The next morning, accompanied by a large cavalcade, we started for Choqquequirau. Most of our escort contented themselves with a mile or so, and then wishing us good luck, returned to Abancay. We did not blame them. Owing to unusually heavy rains, the trail was in a frightful state. Well-nigh impassable bogs, swollen torrents, avalanches of boulders and trees, besides the usual concomitants of a Peruvian bridle-path, cheered us on our way.

Soon after leaving our friends we had to ford a particularly dangerous torrent where the mules had all they could possibly do to keep their footing in the foamy waters. After the crossing we rested to watch Castillo, one of the soldiers who had been assigned to accompany us, cross the stream on foot. His mule, tired out by the dreadful trail, was being rested. It had forded the stream with the others and was standing by us watching the soldier take perilous leaps from boulder to boulder, where a misstep would have meant certain death. Hardly had Castillo gained our side of the stream when the mule decided to return to Abancay and plunged back across the dangerous ford. With a shout of rage, the soldier repeated his performance, gained the other side of the torrent, and started after the mule, now quite rested, and trotting off briskly for home. A chase of a mile and a half put Castillo into no very pleasant frame of mind, and the mule had little respite for the remainder of the day. At noon we stopped a few moments in the village of Cachora where the Prefect had instructed the Gobernador to prepare us a “suitable luncheon.” This intoxicated worthy offered us instead many apologies, and we had to get along as best we could with three or four boiled eggs, all the village could provide.

All day long through rain and heavy mist that broke away occasionally to give us glimpses of wonderfully deep green valleys and hillsides covered with rare flowers, we rode along a slippery path that grew every hour more treacherous and difficult. In order to reach the little camp on the bank of the Apurimac that night, we hurried forward as fast as possible although frequently tempted to linger by the sight of acres of magnificent pink begonias and square miles of blue lupins. By five o’clock, we began to hear the roar of the great river seven thousand feet below us in the caÑon. The Apurimac, which flows through the Ucayali to the Amazon, rises in a little lake near Arequipa, so far from the mouth of the Amazon that it may be said to be the parent stream of that mighty river. By the time it reaches this region, it is a raging torrent two hundred and fifty feet wide, and at this time of the year, over eighty feet deep. Its roaring voice can be heard so many miles away that it is called by the Quichuas, the Apurimac, or the “Great Speaker.”

Our guide, the enthusiastic Caceres, declared that we had now gone far enough. As it was beginning to rain and the road from there on was “worse than anything we had as yet experienced,” he said it would be better to camp for the night in an abandoned hut near by. His opinion was eagerly welcomed by two of the party, young men from Abancay, who were having their first real adventure, but the two Yankis decided that it was best to reach the river if possible. Caceres finally consented, and aided by the dare-devil Castillo, we commenced a descent that for tortuous turns and narrow escapes beat anything we had yet seen. Just as darkness came on, we encountered a large tree that had so fallen across our path as completely to block all progress. It seemed as though we must return to the hut. Half an hour’s work enabled us to pass this obstacle only to reach a part of the hillside where an avalanche had recently occurred. Here even the mules and horses trembled with fright as we led them across a mass of loose earth and stones which threatened to give way at any moment. Only two weeks previously, two mules had been lost here. Their crossing had started a renewal of the avalanche which had taken the poor animals along with it.

An hour after dark we came out on a terrace. The roar of the river was so great that we could scarcely hear Caceres shouting out that our troubles were now over and “all the rest was level ground.” This turned out to be only his little joke. We were still a thousand feet above the river and a path cut in

the face of a precipice had yet to be negotiated. In broad daylight we should never had dared to ride down the tortuous trail that led from the terrace to the bank of the river. But as it was quite dark and we were quite innocent of any danger we readily followed the cheery voice of our guide. The path is what is known as a corkscrew and descended the wall of the caÑon by means of short turns each twenty feet long. At one end of each turn was the precipice, while at the other was a chasm down which plunged a small cataract which had a clear fall of seven hundred feet. Half way down the path my mule stopped, trembling, and I dismounted to find that in the darkness he had walked off the trail and had slid down the cliff to a ledge. How to get him back was a problem. It is not easy to back an animal up a steep hill, and there was no room in which to turn him around. It was such a narrow escape that when I got safely back onto the trail, I decided to walk the rest of the way and let the mule go first, preferring to have him fall over the precipice alone if that were necessary.

Two thirds of the way down the descent came the crux of the whole matter, for here the path crossed the narrow chasm close to and directly in front of the cataract, and in the midst of its spray. There was no bridge. To be sure, the waterfall was only three feet wide, but it was pitch dark. As I could not see the other side of the chasm, I did not dare to jump alone, but remounted my mule, held my breath, and gave him both spurs at once. His jump was successful.

Ten minutes later we saw the welcome light of the master of the camp who came out to guide us through a thicket of mimosa trees that grew on the lower terrace just above the river.

The camp consisted of two huts, six by seven, built of reeds. Here we passed a most uncomfortable night. Mr. Hay has described the next few hours so vividly in his diary that, with his permission, I am going to quote his account of it.

“Our luggage, including the folding cots, did not arrive that night till very late, so we slept on benches made of bamboo poles, in our boots, under an open thatch-roofed shelter. During the night the Prefect’s secretary, el periodista, either in exuberance over reaching the bottom of the mountain in safety, or being unstrung on account of his recent experience, or simply because he was a bounder, fired his revolver off at three different times, the ball fortunately passing through the roof each time. I must admit that I was so sound asleep as to hear only one of the shots, though I was so near the “young idea” that I could have touched him with my hand. Even he, though, wearied of that form of amusement after a time, and quiet was restored until 3 A.M. At that hour a rooster, who had quietly been resting with his women-folk on a pole over our heads, decided that dawn was coming on, or if it wasn’t, ought to be, and showed us conclusively what a healthy pair of feathered lungs, in a rarified atmosphere, was capable of. He was within reach, but I bided my time. Not half enough notice had been taken of the alarm to suit him, and I saw the chest of Sr. Chanticlerio expand for a supreme effort. He raised himself to his full height and let loose. With ever increasing volume the notes poured out, until just as it seemed he would burst, in the concluding notes of the anthem, I arose, and with the side of my hand, caught him in the place that needed it most. He summoned up the courage to give one defiant little crow three hours later. But his spirit was broken, and his style was cramped by the periodista, who, awake by this time, was firing at him with his revolver. There were no casualties.”

While breakfast was being prepared we went out to take pictures and measurements of the bridge. This was 273 feet long by 32 inches wide, and the river 250 feet wide. “Don Mariano,” the builder of the bridge, told us that when construction commenced, the water was nearly eighty feet below the bridge although at present the river had risen so that it was only twenty-five feet below it, an increase in depth of over fifty feet. An almost incredible bulk of water was roaring between its steep banks. It was estimated at 100 feet deep, and yet the water piled up on itself in such a way as to give the appearance of running against huge boulders in midstream.

We sent the Indian bearers ahead with our luggage. Pack animals could not possibly use the trail on the other side of the river and the bridge was not constructed to carry their weight. The surprising thing was that the Indians were very much afraid of the frail little bridge which Chinese courage and ingenuity had built, and crept gingerly across it on their hands and knees while they carried our luggage and supplies to the other side of the river. They had been accustomed for centuries to using frail suspension bridges much less strong in reality than this little structure. But they are not acquainted with the tenacity of wire, and it seemed the height of frivolity to them that we should be willing to trust our lives to such a small “rope.” Yet the much larger fibre ropes of which their suspension bridges were constructed would not begin to stand the strain as well as these six telegraph wires.

After a breakfast of thin soup and boiled sweet potatoes, we girded ourselves for the ascent. The river at this point is about 5000 feet above sea-level. We had had little practice in mountain climbing, except on mule-back, for many months, and it seemed like a pretty serious undertaking to attempt to climb six thousand feet more to an elevation of 11,000 feet. This will sound tame enough to the experienced mountain climber although it was anything but easy for us. Our patient, long-suffering Quichua bearers, coming of a race that, at high altitudes, is in the habit of marching distances which appear incredibly long to those students of military history that have confined their attention to the movements of European troops, bore their burdens most cheerfully. At the same time they gave frequent evidence of great fatigue which was not at all to be wondered at under the circumstances.

Of one incident of the ascent Mr. Hay wrote: “Most of the party started long before the two ‘Yanquis,’ but in half an hour we caught up with

them. They had waylaid an Indian bearer and were having beer and other refreshments under a tree. Here we noticed an example of the height of generosity towards an Indian in Peru. This is to let him carry all day, among other things, the refreshments. Then take the beer, drink it, and return him the bottle. The bottle, be it noted, should be received with many expressions of thanks on the part of the Indian. We passed the revellers and plodded on up together. Unfortunately for history but fortunately for our nerves, at least, the periodista gave out soon after this and was forced to turn back. So the chronicle of the events at Choqquequirau must come only from the pen of an alien? Not for a minute! El periodista was ever with us in spirit, and the report for the Lima Journal fared far better at the hands of Imagination than it ever could have through plain Experience.”

The enthusiastic Caceres kept shouting “valor” at the top of his lungs as evidence of his good spirits and in an effort to encourage the others. The two Yankis had a hard time of it and were obliged to stop and rest nearly every fifty feet.

At times the trail was so steep that it was easier to go on all fours than to attempt to maintain an erect attitude. Occasionally we crossed streams in front of waterfalls on slippery logs or treacherous little foot-bridges. At other times we clung to the face of rocky precipices or ascended by roughly constructed ladders from one elevation to another. Although the hillside was too precipitous to allow much forest growth, no small part of the labor of making the path had been the work of cutting through dense underbrush.

As we mounted, the view of the valley became more and more magnificent. Nowhere have I ever witnessed such beauty and grandeur as was here displayed. A white torrent raged through the caÑon six thousand feet below us. Where its sides were not too precipitous to admit of vegetation, the steep slopes were covered with green foliage and luxuriant flowers. From the hilltops near us other slopes rose six thousand feet beyond and above to the glaciers and snow-capped summits of Mts. Sargantay and Soray. In the distance, as far as we could see, a maze of hills, valleys, tropical jungle, and snow-capped peaks held the imagination as though by a spell. Such were our rewards as we lay panting by the side of the little path when we had reached its highest point.

After getting our wind, we followed the trail westward, skirting more precipices and crossing other torrents, until, about two o’clock, we rounded a promontory and caught our first glimpse of the ruins of Choqquequirau on the slopes of a bold mountain headland 6000 feet above the river. Between the outer hilltop and the ridge connecting it with the snow-capped mountains, a depression or saddle had been terraced and levelled so as to leave a space for the more important buildings of the Inca stronghold.

At three o’clock we reached a glorious waterfall whose icy waters, coming probably from the glaciers on Soray, cooled our heads and quenched our thirst. We had now left our companions far behind, and were pushing slowly along through the jungle, when shortly before four o’clock we saw terraces in the near distance. Just as we began to enjoy the prospect of reaching Choqquequirau alone, Caceres and Castillo caught up with us. They had stayed behind in a futile attempt to encourage the Indian bearers, and the other adventurers to have more “valor.” The others did not arrive until the next morning; not even the Quichua carriers on whom we depended for food and blankets.

Soon after our arrival, we clambered up to a little bit of flat ground, where evidently the Incas once cultivated their crops, to enjoy the view. Here we were discovered by a huge condor who proceeded to investigate the invaders of his domain. Apparently without moving a muscle, he sailed gracefully down in ever narrowing circles until we could see clearly not only his cruel beak and great talons, but even the whites of his eyes. We had no guns and not even a club with which to resist his attack. It was an awe-inspiring moment, for he measured at least twelve feet from tip to tip of wing. When within forty feet of us he decided not to disturb us, and seemingly without changing the position of a feather, soared off into space. We were told afterwards by Caceres and Castillo that they had been greatly alarmed by condors when they first commenced operations here.

Owing to the non-appearance of the carriers we passed an uncomfortable night in the smallest of the little thatched huts which the workmen had erected for their own use. It was scarcely three feet high and about six feet long by four feet wide. The day had been warm, and in our efforts to make climbing as easy as possible, we had divested ourselves of all our warm clothes. Notwithstanding the fact that a shelter tent was pulled down and wrapped around us for warmth, and stacks of dry grass piled about us, we were scarcely able to close our eyes for the cold and chilling dampness all night long.

The humidity was one hundred or nearly so during the four days which we spent on the mountain. Consequently we passed the majority of the time in thick mist or rain.