral
deposits--three or four feet higher than the surrounding plain. There
are very old beach marks well above the shore. The natives told us that
in the wet season the lake was considerably higher than at present,
although we could find no recent evidence to indicate that it had
been much more than a foot above its present level. Nevertheless a
rise of a foot would enlarge the area of the lake considerably.
When making preparations in New Haven for the "bathymetric survey of
Lake Parinacochas," suggested by Sir Clements Markham, we found it
impossible to discover any indication in geographical literature as
to whether the depth of the lake might be ten feet or ten thousand
feet. We decided to take a chance on its not being more than ten
hundred feet. With the kind assistance of Mr. George Bassett, I secured
a thousand feet of stout fish line, known to anglers as "24 thread,"
wound on a large wooden reel for convenience in handling. While we
were at Chuquibamba Mr. Watkins had spent many weary hours inserting
one hundred and sixty-six white and red cloth markers at six-foot
intervals in the strands of this heavy line, so that we might be able
more rapidly to determine the result in fathoms.
Arrived at a low peninsula on the north shore of the lake, Tucker
and I pitched our camp, sent our mules back to Puyusca for fodder,
and set up the Acme folding boat, which we had brought so many miles
on muleback, for the sounding operations. The "Acme" proved easy
to assemble, although this was our first experience with it. Its
lightness enabled it to be floated at the edge of the lake even in
very shallow water, and its rigidity was much appreciated in the late
afternoon when the high winds raised a vicious little "sea." Rowing
out on waters which we were told by the natives had never before
been navigated by craft of any kind, I began to take soundings. Lake
Titicaca is over nine hundred feet deep. It would be aggravating if
Lake Parinacochas should prove to be over a thousand, for I had brought
no extra line. Even nine hundred feet would make sounding slow work,
and the lake covered an area of over seventy square miles.
It was with mixed feelings of trepidation and expectation that I rowed
out five miles from shore and made a sounding. Holding the large reel
firmly in both hands, I cast the lead overboard. The reel gave a turn
or two and stopped. Something was wrong. The line did not run out. Was
the reel stuck? No, the apparatus was in perfect running order. Then
what was the matter? The bottom was too near! Alas for all the pains
that Mr. Bassett had taken to put a thousand feet of the best strong
24-thread line on one reel! Alas for Mr. Watkins and his patient
insertion of one hundred and sixty-six "fathom-markers"! The bottom of
the lake was only four feet away from the bottom of my boat! After
three or four days of strenuous rowing up and down the eighteen
miles of the lake's length, and back and forth across the seventeen
miles of its width, I never succeeded in wetting Watkins's first
marker! Several hundred soundings failed to show more than five feet of
water anywhere. Possibly if we had come in the rainy season we might
at least have wet one marker, but at the time of our visit (November,
1911), the lake had a maximum depth of 4 1/2 feet. The satisfaction of
making this slight contribution to geographic knowledge was, I fear,
lost in the chagrin of not finding a really noteworthy body of water.
Who would have thought that so long a lake could be so
shallow? However, my feelings were soothed by remembering the story of
the captain of a man-of-war who was once told that the salt lake near
one of the red hills between Honolulu and Pearl Harbor was reported
by the natives to be "bottomless." He ordered one of the ship's heavy
boats to be carried from the shore several miles inland to the salt
lake, at great expenditure of strength and labor. The story told me
in my boyhood does not say how much sounding line was brought. Anyhow,
they found this "fathomless" body of water to be not more than fifteen
feet deep.
Notwithstanding my disappointment at the depth of Parinacochas, I
was very glad that we had brought the little folding boat, for it
enabled me to float gently about among the myriads of birds which
use the shallow waters of the lake as a favorite feeding ground;
pink flamingoes, white gulls, small "divers," large black ducks,
sandpipers, black ibis, teal ducks, and large geese. On the banks
were ground owls and woodpeckers. It is not surprising that the
natives should have named this body of water "Parinacochas" (Parina =
"flamingo," cochas = "lake"). The flamingoes are here in incredible
multitudes; they far outnumber all other birds, and as I have said,
actually make the shallow waters of the lake look pink. Fortunately
they had not been hunted for their plumage and were not timid. After
two days of familiarity with the boat they were willing to let me
approach within twenty yards before finally taking wing. The coloring,
in this land of drab grays and browns, was a delight to the eye. The
head is white, the beak black, the neck white shading into salmon-pink;
the body pinkish white on the back, the breast white, and the tail
salmon-pink. The wings are salmon-pink in front, but the tips and
the under-parts are black. As they stand or wade in the water their
general appearance is chiefly pink-and-white. When they rise from the
water, however, the black under-parts of the wings become strikingly
conspicuous and cause a flock of flying flamingoes to be a wonderful
contrast in black-and-white. When flying, the flamingo seems to keep
his head moving steadily forward at an even pace, although the ropelike
neck undulates with the slow beating of the wings. I could not be sure
that it was not an optical delusion. Nevertheless, I thought the heavy
body was propelled irregularly, while the head moved forward at uniform
speed, the difference being caught up in the undulations of the neck.
------
FIGURE
Flamingos on Lake Parinacochas, and Mt. Sarasara
------
The flamingo is an amusing bird to watch. With its haughty Roman
nose and long, ropelike neck, which it coils and twists in a most
incredible manner, it seems specially intended to distract one's mind
from bathymetric disappointments. Its hoarse croaking, "What is it,"
"What is it," seemed to express deep-throated sympathy with the
sounding operations. On one bright moonlight night the flamingoes
were very noisy, keeping up a continual clatter of very hoarse
"What-is-it's." Apparently they failed to find out the answer in time
to go to bed at the proper time, for next morning we found them all
sound asleep, standing in quiet bays with their heads tucked under
their wings. During the course of the forenoon, when the water was
quiet, they waded far out into the lake. In the afternoon, as winds
and waves arose, they came in nearer the shores, but seldom left
the water. The great extent of shallow water in Parinacochas offers
them a splendid, wide feeding ground. We wondered where they all
came from. Apparently they do not breed here. Although there were
thousands and thousands of birds, we could find no flamingo nests,
either old or new, search as we would. It offers a most interesting
problem for some enterprising biological explorer. Probably Mr. Frank
Chapman will some day solve it.
Next in number to the flamingoes were the beautiful white gulls (or
terns?), looking strangely out of place in this Andean lake 11,500
feet above the sea. They usually kept together in flocks of several
hundred. There were quantities of small black divers in the deeper
parts of the lake where the flamingoes did not go. The divers were
very quick and keen, true individualists operating alone and showing
astonishing ability in swimming long distances under water. The large
black ducks were much more fearless than the flamingoes and were
willing to swim very near the canoe. When frightened, they raced over
the water at a tremendous pace, using both wings and feet in their
efforts to escape. These ducks kept in large flocks and were about
as common as the small divers. Here and there in the lake were a few
tiny little islands, each containing a single deserted nest, possibly
belonging to an ibis or a duck. In the banks of a low stream near
our first camp were holes made by woodpeckers, who in this country
look in vain for trees and telegraph poles.
Occasionally, a mile or so from shore, my boat would startle a great
amphibious ox standing in the water up to his middle, calmly eating
the succulent water grass. To secure it he had to plunge his head
and neck well under the surface.
While I was raising blisters and frightening oxen and flamingoes,
Mr. Tucker triangulated the Parinacochas Basin, making the first
accurate map of this vicinity. As he carried his theodolite from point
to point he often stirred up little ground owls, who gazed at him with
solemn, reproachful looks. And they were not the only individuals to
regard his activities with suspicion and dislike. Part of my work was
to construct signal stations by piling rocks at conspicuous points on
the well-rounded hills so as to enable the triangulation to proceed as
rapidly as possible. During the night some of these signal stations
would disappear, torn down by the superstitious shepherds who lived
in scattered clusters of huts and declined to have strange gods set
up in their vicinity. Perhaps they thought their pastures were being
preempted. We saw hundreds of their sheep and cattle feeding on flat
lands formerly the bed of the lake. The hills of the Parinacochas
Basin are bare of trees, and offer some pasturage. In some places they
are covered with broken rock. The grass was kept closely cropped by
the degenerate descendants of sheep brought into the country during
Spanish colonial days. They were small in size and mostly white in
color, although there were many black ones. We were told that the
sheep were worth about fifty cents apiece here.
On our first arrival at Parinacochas we were left severely alone by the
shepherds; but two days later curiosity slowly overcame their shyness,
and a group of young shepherds and shepherdesses gradually brought
their grazing flocks nearer and nearer the camp, in order to gaze
stealthily on these strange visitors, who lived in a cloth house,
actually moved over the forbidding waters of the lake, and busied
themselves from day to day with strange magic, raising and lowering
a glittering glass eye on a tripod. The women wore dresses of heavy
material, the skirts reaching halfway from knee to ankle. In lieu of
hats they had small variegated shawls, made on hand looms, folded
so as to make a pointed bonnet over the head and protect the neck
and shoulders from sun and wind. Each woman was busily spinning with
a hand spindle, but carried her baby and its gear and blankets in a
hammock or sling attached to a tump-line that went over her head. These
sling carry-alls were neatly woven of soft wool and decorated with
attractive patterns. Both women and boys were barefooted. The boys
wore old felt hats of native manufacture, and coats and long trousers
much too large for them.
At one end of the upland basin rises the graceful cone of
Mt. Sarasara. The view of its snow-capped peak reflected in the
glassy waters of the lake in the early morning was one long to be
remembered. Sarasara must once have been much higher than it is at
present. Its volcanic cone has been sharply eroded by snow and ice. In
the days of its greater altitude, and consequently wider snow fields,
the melting snows probably served to make Parinacochas a very much
larger body of water. Although we were here at the beginning of summer,
the wind that came down from the mountain at night was very cold. Our
minimum thermometer registered 22° F. near the banks of the lake at
night. Nevertheless, there was only a very thin film of ice on the
borders of the lake in the morning, and except in the most shallow
bays there was no ice visible far from the bank. The temperature of the
water at 10:00 A.M. near the shore, and ten inches below the surface,
was 61° F., while farther out it was three or four degrees warmer. By
noon the temperature of the water half a mile from shore was 67.5°
F. Shortly after noon a strong wind came up from the coast, stirring
up the shallow water and cooling it. Soon afterwards the temperature
of the water began to fall, and, although the hot sun was shining
brightly almost directly overhead, it went down to 65° by 2:30 P.M.
The water of the lake is brackish, yet we were able to make our
camps on the banks of small streams of sweet water, although in
each case near the shore of the lake. A specimen of the water,
taken near the shore, was brought back to New Haven and analyzed
by Dr. George S. Jamieson of the Sheffield Scientific School. He
found that it contained small quantities of silica, iron phosphate,
magnesium carbonate, calcium carbonate, calcium sulphate, potassium
nitrate, potassium sulphate, sodium borate, sodium sulphate, and a
considerable quantity of sodium chloride. Parinacochas water contains
more carbonate and potassium than that of the Atlantic Ocean or the
Great Salt Lake. As compared with the salinity of typical "salt"
waters, that of Lake Parinacochas occupies an intermediate position,
containing more than Lake Koko-Nor, less than that of the Atlantic,
and only one twentieth the salinity of the Great Salt Lake.
When we moved to our second camp the Tejada brothers preferred to let
their mules rest in the Puyusca Valley, where there was excellent
alfalfa forage. The arrieros engaged at their own expense a pack
train which consisted chiefly of Parinacochas burros. It is the
custom hereabouts to enclose the packs in large-meshed nets made of
rawhide which are then fastened to the pack animal by a surcingle. The
Indians who came with the burro train were pleasant-faced, sturdy
fellows, dressed in "store clothes" and straw hats. Their burros
were as cantankerous as donkeys can be, never fractious or flighty,
but stubbornly resisting, step by step, every effort to haul them
near the loads.
Our second camp was near the village of Incahuasi, "the house of the
Inca," at the northwestern corner of the basin. Raimondi visited it
in 1863. The representative of the owner of Parinacochas occupies
one of the houses. The other buildings are used only during the third
week in August, at the time of the annual fair. In the now deserted
plaza were many low stone rectangles partly covered with adobe and
ready to be converted into booths. The plaza was surrounded by long,
thatched buildings of adobe and stone, mostly of rough ashlars. A
few ashlars showed signs of having been carefully dressed by ancient
stonemasons. Some loose ashlars weighed half a ton and had baffled
the attempts of modern builders.
In constructing the large church, advantage was taken of a beautifully
laid wall of close-fitting ashlars. Incahuasi was well named; there had
been at one time an Inca house here, possibly a temple--lakes were once
objects of worship--or rest-house, constructed in order to enable the
chiefs and tax-gatherers to travel comfortably over the vast domains
of the Incas. We found the slopes of the hills of the Parinacochas
Basin to be well covered with remains of ancient terraces. Probably
potatoes and other root crops were once raised here in fairly large
quantities. Perhaps deforestation and subsequent increased aridity
might account for the desertion of these once-cultivated lands. The
hills west of the lake are intersected by a few dry gulches in which
are caves that have been used as burial places. The caves had at one
time been walled in with rocks laid in adobe, but these walls had
been partly broken down so as to permit the sepulchers to be rifled of
whatever objects of value they might have contained. We found nine or
ten skulls lying loose in the rubble of the caves. One of the skulls
seemed to have been trepanned.
On top of the ridge are the remains of an ancient road, fifty feet
wide, a broad grassy way through fields of loose stones. No effort
had been made at grading or paving this road, and there was no
evidence of its having been used in recent times. It runs from the
lake across the ridge in a westerly direction toward a broad valley,
where there are many terraces and cultivated fields; it is not far from
Nasca. Probably the stones were picked up and piled on each side to
save time in driving caravans of llamas across the stony ridges. The
llama dislikes to step over any obstacle, even a very low wall. The
grassy roadway would certainly encourage the supercilious beasts to
proceed in the desired direction.
In many places on the hills were to be seen outlines of large and
small rock circles and shelters erected by herdsmen for temporary
protection against the sudden storms of snow and hail which come
up with unexpected fierceness at this elevation (12,000 feet). The
shelters were in a very ruinous state. They were made of rough,
scoriaceous lava rocks. The circular enclosures varied from 8 to 25
feet in diameter. Most of them showed no evidences whatever of recent
occupation. The smaller walls may have been the foundation of small
circular huts. The larger walls were probably intended as corrals, to
keep alpacas and llamas from straying at night and to guard against
wolves or coyotes. I confess to being quite mystified as to the age
of these remains. It is possible that they represent a settlement
of shepherds within historic times, although, from the shape and
size of the walls, I am inclined to doubt this. The shelters may
have been built by the herdsmen of the Incas. Anyhow, those on the
hills west of Parinacochas had not been used for a long time. Nasca,
which is not very far away to the northwest, was the center of one
of the most artistic pre-Inca cultures in Peru. It is famous for its
very delicate pottery.
Our third camp was on the south side of the lake. Near us the traces
of the ancient road led to the ruins of two large, circular corrals,
substantiating my belief that this curious roadway was intended to keep
the llamas from straying at will over the pasture lands. On the south
shores of the lake there were more signs of occupation than on the
north, although there is nothing so clearly belonging to the time of
the Incas as the ashlars and finely built wall at Incahuasi. On top of
one of the rocky promontories we found the rough stone foundations of
the walls of a little village. The slopes of the promontory were nearly
precipitous on three sides. Forty or fifty very primitive dwellings
had been at one time huddled together here in a position which could
easily be defended. We found among the ruins a few crude potsherds
and some bits of obsidian. There was nothing about the ruins of the
little hill village to give any indication of Inca origin. Probably
it goes back to pre-Inca days. No one could tell us anything about
it. If there were traditions concerning it they were well concealed
by the silent, superstitious shepherds of the vicinity. Possibly it
was regarded as an unlucky spot, cursed by the gods.
The neighboring slopes showed faint evidences of having been roughly
terraced and cultivated. The tutu potato would grow here, a hardy
variety not edible in the fresh state, but considered highly desirable
for making potato flour after having been repeatedly frozen and its
bitter juices all extracted. So would other highland root crops of the
Peruvians, such as the oca, a relative of our sheep sorrel, the añu,
a kind of nasturtium, and the ullucu (ullucus tuberosus).
On the flats near the shore were large corrals still kept in good
repair. New walls were being built by the Indians at the time of our
visit. Near the southeast corner of the lake were a few modern huts
built of stone and adobe, with thatched roofs, inhabited by drovers
and shepherds. We saw more cattle at the east end of the lake than
elsewhere, but they seemed to prefer the sweet water grasses of the
lake to the tough bunch-grass on the slopes of Sarasara.
Viscachas were common amongst the gray lichen-covered rocks. They
are hunted for their beautiful pearly gray fur, the "chinchilla" of
commerce; they are also very good eating, so they have disappeared
from the more accessible parts of Peru. One rarely sees them, although
they may be found on bleak uplands in the mountains of Uilcapampa,
a region rarely visited by any one on account of treacherous bogs and
deep tams. Writers sometimes call viscachas "rabbit-squirrels." They
have large, rounded ears, long hind legs, a long, bushy tail, and do
look like a cross between a rabbit and a gray squirrel.
Surmounting one of the higher ridges one day, I came suddenly upon
an unusually large herd of wild vicuñas. It included more than one
hundred individuals. Their relative fearlessness also testified to the
remoteness of Parinacochas and the small amount of hunting that is done
here. Vicuñas have never been domesticated, but are often hunted for
their skins. Their silky fleece is even finer than alpaca. The more
fleecy portions of their skins are sewed together to make quilts,
as soft as eider down and of a golden brown color.
After Mr. Tucker finished his triangulation of the lake I told the
arrieros to find the shortest road home. They smiled, murmured
"Arequipa," and started south. We soon came to the rim of the
Maraicasa Valley where, peeping up over one of the hills far to the
south, we got a little glimpse of Coropuna. The Maraicasa Valley is
well inhabited and there were many grain fields in sight, although
few seemed to be terraced. The surrounding hills were smooth and
well rounded and the valley bottom contained much alluvial land. We
passed through it and, after dark, reached Sondor, a tiny hamlet
inhabited by extremely suspicious and inhospitable drovers. In the
darkness Don Pablo pleaded with the owners of a well-thatched hut,
and told them how "important" we were. They were unwilling to give
us any shelter, so we were forced to pitch our tent in the very rocky
and dirty corral immediately in front of one of the huts, where pigs,
dogs, and cattle annoyed us all night. If we had arrived before dark
we might have received a different welcome. As a matter of fact,
the herdsmen only showed the customary hostility of mountaineers and
wilderness folk to those who do not arrive in the daytime, when they
can be plainly seen and fully discussed.
The next morning we passed some fairly recent lava flows and noted also
many curious rock forms caused by wind and sand erosion. We had now
left the belt of grazing lands and once more come into the desert. At
length we reached the rim of the mile-deep Caraveli Canyon and our eyes
were gladdened at sight of the rich green oasis, a striking contrast
to the barren walls of the canyon. As we descended the long, winding
road we passed many fine specimens of tree cactus. At the foot of the
steep descent we found ourselves separated from the nearest settlement
by a very wide river, which it was necessary to ford. Neither of the
Tejadas had ever been here before and its depths and dangers were
unknown. Fortunately Pablo found a forlorn individual living in a
tiny hut on the bank, who indicated which way lay safety. After an
exciting two hours we finally got across to the desired shore. Animals
and men were glad enough to leave the high, arid desert and enter
the oasis of Caraveli with its luscious, green fields of alfalfa,
its shady fig trees and tall eucalyptus. The air, pungent with the
smell of rich vegetation, seemed cooler and more invigorating.
We found at Caraveli a modern British enterprise, the gold mine of
"La Victoria." Mr. Prain, the Manager, and his associates at the
camp gave us a cordial welcome, and a wonderful dinner which I shall
long remember. After two months in the coastal desert it seemed like
home. During the evening we learned of the difficulties Mr. Prain
had had in bringing his machinery across the plateau from the nearest
port. Our own troubles seemed as nothing. The cost of transporting on
muleback each of the larger pieces of the quartz stamping-mill was
equivalent to the price of a first-class pack mule. As a matter of
fact, although it is only a two days' journey, pack animals' backs
are not built to survive the strain of carrying pieces of machinery
weighing five hundred pounds over a desert plateau up to an altitude of
4000 feet. Mules brought the machinery from the coast to the brink of
the canyon, but no mule could possibly have carried it down the steep
trail into Caraveli. Accordingly, a windlass had been constructed
on the edge of the precipice and the machinery had been lowered,
piece by piece, by block and tackle. Such was one of the obstacles
with which these undaunted engineers had had to contend. Had the man
who designed the machinery ever traveled with a pack train, climbing
up and down over these rocky stairways called mountain trails, I am
sure that he would have made his castings much smaller.
------
FIGURE
Mr. Tucker on a Mountain Trail near Caraveli
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------
FIGURE
The Main Street of Chuquibamba
------
It is astonishing how often people who ship goods to the interior
of South America fail to realize that no single piece should be any
heavier than a pack animal can carry comfortably on one side. One
hundred and fifty pounds ought to be the extreme limit of a unit. Even
a large, strong mule will last only a few days on such trails as
are shown in the accompanying illustration if the total weight of
his cargo is over three hundred pounds. When a single piece weighs
more than two hundred pounds it has to be balanced on the back of the
animal. Then the load rocks, and chafes the unfortunate mule, besides
causing great inconvenience and constant worry to the muleteers. As a
matter of expediency it is better to have the individual units weigh
about seventy-five pounds. Such a weight is easier for the arrieros to
handle in the loading, unloading, and reloading that goes on all day
long, particularly if the trail is up-and-down, as usually happens
in the Andes. Furthermore, one seventy-five-pound unit makes a fair
load for a man or a llama, two are right for a burro, and three for
an average mule. Four can be loaded, if necessary, on a stout mule.
The hospitable mining engineers urged us to prolong our stay at
"La Victoria," but we had to hasten on. Leaving the pleasant shade
trees of Caraveli, we climbed the barren, desolate hills of coarse
gravel and lava rock and left the canyon. We were surprised to find
near the top of the rise the scattered foundations of fifty little
circular or oval huts averaging eight feet in diameter. There was
no water near here. Hardly a green thing of any sort was to be seen
in the vicinity, yet here had once been a village. It seemed to
belong to the same period as that found on the southern slopes of
the Parinacochas Basin. The road was one of the worst we encountered
anywhere, being at times merely a rough, rocky trail over and among
huge piles of lava blocks. Several of the larger boulders were covered
with pictographs. They represented a serpent and a sun, besides men
and animals.
Shortly afterwards we descended to the Rio Grande Valley at Callanga,
where we pitched our camps among the most extensive ruins that
I have seen in the coastal desert. They covered an area of one
hundred acres, the houses being crowded closely together. It gave
one a strange sensation to find such a very large metropolis in what
is now a desolate region. The general appearance of Callanga was
strikingly reminiscent of some of the large groups of ruins in our
own Southwest. Nothing about it indicated Inca origin. There were
no terraces in the vicinity. It is difficult to imagine what such a
large population could have done here, or how they lived. The walls
were of compact cobblestones, rough-laid and stuccoed with adobe and
sand. Most of the stucco had come off. Some of the houses had seats,
or small sleeping-platforms, built up at one end. Others contained
two or three small cells, possibly storerooms, with neither doors
nor windows. We found a number of burial cists--some square, others
rounded--lined with small cobblestones. In one house, at the foot of
"cellar stairs" we found a subterranean room, or tomb. The entrance
to it was covered with a single stone lintel. In examining this
tomb Mr. Tucker had a narrow escape from being bitten by a boba,
a venomous snake, nearly three feet in length, with vicious mouth,
long fangs like a rattlesnake, and a strikingly mottled skin. At one
place there was a low pyramid less than ten feet in height. To its
top led a flight of rude stone steps.
Among the ruins we found a number of broken stone dishes, rudely
carved out of soft, highly porous, scoriaceous lava. The dishes must
have been hard to keep clean! We also found a small stone mortar,
probably used for grinding paint; a broken stone war club; and a
broken compact stone mortar and pestle possibly used for grinding
corn. Two stones, a foot and a half long, roughly rounded, with
a shallow groove across the middle of the flatter sides, resembled
sinkers used by fishermen to hold down large nets, although ten times
larger than any I had ever seen used. Perhaps they were to tie down
roofs in a gale. There were a few potsherds lying on the surface of
the ground, so weathered as to have lost whatever decoration they once
had. We did no excavating. Callanga offers an interesting field for
archeological investigation. Unfortunately, we had heard nothing of
it previously, came upon it unexpectedly, and had but little time to
give it. After the first night camp in the midst of the dead city we
made the discovery that although it seemed to be entirely deserted, it
was, as a matter of fact, well populated! I was reminded of Professor
T. D. Seymour's story of his studies in the ruins of ancient Greece. We
wondered what the fleas live on ordinarily.
Our next stopping-place was the small town of Andaray, whose thatched
houses are built chiefly of stone plastered with mud. Near it we
encountered two men with a mule, which they said they were taking
into town to sell and were willing to dispose of cheaply. The Tejadas
could not resist the temptation to buy a good animal at a bargain,
although the circumstances were suspicious. Drawing on us for six gold
sovereigns, they smilingly added the new mule to the pack train; only
to discover on reaching Chuquibamba that they had purchased it from
thieves. We were able to clear our arrieros of any complicity in the
theft. Nevertheless, the owner of the stolen mule was unwilling to pay
anything for its return. So they lost their bargain and their gold. We
spent one night in Chuquibamba, with our friend Señor Benavides,
the sub-prefect, and once more took up the well-traveled route to
Arequipa. We left the Majes Valley in the afternoon and, as before,
spent the night crossing the desert.
About three o'clock in the morning--after we had been jogging steadily
along for about twelve hours in the dark and quiet of the night, the
only sound the shuffle of the mules' feet in the sand, the only sight
an occasional crescent-shaped dune, dimly visible in the starlight--the
eastern horizon began to be faintly illumined. The moon had long since
set. Could this be the approach of dawn? Sunrise was not due for at
least two hours. In the tropics there is little twilight preceding
the day; "the dawn comes up like thunder." Surely the moon could
not be going to rise again! What could be the meaning of the rapidly
brightening eastern sky? While we watched and marveled, the pure white
light grew brighter and brighter, until we cried out in ecstasy as
a dazzling luminary rose majestically above the horizon. A splendor,
neither of the sun nor of the moon, shone upon us. It was the morning
star. For sheer beauty, "divine, enchanting ravishment," Venus that day
surpassed anything I have ever seen. In the words of the great Eastern
poet, who had often seen such a sight in the deserts of Asia, "the
morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy."