The next morning we were furnished fresh horses by our kind hosts, and accompanied by five or six of them, climbed out of the beautiful valley of Chincheros up to the heights of Bombon overlooking the river Pampas. Here in 1824, the patriot forces under General Sucre, marching along this road to Lima, encountered the Royalists under La Serna, trying to cut off their retreat. The advance guard of each army met on the 20th of November on the heights of Bombon. The Royalists were driven down into the valley and across the river Pampas.

After reaching the level of the river, our path followed the Pampas, down stream, in a northerly direction, for some distance among groves of mimosa trees and cacti. This is a famous place for mosquitoes, and there is said to be a great deal of malaria in the vicinity. The altitude is slightly over six thousand feet.

My interest in the Pampas valley was considerably increased by finding the trees and cacti covered with white land shells, some of them reminding me of those tree shells that I had gathered as a boy in the beautiful valleys of the Island of Oahu. I filled my pockets, and later spent the evening cleaning the shells, much to the amusement of my hosts. My labor was amply rewarded by finding, after reaching home, that among the shells were three new species which Dr. Dall, the Curator of the Division of Mollusks in the United States National Museum, has named and described.[7]

The bridge over the Pampas has long attracted the notice of travellers. The approach to it is at the foot of perpendicular cliffs. The surrounding scenery although not so imposing as that of the Apurimac is nevertheless magnificent. The bridge is about 150 feet long, and at the time of my visit, February, 1909, was 50 feet above the river. There are two pictures of the old bridge in Mr. Squier’s book, and although wire rope has replaced the old cables that the Incas made from maguey fibre, it is still the most unwelcome feature of the road from the point of view of the mules.

One of our mules simply would not cross the bridge. No amount of pushing and pulling, beating and shouting, would make him budge an inch. Finally he was blindfolded and a rope tied to each front leg. His hind legs were tied securely together, to prevent him from kicking, and by alternately pulling the ropes attached to his front feet, he was forced in a most ignominious manner to come onto the bridge and go a third of the way across. Then the ropes were loosened and the blind taken off.

We expected to see him turn and bolt for the nearest side but he was too frightened to do anything of the sort, and became at once most docile, and finished the trip in peace.

He was not the only one who did not like the bridge. The priest of Chincheros, who had been delayed from accompanying us by the arrival of a visiting cleric that morning, overtook us here. Although a sturdy native Indian, he was rather portly and preferred not only to leave to some one else the leading across of his mule, but even to have a poor Indian bearer give him his shoulder to steady him on the swaying structure.

From the other end of the bridge we ascended the precipitous cliff by a narrow winding path and found ourselves on a lofty terrace where the enterprising Parodi Brothers have planted waving fields of sugarcane. Here we were met by the Gobernador of Tambillo and the Parodis who escorted us to their sugar factory at Pajonal, a most attractive hacienda nestled in a valley at the foot of beetling crags. Our hosts had inherited from their father an unusual stock of energy and skill. Owing to his efforts, a good irrigation ditch had been constructed that furnished the canefields with an abundant supply of water. The houses were in good repair and everything bore the marks of prosperity. It was a pleasure to see such evidence of enterprise and energy in this wild region. One brother, who ordinarily practices medicine in Lima, was here on a visit. Another brother is being educated in the States.

We left Pajonal the next morning, accompanied by the Gobernador of Tambillo, a very agreeable person of German-Peruvian descent. From Pajonal the road ascends a little valley and then climbs a mountainside to the village of Ocros, a most forlorn and wretched place, with an elevation of nearly ten thousand feet.

The adobe church, like that at Chincheros, was set back from the plaza, and had a new adobe wall around it. Earth for this seemed to have been taken right out of the plaza. No attempt had been made to fill up the huge holes that remained. The only building at Ocros that seemed to be in any kind of repair was the local telegraph office where the officer from Ayacucho who accompanied us, went to send a despatch to the Prefect.

On the way we had been struck by the extraordinary method of hanging telegraph wires that prevails in this country. The linesmen had thought nothing of planting three poles together on the top of one hill and the next three not less than a quarter of a mile away on the top of another, stretching their wire across the intervening distance in midair. This occurred not once or twice but whenever they could save poles by so doing. The strain on the wire must have been tremendous. We learned that the service was “frequently interrupted.”

The road up from Ocros was the worst that we encountered anywhere. It was really the bed of a mountain stream and our animals had the greatest difficulty in picking their way among the rocks and boulders. It was hard to imagine that this was really the highway between Cuzco and Lima. The “road” grew worse and worse until it reached a bleak paramo at an elevation of thirteen thousand feet, where snow, hail, and sleet, driven in our faces by a high wind, added to our discomforts. A steep descent on the other side of the range greatly tried the patience of our animals. The ground seemed to be a hard clay that offered no support to their feet and they slid and slipped, sometimes eight or ten feet at a time, without being able to stop. Night was falling as we reached the little collection of wretched huts called Matara. No one seemed to have any desire to receive us. In fact, the Indian who had charge of the only dry hut in the place, locked the front door and disappeared into the night. Unlike vigorous Caceres, who would sooner have died than allow an inhospitable Indian to refuse admission to the foreigner in his charge, the officer from Ayacucho was a timid soul who had gone through the world bemoaning his ill fortune and doing nothing to make it better. He could think of no solution of the problem except that we make ourselves as comfortable as possible in the shelter of a kind of a porch in front of this thatched hut. So we passed an exceedingly uncomfortable night and experienced some of the hardships that the British soldiers, who aided the patriot army in that last campaign against the Spanish viceroy, must have suffered in this very locality.

The next morning our road led across half a dozen deep gulches whose streams feed the river Colpahuayo. In one of these I was so fortunate as to find in a gravel-bank at the side of the road, which had been heavily washed by recent rains, a portion of an ancient Inca stone war-club shaped like a huge doughnut.

The road continued to be extremely slippery and was not improved by the almost continuous rain. At half past two we reached Tambillo. Here we were welcomed by the pleasant wife of the Gobernador who had ridden ahead to have a good breakfast prepared while we had waited in vain on a hilltop hoping the rain would hold up sufficiently to let us photograph a magnificent panorama that included the distant city of Ayacucho and the heights of Condorkanqui and the famous battlefield.

After lunch we crossed another gulch whose treacherous sides more than once caused our mules to fall heavily. In the village of Los Neques, we were met by a very courteous emissary of the Prefect of Ayacucho who turned out to be proprietor of the hotel. He had been sent out in the rain to apologize for the fact that there was no committee to meet us and to explain that the notables had mounted and ridden out to await us until driven back by the inclemency of the weather, for all of which we were duly thankful, as it meant that we had escaped the necessity of hurting anybody’s feelings by declining to drink more copitas of brandy on an empty stomach.

Here at Los Neques the Indians were getting ready to celebrate the days of Carnival which were soon to be upon us. A hundred men and women had gathered in the courtyard of an old house. In one corner a red cloth shelter had been erected

under which sat the old men around a table on which was scattered popcorn, roast maize, and dishes of succotash. The other men and women squatted on the ground with dishes of succotash and bowls of chicha in front of them. As long as we looked on, all was orderly and quiet except that two musicians with a violin and a primitive old harp were endeavoring to cheer them up.

Soon after dark, in a pouring rain, we passed the high walls of the Ayacucho cemetery, clattered over the cobble-stones of the narrow streets, entered the plaza, and were ushered with a flourish through a stone arch into the courtyard of the hotel. Acting on the orders of the Prefect, the proprietor had reserved for our use an enormous parlor or reception room where at least forty people could be comfortably seated, and a great bedroom of nearly the same dimensions in which were four large bedsteads. Notwithstanding the attractiveness of the hotel bedsteads, such is the perversity of human nature that I decided to use my own little “Gold Medal” folding cot that had served me faithfully for many weeks, and my own blankets which, as they were folded up every morning as soon as I arose and not unfolded until I was ready to sleep, could be relied upon to be free from fleas, etc.

The plaza of Ayacucho is surrounded on three sides with private houses that have arcades supported by stone pillars. The ground floors are taken up with shops, while over the arcades are balconies that lead to the principal rooms of the dwelling houses. Our hotel had been once occupied by one of the principal families of the town and was a good specimen of the old Spanish method of building. It had a large courtyard from which a flight of stone steps led up to the galleries, and was ornamented by potted plants and caged birds.

Hardly had we examined our rooms when we received a call from the Prefect, Don Gaspar Mauro Cacho, a tall, finely proportioned Peruvian with a remarkable sense of humor and an unfailing store of courtesy. On the following day he took upon himself to show us the sights of the town, including the fine old cathedral, the large public market, clean and well kept, the picturesque old churches, and the Prefecture, a large double quadrangle where were located the offices of the Department, the barracks of the few troops stationed here, and the rooms allotted for the use of himself and his family.

His wife and children had arrived from Lima not many months previous, and the terrors of the overland journey were vividly in their minds. His seÑora assured me that she had feared she would never reach Ayacucho alive, notwithstanding the fact that the government had made every possible provision for their comfort on the journey. One of the “guides” lost his way, and they were quartered at an abandoned tambo where there was nothing to eat or drink and no firewood. Having lived in Lima all their lives, they felt the discomforts keenly. It was an interesting commentary on the state of the roads that even a Prefect could not be sure that his family would travel with a moderate degree of comfort.

I had sometimes felt that the life of an official in Peru was as easy as the life of the poor Indians was hard, but I had to reverse that opinion before leaving the country. While the Prefects are appointed directly by the President and are responsible only to him, they are likely to be considered troublesome by the local magistrates who, although elected by the citizens, exercise very limited prerogatives. Were it not for the dozen or more soldiers that take their orders directly from the Prefect, he would often be in a precarious position. He must govern as well as he can, and yet if he does not make himself popular with the people of the city in which he lives, his lot is not at all an easy one. With such men as the Prefects whom we met in Arequipa, Abancay, and Ayacucho, the central government is fortunate in being able to be sure that the power which it delegates to them will be used firmly and wisely and without causing friction.

This city, one of the largest in Peru, occupies an excellent central situation and from it diverge roads in every direction. Yet so great is the difficulty of bringing foreign merchandise over these mountain roads, that we found few shops here of any importance, and almost all seemed to be owned by natives of the country. The streets were all of the same pattern, paved with rough stones, sloping, not away from the centre as with us, but towards the centre, where in the middle there is invariably a ditch, practically an open sewer. For those walking on the sidewalk, it is certainly much pleasanter to have this ditch in the middle of the street.

In anticipation of the joys of eating and drinking connected with Carnival, Indian women with huge cauldrons of chupe and immense jars of chicha were preparing to take up all-night stands, sometimes in the centre of the street or else on a busy corner where they would be sure to attract trade. The effect of the women’s head-gear was most curious. It was exactly as though the lady had found her shawl a bit too warm and had taken it off, folded it into a square, and proceeded to carry it on her head for convenience. We went through one old crumbling archway, attracted by some beautiful clay jars, and found ourselves in a backyard that would have delighted a painter. Not all painters, but the kind that loves a natural combination of picturesque ruins, fine old jars tumbled about helter-skelter, dirty little Indian children in dirtier hats and ponchos, very much too big for them, a cat, and a long-legged pig who nosed about among the jars trying to see which one contained chicha fit to gratify his thirst.

From the tower of one of the oldest churches we secured a splendid view of the city and the surrounding country including nearly the entire region occupied by the forces of Sucre and La Serna in the week preceding the final battle of Ayacucho.

The old name of Ayacucho was Guamanga, which is said to have been a Spanish adaptation of the Inca Huaman-ca (Take it, Falcon), a name that was given to the district by an incident that followed a fierce battle in which a warlike tribe of this vicinity was defeated and almost annihilated by the armies

of the Inca Viracocha. It is said that when serving out rations of flesh to his troops after the battle, the Inca threw a piece to a falcon that was soaring over his head, saying “Huaman-ca.” However this may be, the town of Guamanga was one of the earliest to be founded by Pizarro and was later the site of a bloody encounter between Vaca de Castro, the legitimate Viceroy, and young Almagro and his followers, who had assassinated Pizarro.

The name Ayacucho was given to the town after the famous battle of December 9, 1824, which was fought near the village of Quinua, thirteen miles north. “Ayacucho” means “corner (or heap) of dead men” and refers to the bloody character of this conflict and of those that had preceded it in the Inca Conquest and in the Spanish Conquest of Peru.

On February 21, the three days of Carnival began. Although I had often read of the impossibility of doing anything in Peru during that period of jollification, I succeeded in persuading the kind-hearted Prefect to procure us animals that we might ride to Quinua, thirteen miles away, and spend a day or so investigating the battlefield. He tried to dissuade us, but as he knew that it was for this purpose that we had come to Ayacucho, everything was soon ready. The Gobernador of Quinua had been given orders to be on hand, to act as our guide. Accompanied by him and the Secretary of the Department and a small military escort, we left the hotel and took the road to the northwest.

Our little cavalcade was strung out over a block or more by the time we reached the suburbs as the streets were narrow and not in particularly good repair. Suddenly the horses of our guides wheeled and bolted and were with difficulty kept in the road. The cause was a characteristic piece of carelessness on the part of somebody. A horse had recently died and his thrifty owner had at once skinned him to save his hide, leaving the hideous carcass in the very centre of the narrow road. It was necessary to make a considerable detour through the neighboring fields, for none of our animals would go within fifty feet of the disgusting spectacle.

For the first two leagues we followed the regular road to Lima and the north, branching off when we reached the ford over the Pongora River, then passing through several small plantations and near two vineyards, we crossed the river Yucaes on a new suspension bridge and climbed the face of a steep cliff by a zigzag trail. We had good animals and kept them going at a comfortable trot so that we arrived at the little village of Quinua in three and a half hours after leaving Ayacucho.

The plaza of Quinua is surrounded on three sides by houses and ruins, the fourth side being taken up by the church. Like the other houses in the vicinity, these were built of stone and earth and roofed with red tiles. Many of the roofs had been allowed to fall into decay, and the house which was pointed out as the place where the truce was signed after the battle, and where the Spanish General surrendered to General Sucre, had entirely lost its covering.

A hasty lunch was prepared for us at a little mud hut called a tavern, and as soon after as possible we re-mounted and rode north for half a mile up the face of a little hill and found ourselves on the plain where was fought the last great battle of the South American Wars of Independence. A monument, apparently made of some kind of plaster, and naturally in a very bad state of repair, marked the centre of the plain. Near by was a kind of shed or shelter for the horses, and a little to the westward the walls of a memorial chapel that had not yet been completed. North of the plain the heights of Condorkanqui rise abruptly. A new road had recently been constructed over them to the warm valleys beyond, but it was still perfectly possible to see the old trail down which the Spanish troops marched in their attack on the patriots.

The altitude of the field is nearly eleven thousand feet, and romantically inclined writers have sometimes spoken of this as the “battle above the clouds.” As a matter of fact, we had considerable difficulty in taking photographs owing to the low hanging clouds that continually swept down from the summits of Condorkanqui. Fortunately it did not rain all the time.

Few battles have ever been fought on a height that offered such a magnificent view. From all parts of the battlefield, a superb panorama is spread out to the east, south, and west, embracing the entire valley of Ayacucho.

After spending the afternoon on the field, we returned to the little tavern where the evening passed very pleasantly and we were entertained by the Indian villagers who were celebrating the Carnival. They came in throngs bringing us parched corn, popcorn, and chicha, swearing eternal friendship, and expressing their appreciation that we should come such a long distance to see their famous battlefield. The village appeared to be divided into three wards, and the alcalde of each ward was anxious that we should eat and drink just as much of his offering as we had of the others.

They were easily satisfied, however, and appeared to be having a very good time. I never saw Indians enjoy themselves more. As a conclusion to the entertainment, two Indian women were instructed to sing for us. Their performance consisted in a wailing duet, beginning loud and high, ascending with a powerful crescendo to screeching falsetto notes and then gradually descending and diminishing into a wheeze like a very old parlor organ with leaky bellows.

We spent the next morning photographing different parts of the battlefield and trying to get a better idea of the reasons for Sucre’s victory. I was very forcibly impressed by the skill with which he had chosen his position.

The little plain, really a plateau, is literally surrounded by ravines. It was just large enough to allow Sucre to use his seven or eight thousand men to the best advantage. An enemy attacking him must perforce come up hill on every side, even though it would seem as though the Spanish troops descending from Condorkanqui would have had some advantage. But they were under fire all the time they were descending to the plain, and just

before they reached it, they found themselves in a little gully up the sides of which they had to scramble at a disadvantage before they could actually be on a level with the defenders. La Serna was too good a general not to have appreciated the strength of Sucre’s position. In fact, as General Miller points out, the mistake of the Viceroy in attacking originated in allowing himself to be over-persuaded by the eagerness of his troops. Their patience had been exhausted by terrible marches which seemed to them to be endless. Only a few days before the battle, the tents of the Viceroy and his chief general had had lampoons pasted on them, accusing them of cowardice. It may fairly be said that he was goaded into action contrary to his own judgment.

The battle of Ayacucho, besides being the final combat, was one of the most brilliant in the history of the Wars of Independence. The troops on both sides were well-seasoned veterans. The generals in command were among the ablest that the long wars had developed. Every man fought with bravery. Although the Patriots were outnumbered, they made up for it by enthusiasm and by a knowledge that there was no opportunity for them to retreat. They were aided by the lay of the land, but the result was due to a most determined valor and a heroic daring that must always gratify lovers of Peruvian history.

We returned to the city in the middle of the afternoon in time to take a little walk in the streets and be bombarded by little Carnival balloons filled with scented water, egg-shells filled with colored powder, and the other missiles that are commonly employed to bear witness to the fact that Lent is approaching. The ladies and children, who occupied points of vantage in the second-story windows, kept up a brisk fire on everyone who ventured along the streets, and we had to do some very rapid dodging to avoid being entirely soaked and colored with all the hues of the rainbow.

In the evening, notwithstanding a terrific downpour of rain, the “society of Ayacucho,” including the Archbishop, the Prefect, and fifty or sixty of their friends, “tendered us” an elaborate banquet which quite took the palm for variety of food and drink. There were no less than fourteen courses besides seven kinds of wine including champagne. The after-dinner speeches were also quite remarkable. Hitherto, the chief interest in us had been the fact that we had “visited the lost city of Choqquequirau,” but here Choqquequirau meant little or nothing. The battlefield of Ayacucho meant everything, and the fact that we were delegados from a country whose aid Peru hoped to receive in case Chile became troublesome meant a great deal more. Whether it was at this banquet or at one of those that preceded it in the past three weeks, I do not remember, but the opinion was expressed more than once that, rather than have another war with Chile, they would surrender to the United States and become a protectorate. I mention this not as an indication of national sentiment, but merely to show the state of feeling that prevailed in the interior of Peru at the time, and the attitude with which they regarded the possibility of another war with Chile.

A large part of the hatred that exists between Chilean and Peruvian is due to their native ancestry. In the Chilean there is a large percentage of Araucanian blood. In the Peruvian there is as much of the blood of the Quichuas. The Araucanians are the hereditary foes of the Quichuas. For centuries there was no peace between them. The Incas pushed their army of Quichuas as far south as possible, but they never could conquer the lands where the Araucanians roved. Even the all-conquering Spanish soldiers were blocked in southern Chile. It is not necessary to repeat here the long story of the Araucanian wars and the heroic deeds of Lautaro and his kinsmen. Instead of being easily conquered by the handful of Spanish adventurers as were the Incas and Quichuas, the Araucanians kept the Spaniards at bay for centuries, and were in fact never subdued.

The Araucanians and the Quichuas had as different racial characteristics as can be imagined. Although the Araucanians did not constitute a nation in the proper sense of the word but were divided into a large number of clans, each independent and recognizing no master, they never allowed any outside people to interfere with their national life. They were intensely independent. Even the chiefs lacked authority in time of peace. There were no serfs or slaves. More important still, there were no laws; private wrongs had to be settled privately. All of these elements must be taken into consideration when contemplating the character of the Chilean of to-day. His Spanish ancestors brooked no interference and recognized no central government, but his Araucanian forebears were still more intensely fond of individual liberty. His Spanish ancestors were brave and fearless. No better soldiers existed in Europe in the sixteenth century. The Araucanians were even more warlike, and after their first few defeats by the invaders, they successfully assumed the offensive, storming Spanish towns and carrying off cattle and horses. They organized troops of cavalry, learning to excel on an animal that their fathers had never heard of, and which the Quichuas even now rarely dare to mount. The entire Araucanian nation was less numerous than the army of Quichuas that surrounded Atahualpa when he was successfully attacked by Pizarro, yet they killed more Spanish soldiers than fell in the conquest of the entire remainder of the continent. With such an ancestry, it is not remarkable that the Chileans are notoriously the best fighters on the continent to-day. Contrast their inheritance with that of the Peruvians.

The Quichuas were and are a timid, peaceful folk lacking in dignity, defending themselves rather with cunning and falsehood than by deeds of arms. The servile sentiment is deeply rooted in the Quichua nature. He maintains a sense of loyalty for his former masters, but he has absolutely no idea of liberty or independence. The Quichuas had reached a higher state of culture than the Araucanians but their manly characteristics were far less developed. In fact, at the time of the Spanish conquest, they seem to have been already in a decadent condition. With such blood in their veins, it is not surprising that the Peruvians were easily defeated by the Chileans, their country overrun and humiliated, their valuable nitrate fields seized, and the seeds of intense national hatred planted that will take generations to eradicate.