We got up early enough the next morning to witness a phase of Bolivian life which we had heard of but had not as yet seen. An officer and two soldiers of the Bolivian army, travelling southward, had spent the night at Escara and desired to proceed promptly. The postes are subsidized by the Government on the understanding that all travelling government officials shall be furnished with mules and a man. Each poste has three or four guides called postillons, connected with it. This morning things did not move fast enough to suit the officer. The mules were not ready when he wanted to start and the meek Quichua postillon was offering an explanation. In the midst of it, the officer lost his temper, and taking his strong riding-whip, commenced to lash the poor half-clad Indian across the face and shoulders. The latter stood it for a few minutes stolidly and then commenced to back off, followed by the officer who continued to lay on the blows as fast as possible. At length the postillon turned to run and the officer pursued him, beating him and cursing him until out of breath. It was a sickening sight, but the strangest part of all was the absolute meekness with which the Indian took his beating. There was not the slightest sign of resentment or even annoyance. The strokes of the whip made the blood start and trickle down his face and sides, but he gave no evidence of feeling it.

Later in the day at Quirve, another poste, we witnessed a similar exhibition, only in this case the Indian did not even run away. The son of the proprietor, a great hulking brute, six feet tall and powerfully built, found fault with one of the postillons for some trifling mistake and beat him across the face and chest with a rawhide thong until the blood flowed freely. Like the other Indian, his face remained perfectly stolid, and he showed no signs of anger or irritation.

We had been furious with the officer in the morning and this exhibition was even more trying. Yet the Bolivianos thought nothing of it. As Mr. Bryce has so ably put it: “One must have lived among a weaker race in order to realize the kind of irritation which its defects produce in those who deal with it, and how temper and self-control are strained in resisting temptations to harsh or arbitrary action. It needs something more than the virtue of a philosopher—it needs the tenderness of a saint to preserve the same courtesy and respect towards the members of a backward race as are naturally extended to equals.” There is no doubt about the Quichuas being a backward race.

From the earliest historical times these poor Indians have virtually been slaves. Bred up to look upon subjection as their natural lot, they bear it as the dispensation of Providence. The Incas treated them well, so far as we can judge, and took pains to see that the irrigation works, the foot-paths over the mountains, the suspension bridges over the raging torrents and tambos for the convenience of travellers, should all be kept in good condition. The gold-hunting Spanish conquistadores, on the other hand, had no interest in the servile Quichuas further than to secure their services as forced laborers in the mines. The modern Bolivianos have done little to improve their condition.

After seeing these two Indians meekly take such severe beatings, I found it easier to understand why Pizarro had been able to conquer the Empire of Peru with a handful of determined Spanish soldiers, and why the unfortunate Tupac Amaru could make so little headway in 1781 when he attempted to rouse the Indians to revolt against Spanish tyranny. Although he had sixty thousand men under him, the Spanish general easily defeated him with barely twenty thousand, of whom only a few hundred were Spaniards, the majority being friendly Indians.

How much the extremely severe conditions of life that prevail on this arid plateau have had to do in breaking the spirit of the race is a question. It is a generally accepted fact that a race who are dependent for their living on irrigating ditches, can easily be conquered. All that the invading army has to do is to destroy the dams, ruin the crops, and force the inhabitants to face starvation.

The Quichua shows few of the traits which we ordinarily connect with mountaineers. His country is too forlorn to give him an easy living or much time for thought. He is half starved nearly all the time. His only comfort comes from chewing coca leaves. Coca is the plant from which we extract cocaine. It is said that the Quichua can go for days without food, provided he has a good supply of coca. It would be extremely interesting to determine the effect on his intelligence of this cocaine habit, which seems to be centuries old. If a man can stand up and take severe punishment for trivial offences without getting angry, showing vexation, or apparently without bearing any grudge against his oppressor, there must be something constitutionally wrong with him. I believe that the coca habit is answerable for a large part of this very unsatisfactory state of affairs. Coca has deadened his sensibilities to a degree that passes comprehension. It has made him stupid, willing to submit to almost any injury, lacking in all ambition, caring for almost none of the things which we consider the natural desires of the human heart.

In travelling through Bolivia and Peru, I found it repeatedly to be the case that the Quichua does not care to sell for money either food or lodging. Presents of coca leaves and tobacco are acceptable. A liberal offer of money rarely moves him, although it would be possible for him to purchase with it many articles of necessity or comfort in near-by towns. As a rule he prefers neither to rent his animal, nor sell you cheese or eggs, or anything else. The first Quichua words one learns, and the answer which one most commonly receives to all questions as to the existence of the necessaries of life, is “mana canca,” “there is none.”

This condition of affairs is not new. When Temple travelled through Bolivia in 1825, he was struck by the prevailing “no hay nada” (there is nothing at all). Poverty, want, misery, and negligence are the story that is told by the melancholy phrase. The truth is, the Quichua not only has no ambition, he has long ago ceased to care whether you or he or anybody else has more than just barely enough to keep body and soul together.

Needless to say, the Quichuas have no concern with the politics of Bolivia, although they constitute a large majority of the inhabitants.

From Escara our road continued to follow a semi-arid valley. We passed a caravan of mule-carts bound for PotosÍ and Sucre. In one of the carts was an upright piano; in another, pieces of mining machinery, while still others contained large cast-iron pipes destined for Sucre’s new waterworks. Nearly all of the carts carried bales of Argentine hay as this region is so arid that it is extremely difficult to secure any fodder for the animals, and the barley or alfalfa, when procurable, is often too expensive.

The weather continued to be fine. After a hot, dusty ride of twenty miles, we stopped at the poste of Quirve.

Just before reaching Quirve, we crossed the Tumusla River, the site of the last battle of the Bolivian wars of independence. After Sucre’s great victory at Ayacucho, in 1824, the only Spanish troops which remained unconquered in all South America were the garrison of Callao and a small band under General Ollaneta in southern Bolivia. His men were badly disaffected by the news of the battle of Ayacucho, and an officer who commanded a small garrison at this strategic point, came out openly for the patriotic cause. Ollaneta tried in vain to suppress the revolt. The result was a battle here on the first of April, 1825, in which the Spanish general was defeated and slain. The garrison of Callao held out for a few months longer, but this was the end of active warfare.

We found the tambo of Quirve to be of the most primitive sort, not even affording shelter for man or beast. The weekly PotosÍ stage-coach came in from the north about six o’clock carrying one passenger. He soon spread his bed under the wagon and made himself comfortable for the night. The luggage from PotosÍ was shipped on pack-animals and was in charge of an Argentine Gaucho named Fermin Chaile. This man we took in exchange for Mac, whom we were glad enough to get rid of. Fermin, the Gaucho, tall and gaunt, round-shouldered and bow-legged, his dark Mongolian-like features crowned by a mop of coarse, black hair, proved to be a god-send. His loose-fitting suit of brown corduroys, far better raiment than most arrieros can afford, bore witness to the fact that he was sober, industrious, and trustworthy. No one ever had a better muleteer. Like Rafael Rivas, the faithful Venezuelan peon who had guided my cart across the Llanos in 1907, he took excellent care of the mules, yet drove them almost to the limit of their endurance, was devoted to us, and proved to be reliable and attentive. He was a plainsman, as different in spirit and achievement from the wretched mountaineers through whose country we were passing, as though he had belonged to a different continent.

As we continued northward from Quirve, the valley grew narrower and our road continued to be in the dry river course. All the water that was visible was collected in little ditches and conducted along the hillsides fifteen or twenty feet above the bed of the stream. On some of the hillsides of this valley are terraces or andines where maize, quinoa, potatoes, and even grapes are made to grow, with much painstaking labor. These terraces, common enough farther north, were the first we had seen. The staple food of the Indians is chuno, a small potato that has been put through a freezing process until its natural flavor is completely lost. One of the principal dishes at this time of the year is the fruit of the cactus. Everybody seems to be very fond of the broad-leaved edible species, a thornless variety of which we are developing in Arizona and New Mexico.

Farther up the valley I was struck by the ingenuity which had been exercised in carrying the irrigation ditches along the side of precipitous cliffs. Numerous little tunnels, connected by small viaducts, enabled a tiny stream of water to travel three or four miles until it reached a level space sufficiently above highwater mark to warrant the planting of a small field. The only animals to be seen beside mules and horses, goats, pigs, dogs, and a very few birds, were the little wild guinea-pigs of a color closely resembling the everlasting brown hills. I was surprised not to see any llamas.

Soon after leaving Quirve, we came to the little village of Toropalca, in every way as brown and dusty as the guinea-pigs. In fact, it melted into the landscape as perfectly as they did.

About noon we reached another hillside village, Saropalca, its houses placed so closely one above another on the steep slope as to give the appearance of a giant stairway. We climbed up through the irregular lanes of the little village, until we found a wretched little tambo where we bought a few bundles of alfalfa and a bowl of soup.

Whenever we could secure sufficient alfalfa for the mules and a bowl of hot chupe for ourselves in addition to the customary pot of hot water for our tea, we considered ourselves most fortunate and were willing to admit that the poste was well provided with “all the necessaries of life.” Chupe is a kind of stew or thick soup consisting of frozen potatoes and tough mutton or llama meat. In its natural state, its taste is disagreeable enough, but when it is served to the liking of the natives it is seasoned so highly with red pepper as to be far too fiery for foreign palates.

In the course of the afternoon, the valley narrowed to a gorge in which we passed more heavily-laden mule-carts making their way along with the utmost difficulty. Beyond the gorge we found sulphur springs and some banks of sulphur. One of the hot springs gushed up close by the roadside. “El Lazarillo,” the eighteenth century Baedeker, says there was once a “modest thermal establishment” here, intended to attract bathers from PotosÍ.

At the end of the day we reached Caisa, after having made nearly forty miles since morning. Caisa is an old Spanish town and looks like all the rest. One-story houses, narrow streets, badly paved, a city block left open for a plaza, on one side of it a church and the house of the priest, on the other three sides, a few shops where we bought newly-baked hot bread, beer, cheese, and candles. The tambo was called “La Libertad” and bore the legend “Muy barato” (very cheap). We surmised this meant that the proprietor would charge all the traffic would bear; and such proved to be the case. In fact, we had a very disagreeable dispute with the landlady the next morning. Fermin indignantly declared she had tripled the usual prices.

At Caisa the road from Argentina to Sucre branches off to the right, going due north to Puna and thence to Yotala, where it joins the road from PotosÍ to Sucre.

Leaving Caisa on November 22, we went north-west and soon had our first glimpse of a snow-clad Bolivian mountain. The snow was not very deep, however, as it had fallen during the night, and before noon it was all gone. Our road crossed several ridges and then descended into a partly cultivated valley near an old silver mine and a smelter called Cuchu Ingenio. The road here was unusually good. Even in 1773 “The Blind Man’s Guide” says it was a “camino de Trote, y Galope.”

As we ascended a gorge, I was attracted by a little waterfall of crystal clearness that came tumbling down from the heights above, and was tempted to

take a hearty drink of the delicious cool liquid. A Boliviano from Tupiza, who was travelling with us for company, warned me against such a rash act as drinking cold water at this altitude. I had noticed that no one in this region ever touches cold water, and I thought the universal prejudice against it was founded on a natural preference for alcohol. So I laughingly enjoyed my cup of cold water and assured him that there could be no harm in it. An hour later we reached Laja Tambo, a wretched little poste, standing alone on the edge of a tableland twenty miles from PotosÍ. The altitude was about thirteen thousand feet. The sun had been very warm, and soon after alighting on the rough stone pavement of the inn yard, I arranged the thermometers so as to test the difference in temperature between sun and shade. The temperature in the sun at noon was 85° F. In the shade it was 48° F. Scarcely had I taken the readings when I began to feel chilly. Hot tea followed by hot soup and still hotter brandy and water failed to warm me, notwithstanding the fact that I had unpacked my bag and put on two heavy sweaters. A wretched sense of dizziness and of longing to get warm made me lie down on the warm stones of the courtyard. I grew rapidly worse, and was soon experiencing the common symptoms of soroche, puna, or mountain sickness. The combination of vomiting, diarrhoea, and chills was bad enough, but the prospect of being ill in this desolate poste, twenty miles from the nearest doctor, with nothing better than the usual accessories of a Bolivian tambo, was infinitely worse. Somehow or other, I managed to persuade Fermin to saddle and load the animals and put me on my mule, where I was determined to stay until we should reach PotosÍ.

The last thing to do before leaving the tambo was to pay the bill, and this I proceeded to do in the Bolivian paper currency which I had purchased in Tupiza. Alas, one of the bills was on a bank situated two hundred and fifty miles away in La Paz, a bank, in fact, in which the postillon did not have much confidence. The idea of having a servile Quichua postillon decline to receive good money was extremely irritating, and I tried my best, notwithstanding my soroche, to force him to take it. He persisted and I was obliged to find another bill in my wallet. I suppose my hand trembled a little with chill or excitement and in taking out the bill I partly tore it.

This would not have mattered had the tear been in the middle, but it was nearer one end than the other and the Indian refused to accept it. I had no other small bills and was at a loss to know what to do. In the meantime, Fermin and the pack-mules had left the inclosure of the tambo and started for PotosÍ while Mr. Smith was just outside of the gate waiting for me. So I rolled up the sound bill which the Indian had declined to receive, gave it to him, and while he was investigating it, made a dash for the road. He was too quick for me, however, and gripped my bridle. Exasperated beyond measure, I rode him against the wall of the tambo and made him let go long enough to allow me to escape. It seemed on the whole a lawless performance, although the bank-note was perfectly good. I fully expected that he would follow us with stones or something worse, but as he was only a Quichua he accepted the inevitable and we saw no more of him.

In the face of a bitterly cold wind we crossed the twenty-mile plateau that lies between Laja Tambo and the famous city of PotosÍ. On the plain were herds of llamas feeding, but these did not interest us as much as the conical hill ahead. It was the Cerro of PotosÍ, the hill that for two hundred and fifty years, was the marvel of the world. No tale of the Arabian Nights, no dream of Midas, ever equalled the riches that flowed from this romantic cone. Two billion ounces of silver is the record of its output and the tale is not yet told.

Rounding the eastern shoulder of the mountain, we passed several large smelters, some of them abandoned. Near by are the ruins of an edifice said to have been built by the Spaniards to confine the poor Indians whom they brought here by the thousands to work in the mines. The road descends a little valley and runs for a mile, past the ruins of hundreds of buildings. In the eighteenth century, PotosÍ boasted a population of over one hundred and fifty thousand. Now there are scarcely fifteen thousand. The part of the city that is still standing is near the ancient plaza, the mint, and the market-place.

Our caravan clattered noisily down the steep, stony streets until we reached the doors of the Hotel Colon where an attentive Austrian landlord made us welcome, notwithstanding the fact that one of the party was evidently quite ill. I could not help wondering whether an American hotel-keeper would have been so willing to receive a sick man as this benighted citizen of PotosÍ. The paved courtyard was small, but the rooms on the second floor were commodious and so much better than the unspeakably forlorn adobe walls of Laja Tambo, that I felt quite willing to retire from active exploration for a day or two. Fortunately, I fell into the hands of a well-trained Bolivian physician, who knew exactly what to do, and with his aid, and the kind nursing of Fermin and Mr. Smith, I was soon on my feet again.