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Time passed, and the South American colonies became independent of Spain. Many years later, the brother of the nun went on a public mission to Europe. Before he left Peru his uncle, the bishop, told him the story of his sister's life, which had been kept secret until then, and after telling him where she was to be found (for through the Church he had watched over her), he desired her brother to communicate with her. This the nephew did in due course, and his sister was finally forgiven, and her descendants recognized and received by their Peruvian relatives. One of these descendants was seen by my informant wearing the emeralds that had been in the bishop's bag.

CHAPTER III
CUZCO AND THE LAND OF THE INCAS

None of the countries of South America, except Chile, has been demarcated by Nature from its neighbour; it is to historical events that they owe their present boundaries. This is eminently true of Peru, which is, save on her ocean side, marked off from the adjoining countries neither by river line nor by mountain line nor by desert. Her territory includes regions naturally very dissimilar, about each of which it is proper to say a few words here.

The western strip, bordering on the Andes and the Pacific, is nearly all pure desert, sterile and uninhabited, except where those river-valleys referred to in the last chapter descend to the sea. The eastern part, lying on the farther side of the Andes, and called by the people the Montaña, subsides from the mountains into an immense alluvial plain and is covered by a tropical forest, thick and trackless, unhealthy for Europeans, and inhabited, except where a few trading towns have been built on the rivers, only by Indian tribes, none of them much above savagery, and many still heathen. It is a region most of which was until lately virtually unexplored and thought not worth exploring. Within recent years, however, the demand for india rubber has brought in the agents of various trading companies, who have established camps and stations wherever the rivers give access to the forests and send the rubber down the Amazon to be shipped to Europe and North America. The harmless and timid Indians have in some places been seized and forced to work as slaves by ruffians supplying rubber to these companies, wretches apparently of mixed Spanish and native blood, who have been emboldened by the impunity which remoteness from regular governmental control promises to perpetrate hideous cruelties upon their helpless victims. It is a country of amazing natural wealth, for the spurs of the Andean range are full of minerals; there are superb timber trees in the forests, and the soil, wherever the trees and luxuriant undergrowths have been cleared off from it, has proved extremely fertile, fit for the growth of nearly every tropical product. Eastern Peru is physically a part, and not the largest part, of an immense region which includes the easternmost districts of Colombia and Ecuador upon the north and of Bolivia on the south, as well as a still larger area in western Brazil over which the same climatic conditions prevail – great heat and great humidity producing a vegetation so prolific that it is hard for man to hold his own against the forces of nature. This is indeed the reason why these tracts have been left until now a wilderness, suffering from the superabundance of that moisture, the want of which has made a wilderness of the lands along the Pacific coast. To this region, however, and to its future I shall return in a later chapter,¹⁴ and mention it here only because it is politically a part, and may hereafter become the most productive part, of the Peruvian Republic. The real Peru, the Peru of the ancient Indian civilization and of the Spanish colonial Empire, is the central region which lies along the Andes between these thinly settled, far eastern forests and the barren deserts of the Pacific coast.

Central Peru is altogether a mountain land, and is accordingly called by the people "the Sierra." It is traversed by two (more or less parallel) ranges of the Andes, the eastern and the western Cordilleras, which with their spurs and their branching ridges cover a large part of its area. It includes what is called the Puno, a comparatively level plateau, some seventy to one hundred miles wide and enclosed by these two main lines of the Cordilleras. Between the main ranges and their branches, there lie deep valleys formed by the courses of the four or five great rivers which, flowing in a northwesterly or northeasterly direction and ultimately turning eastward, unite to form the mighty Amazon. This Sierra region is, roughly speaking, about three hundred miles long (from northwest to southeast) and one to two hundred miles wide; but of this area only a small part is fit for settled human habitation. The average height of the plateau is from ten thousand to thirteen thousand feet above sea level, and that of the region fit for pasture on the slopes and tops of the ridges from ten thousand to fourteen thousand feet – the snow line varying from fifteen to nineteen thousand. As these slopes give pasture to llamas and alpacas and sheep, and in some favoured places to cattle, so in the less arid and less sandy tracts of the plateau there is some tillage. But the parts best suited for agriculture are to be found in the valleys, especially in so much of them as lies between ten thousand and four thousand feet above sea-level, for below five thousand feet their conditions become tropical and resemble those of the Amazonian forests. In these valleys the soil, especially where it is volcanic, is extremely fertile, but many of them are so narrow and their declivities so steep that cultivation is scarcely possible. No one accordingly who has studied the physical features of this country need be surprised to find that while the total area of Peru is about seven hundred thousand square miles, its population is estimated at only four million six hundred thousand. He may indeed be more surprised at the accounts which Spanish historians almost contemporary with the Conquest give of the far larger population, perhaps ten millions, that existed in the days of the Incas. The great falling off, if those accounts be correct, is explicable partly by the slaughter perpetrated by the first Spaniards and the oppressions practised by their successors during nearly three centuries, partly by the fact that districts near the coast which the remains of irrigation works shew to have been formerly cultivated are now sterile for want of water.

It was in the central highlands, at an altitude of from eight thousand feet and upwards that there arose such civilization as the ancient Peruvians developed: and its origin here rather than elsewhere in South America may be mainly due to favourable climatic conditions. There was enough rain to provide grass for animals and make tillage possible, and enough warmth to enable men to live in health, yet not enough either of rain or of heat to make nature too strong for man and to enfeeble man's capacities for work.

Temperature and rainfall resembled generally those of the plateau of Mexico, a region somewhat lower, but farther from the Equator: and it was under similarly fortunate conditions of climate and agricultural possibilities that the races inhabiting those highlands had made, when Europeans arrived, some considerable advances in the arts of life. This central Peruvian area is to-day, with the exception of the irrigated banks of a few streams reaching the Pacific, the only part of the country where either an agricultural or a pastoral population can support itself. The rest of Peru depends upon its mines, chiefly of silver and copper, – a source of wealth uncertain at best. It is only in a few valleys, the most productive of which I am going to describe, that the agricultural population occupies any large continuous area. As a rule each community is confined to its own valley and cut off from the others either by mountains or by high, bare ridges on which only sheep can be kept, most of them too high and bleak even for pasture.¹⁵

There is no better way of conveying some notion of the character of this central region, the true Peru, than by describing the country through which I passed by railway from Arequipa eastward to Lake Titicaca and thence northward to Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital. This railroad follows the line of the most important through route which war and commerce took in pre-Conquest times. It is the Southern Railroad of Peru, the main highway of the country. The section from Mollendo to the plateau at Juliaca was built many years ago, but the extension to Cuzco had been completed and opened less than a year before our visit. Both sections have been constructed by engineers from the United States, and the way in which the difficulties of extremely steep ascents and cuttings along precipitous slopes have been overcome reflects great credit on their skill. The gauge is the normal one. The line is owned by the Peruvian Corporation, a company registered in London, and under the energetic management of North American engineers it is doing a great deal to open up regions in which till some ten years ago there was not even a road fit for wheels. The passenger traffic is of course very small, and passenger trains run only once a day to Arequipa and thrice a week to Juliaca and Cuzco.

Quitting Arequipa on the southwestern side, the line winds up to the north and then to the east across a rugged and dreary region of rocky hill slopes, pierced by deep gorges through some of which brooks come down, fed by snow beds far above. It follows the line of a canyon, and wherever there is level ground at the bottom, some bright green strips of cultivation appear on the margin of the stream, with a few Indian huts; so even these upper regions, cold and desolate as they are, are not so wholly desolate as the Pampa below. The view looking back over the city lying in its green oasis, with a stony desert all round, is superb. As we climb higher, the mass of Ampato and other giants of the western Cordillera deep with snow, rise in the northwest, while westward one sees beyond the reddish grey mountains through which we had mounted to Arequipa from the desert Pampa, the gleaming sands of that desert, and behind them again, just on the horizon, the long, low bank of clouds that covers the Coast Range. Here at nine or ten thousand feet, one looks over the white upper surface of these clouds. Resting on the western edge of the Pampa, they stretch far out over the Pacific and veil it from sight. Thus steadily mounting, and seeing below in a ravine the hamlet of Yura, where is a mineral spring whose pleasantly effervescent water is drunk all over Peru, the train winds round the northern flank of Chachani under its huge black precipices. Behind it and behind El Misti, which shews as a symmetrical cone on this side as well as on that turned towards Arequipa, we entered at a height of about eleven thousand feet a region typical of the Peruvian uplands. There was plenty of coarse grass, studded with alpine flowers, a few belonging to European genera. Llamas and alpacas were grazing on the slopes, herded by Indians: there were sheep, and a few cattle, and in one place we thought we caught sight among low bushes of a group of vicuñas. This is a creature like the llama, but smaller, and useless as a beast of burden, because untameable. It roams over the hills between eleven thousand and fifteen thousand feet, and produces the finest of all the South American wools, of a delicate light brown tint, silky and soft as the fur of a chinchilla.

The scenery was strange and wild, not without a certain sombre grandeur. Below was the Chile River, the same which passes Arequipa, and to which we had returned after our circuit round Chachani. It was flowing in a deep channel which it had cut out for itself between walls of black lava: and the wide bare hollows beyond were filled with old lava streams and scattered ridges and piles of rock. To the southwest El Misti and his two mighty neighbours shut in the valley, and away to the south huge mountains, among them one conspicuous volcanic cone, were dimly seen, snowy summits mingled with the gathering clouds, for at this height rain and snow showers are frequent. The cone was probably Ubinas, the only active volcano in this neighbourhood, about sixteen thousand feet high.

Still mounting to the eastward, the line rose over gentler slopes to a broad, bleak, and wind-swept ridge where tiny rivulets welling up out of pools in the yellowish grass were flowing west to the Pacific and eastward to the inland basin of Lake Titicaca. Large white birds like wild geese were fluttering over us. Here were a few huts of the Indian shepherds near the buildings of the station; and here a cross marked the Cumbre or top of the pass, which is called the Crucero Alto, 14,666 feet above sea level. Higher ground cut off the view to the north and clouds obscured the view to the east, but to the south we could discern some of the lofty summits of the western Cordillera on the watershed of which we stood. Thunderstorms were growling on both sides, and out of black clouds far in the northwest towards Coropuna came bright flashes of chain lightning. At this height the country is comparatively open and the valleys shallow, and this, along with the wonderful clearness of the air, enables the eye to range to a vast distance. This northwestern thunderstorm which we were watching was possibly a hundred miles away. We were awed by the mere vastness of the landscape, in which we looked over tracts it would take many days' journeys to traverse, and saw mountains eighteen thousand feet high separated by nameless valleys no one ever enters, with hills and rocks tumbled about in chaotic confusion, as though the work of world-shaping had here just begun. Stepping out into the bitter wind, we walked about awaiting signs of the Soroche or mountain sickness so much dreaded by Andean travellers, especially when they come straight up from the coast to this vast height, as high as the Matterhorn or the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains. The air was very cold and very thin, seeming not to fill the lungs. But nothing happened.

From the Crucero Alto the railway descends rapidly for two thousand feet past two large lakes, embosomed in steep green hills – they reminded me of Loch Garve in Ross-shire – till it reaches a wide, bare, desolate flat, evidently part of the former bed of Lake Titicaca, which was once far larger than it is to-day. Here we were in that central plateau which the people call the Puno and which surrounds the lake, its lower part cultivated and peopled. At the large village of Juliaca, whence a branch line runs to the port of Puno on the lake farther to the southeast, the main line turns off to the north, still over the flat land which, where not too marshy, is under tillage. The inhabitants were all Indians, and only at Tirapata, which is a point of supply for the mines on the eastern slope of the mountains, were white people to be seen. Far to the northeast, perhaps one hundred miles away, could be discerned a serrated line of snowy mountains, part of the eastern Cordillera which divides the Titicaca basin from the Amazonian valleys. At last the hills begin to close in and the plain becomes a valley, narrowing as we travel farther north till, at a sharp bend in the valley which opens out a new landscape, we pass under a rock tower sixteen thousand feet high, like one of the aiguilles of Mont Blanc immensely magnified, and see in front of us a magnificent mountain mass streaming with glaciers. Two great peaks of from eighteen thousand to nineteen thousand feet are visible on this side, the easternmost one a long snow ridge resembling the Lyskamm above Zermatt; and behind it there appears a still loftier one which may approach or exceed twenty thousand feet. This is the Sierra of Vilcanota, the central knot of the mountain system of Peru, as in it branches of the western inosculate with those of the eastern Cordillera. Though very steep, the highest peaks seemed to me, surveying them from a distance of fifteen or twenty miles, to offer no great difficulties to an active and experienced climber, apart of course from the rarity of the air at this immense height, a difficulty which, while negligible by many, is serious to some otherwise excellent mountaineers. The fact that the railroad passes close to these splendid summits gives unusual facilities for an assault on them, since the transportation of warm night coverings and of food is one of the chief difficulties in a cold and thinly peopled region. As none of the tops seems to have been yet scaled, they deserve the attention of aspiring alpinists.

Above the village of Santa Rosa the valley is uninhabited, a deep, grassy hollow between the Vilcanota group of peaks on the east and a lower though lofty range on the west, with piles of stones at intervals, and now and then we met or passed a string of llamas carrying their loads, for the railway has not wholly superseded the ancient modes of transportation.

Just at the very highest point of the col or pass of La Raya 14,518 feet above sea-level, in which the valley ends, the westernmost of these Vilcanota peaks is visible on the east behind a deep gorge, the upper part of which is filled by a glacier. From this glacier there descends a torrent which on the level top of the pass spreads out into a small shallow marsh or lake which the Peruvians held sacred as the source of the sacred river Vilcamayu: and from this lake the water flows partly south into Lake Titicaca, partly north into the Amazon and the Atlantic. Here indeed we were looking upon one of the chief sources of that gigantic stream, for of all the rivers that join to make the Amazon this is among the longest. During its course till it meets the river Marañon, it is called first Vilcamayu, then Urubamba, and finally Ucayali. The pass itself, a broad smooth saddle not unlike, if one may compare great things with small, the glen and watershed between Dalnaspidal and Dalwhinnie which marks the summit level of the Highland Railway in Scotland, has no small historic interest, for it has been a highway for armies as well as for commerce from the remotest times. The ancient track from Cuzco to the southern boundary of the Inca empire in Chile passed over it. By it the Spanish Conquistadores went backward and forward in their campaign of subjugation and in the fierce struggles among themselves which followed, nor was it less important in the War of Independence a century ago. Till the railway was recently opened, thousands of llamas bearing goods traversed it every year. What one now sees is nothing more than a fairly well-beaten mule track, and I could neither discern any traces nor learn that traces have been discovered either of the wall which the Inca rulers are said to have built across it as a defence from the Collao tribes to the south, or of the paved road which, as the old writers say, they constructed to connect Cuzco with the southern provinces.

Were such a spot in Switzerland or Tyrol, its lonely beauty would be broken by a summer hotel for health-seeking tourists; nor could one imagine a keener and more delicious air than this, though people with weak hearts might find it trying. As soon as we had got a little way down from the top, the lungs began to feel easier, for the denser and warmer air of its lower levels comes up on the northerly wind which we met in descending. The valley, still smooth and grassy, sinks rapidly and in an hour or two we had entered a climate quite different from that of the Titicaca plateau to the south. After some six or eight miles a place is reached called Aguas Calientes (Hot Waters), from the numerous mineral springs which bubble up close together from the ground, most of them too hot to taste, and all impregnated with iron and sulphur. They are said to be valuable in various maladies, and in France or Switzerland an Établissement des Bains would doubtless have arisen to enclose and exploit them. As it is, the only sign that they are used is a wooden hut erected over one of the springs in which the station master cures himself of rheumatism. There are only two houses besides the station, but on the hill above mines of copper and antimony are worked by Indian labour.

Below this point the floor of the valley falls again. It is still narrow, but the now warmer climate permits tillage, and the patient toil of the Indians, turning every bit of ground to account, cultivates fields of grain and potatoes sloping at an angle so steep that ploughing or hoeing seems almost impossible. When one asks how this happens, the answer is that the rapacity of lawyers, ousting the Indian from the better lands below, drives him to these less productive slopes. The hillsides are extraordinarily bare, but as fruit trees appear round the cottages, this may be due not to the altitude, but to the cutting down during many centuries of all other trees for fuel. Never have I seen an inhabited region – and in the case of this particular valley, a thickly inhabited region – so absolutely devoid of wood as is Peru. Even in Inca days, timber seems to have been very scarce. There is plenty to be had from the tropical forests lower down, but the cost of carrying logs up from them upon mule-back is practically prohibitive. A good, solid plank would be a load too heavy for a llama.

Twenty miles below the pass of La Raya is the town of Sicuani, which we were fortunate enough to see on the market day – Sunday – when the Indians from many miles round come to sell and buy and enjoy themselves. It is a good type of the well-to-do Peruvian village, the surrounding country being fertile and populous. The better houses, a few of them two storied, are of stone, the rest of sun-dried mud – that adobe which one finds all over Spanish America from the pueblos of New Mexico down to Patagonia. Their fronts are covered with a wash of white or light blue, and this, with the red-tiled roofs, gives a pleasant freshness and warmth of tone. The two plazas whose joint area is about equal to half of the whole town, are thronged with Indians, all the men and many of the women wearing the characteristic poncho, a rough woollen or, less often, cotton cloak which comes below the waist, and is usually of some bright hue. To this the women add gaudy petticoats, red or purplish, blue or green or violet, so that there is even more colour in the crowd than on the houses. The greatest variety is in the hats. The women wear round felts or cloth-covered straws, some almost as wide as a cardinal's; many are square, set off by gilt or silvered bands like the academic cap of the English Universities, though the brim is larger. The man's hat is smaller; it is mostly of stiff white felt, and underneath it is a tight fitting cloth cap of some bright colour, usually red, with flaps at each side to protect the ear and cheek from the piercing winds. Strings of glittering beads complete the Sunday dress of the women, and we saw only a few with silver ornaments. Most of the trading seemed to be done by barter, country folk exchanging farm or garden produce with the town dealers for groceries or cloth. The cotton cloths were largely made from the Peruvian plant cultivated in the warm coast valleys, while some of the woollen goods, such as blankets or stuff for petticoats, had come from England, as I saw on them the names of Yorkshire firms. Besides maize and nuts and peppers, together with oranges carried up from the hot valley of Urubamba seventy miles to the north, the most noticeable articles of commerce were a sort of edible seaweed brought from the coast, and dried marine star-fishes, and, above all, small bags of coca leaves, the article which is the one indispensable stimulant of the Indian, more for him than tea or coffee or alcoholic drinks are for the Asiatic or the European. It is a subtropical shrub or low tree which grows on the lower slopes of the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes and is sold to the Indians in small quantities, as indeed all the sales and purchases seemed to be on a small scale, there being among the peasants very little money though very little downright poverty. South American countries are, for the traveller at least, a land of high prices, but here we saw savoury messes of hot stewed meat with chopped onions and potatoes and a small glass of chicha (the common drink of the country brewed from maize), thrown in, offered at the price of five centavos, less than two English pence or a United States five cent piece. It was surprising that in so thick and busy a crowd there should be, instead of the chattering and clattering that one would have heard in Europe, only a steady hum. The Quichua Indians are a comparatively silent race, quiet and well mannered, and inoffensive except when they are drunk. These Sicuani people were small in stature, few exceeding five feet six inches, their faces a reddish brown, the features regular though seldom handsome, for while the nose is often well formed, the mouth is ugly, with no fineness of line in the lips, although these are far less thick than a negro's. Some have a slight moustache, but beards are seen only on the mestizos (half breeds). Among the many diversities of feature which suggest that there has been an intermixture of races, perhaps long ago, there are two prevailing types – the broad, round, short face with full cheeks, and the longer face with an aquiline nose. All have dark brown or black eyes, and long, straight, black, rather coarse, hair, and in all there is a curiously stolid and impassive look as of men accustomed to centuries of monotony and submission. Impassiveness is the characteristic note of the Indian. The Kafir is like a grown-up child; the Chinese have a curious quiet alertness and keenness of observation; the Hindus (and most Orientals) are submissive though watchful as if trying to take the white man's measure: but the Indian is none of these things. In his obedience there is no servility: he is reserved, aloof, seemingly indifferent to the Viracocha¹⁶ and to things in general. The most noticeable in the throng were the Indian village alcaldes, each carrying as the badge of his office a long, heavy staff or cane, with a spike at the bottom and a large round head, bound with silver bands and covered at the top with a silver casing. This dignitary, appointed by the local authority annually, exerts in his little community an undisputed sway, enforced by his power of imprisonment. The post is eagerly sought, so that the wealthier sort will offer money to obtain it. We saw them moving through the crowd, all making way for them. There were, however, no disturbances to quell: the bright sun shone on an orderly and good-humoured crowd. Some groups, drawn a little apart, were enjoying the strains of a guitar or an accordion or those of the true national instrument, the Pandean pipe made of hollow reeds unequal in length, while above, on the hillside, the donkeys on which the wealthier peasants had ridden in and the llamas that had carried their produce stood patiently awaiting the declining light that should turn them homeward.

The only point of interest in Sicuani is the church and the arched gateway beside it. It is like any other village church, the architecture dull, the interior gloomy. But it was in this church that in 1782 Andres the nephew of Tupac Amaru, half of Spanish Biscayan, half of Inca blood, received episcopal absolution for his share in the great insurrection of the Indians under that chieftain, an absolution to be shortly followed by his murder at the hands of perfidious Spaniards; and it was on this arch (if the story we heard be true) that some of the limbs of the unfortunate Tupac Amaru himself were exposed after he had been torn in pieces by four horses in the great square of Cuzco.

The valley of the Vilcamayu River below Sicuani unfolds scene after scene of varied beauty. It is indeed even more bare of wood than those valleys of the central Apennines, of which, allowing for the difference of scale, it sometimes reminds one. The only tall tree is the Australian Eucalyptus, which though only recently introduced, is now common in the subtropical parts of South America, and already makes a figure in the landscape, for it is a fast grower. These Australian gum trees have now overspread the world. They are all over South Africa and on the Mediterranean coasts, as well as in Mexico and on the Nilghiri hills of southern India, where they have replaced the more beautiful native groves.

In the wider and more level stretches of the valley, populous villages lie near together, for the irrigated flats of the valley floor flourish with abundant crops, and the rich red soil makes the hillsides worth cultivating even without irrigation. Although stained by the blood of battles more than is any other part of Peru, the land has an air of peace and comfort. The mountains on each side seemed to be composed of igneous rocks, but only in one place could I discover evidences of recent volcanic action. About fifteen miles below Sicuani six or seven small craters are seen near together, most of them on the northeast side of the valley, the highest some twelve hundred feet above it; and the lava flows which have issued from two or three of these are so fresh, the surface still so rugged and of so deep a black, that one may conclude that not many centuries have elapsed since the last eruption. The higher ranges that enclose the valley, crags above and curving lines of singular beauty below, evidently belong to a more remote geological age. Their contrasts of dark rock and red soil, with the flat smiling valley between and the noble snowpeaks of the Vilcanota group filling the southern distance, make landscapes comparable in their warmth of colour and variety of form to those of the Italian Alps. They are doubly delightful to the traveller who has been passing through the savage solitudes that lie between this and the Pacific coast. Here at last he seems to get a notion of what Peru may have been like before the invaders came, and when a peaceful and industrious people laboured in the service of the Inca and the Sun God. Now, to be sure, there is a railway, and the station houses are roofed with corrugated iron. Yet the aspect of the land can have changed but little. The inhabitants are almost all Indian, and live and cultivate much as they did four centuries ago; their villages are of the same mud-built, grass-roofed cottages. They walk behind their llamas along the track, playing a rustic pipe as they go; and the women wash clothes in the brook swollen by last night's rain; and up the side glens which descend from the untrodden snowy range behind, one catches glimpses of high, steep pastures, where perhaps hardly even a plundering Spaniard ever set his foot and where no extortionate curate preyed upon his flock.