Archibald Smith

Descent from Pasco to Huanuco.—Succession of works for grinding and amalgamating silver ore.—Quinoa.—Cajamarquilla.—Huariaca.—San Rafael.—Ambo.—Vale of Huanuco; its beauties and advantages.—State of agriculture in this vale, and traffic with Pasco.—The College named La Virtud Peruana.—Steam navigation on the river Huallaga, and civilization of the wild Indians of the MontaÑa.—Natural productions of the MontaÑa.

Some of the valleys in Peru, like that by Obrajillo and Canta, extend from the coast to the Cordillera: some are only a few leagues of rapid descent from the puna or lofty table-land, as Tarma, for example, from the heights of Junin; but others sink deeply into the bosom of the central Andes, or dip under the brow of the MontaÑa, as, for example, Guarrigancha and Huanuco, of the latter of which we purpose to offer a more particular account.

Huanuco is not to be confounded with the ancient town called Leon de Guanuco, of which the remarkable remains are still well worth visiting on the high pasture-land of Huamalies: for the city now called Huanuco, or, as some write it, Guanuco, is in a delightful valley, twenty-two leagues in a north-easterly direction from the mines of Cerro Pasco, with a descent of about seven thousand feet; thus situated, as nearly as may be, half-way in respect to altitude between Cerro Pasco and the ocean.

In the first three leagues of our descent from the mines to the vale, we pass by a number of mills for grinding metal, preparatory to its being mixed with salt and quicksilver for the purpose of amalgamation. These are situated in a narrow rocky glen; the rugged road through it lying often along the bed of the stream that wanders down it, putting a great many mills successively in motion as it is directed into troughs or canals leading to the clumsy machinery of the haciendas, to which the ore is conducted at great trouble and expense, on the backs of mules, donkeys, and llamas.

From the village of Quinoa, only three leagues from Cerro, and once celebrated for its gold mine, to the village of Cajamarquilla, two leagues lower down, the road is furrowed, deep, and miry during the wet season; but the pasture-grounds are good, and upon these the cattle of the miners are sent to feed at small expense. From two to three leagues below Cajamarquilla, of which we took notice in our account of Cerro Pasco, is Huariaca, a small town with a large plaza, or square, and very good houses. This town is the centre of a curacy and seat of a governor, with a climate analogous to that of Obrajillo on the road between Lima and Cerro, or Cerro Pasco, formerly noticed. Its artificial productions are also the same as we formerly mentioned, viz. maize, wheat, beans, potatoes, &c.; but here natural vegetation is more luxuriant, and the air exceedingly benign: the frosts are seldom so keen as to blight or wither the parks of lucern, and troublesome heat is unknown. Huariaca is endeared to the memory of many a Cornish miner, who lost his health in Cerro Pasco, and at this rendezvous for convalescence rejoiced in the smiling aspect of nature, and enjoyed the delightful feeling of returning health. The writer, in common with several of his countrymen, has to lament the premature death of the curate of this place, Dr. Don Pablo de Marticurena; whose intelligence, hospitality, and amiable disposition rendered him an object of love and respect, while his house was the home of the traveller, and the abode of charity, without distinction of creed or country. A league below Huariaca, we cross a bridge placed over the small river of Cono or Pallanchacra, a short distance above which is the famous tepid mineral well of Cono; to which, as it is in a temperate little glen, the sick have frequent recourse. On the banks of this stream we have peaches in perfection and plenty; and as we approach towards the village of Saint Rafael, a few leagues lower down, we are amused by looking up at heights topped with Indian hamlets, and at little flats and declivities under crop of wheat and potatoes, &c. and, near the river, maize. The temperature of Saint Rafael is delicious, and this locality is free from any endemic disease.

From Saint Rafael to Ambo is a distance of several leagues of hard road, sometimes running close to the river’s edge, often running along the steep, and with its rocky staircases and narrow passes subjected in time of rains to be blocked up by large stones and small trees, carried down by the mountain torrents. Where the glen expands towards the hill-tops, but closes so narrowly below as only to give room for the channel of the river, we find the road at certain narrows carried along the face of the rock; and here the craggy projections serve as supporters for poles or rafters extending along the intervening gaps, and covered with flags or brushwood laid on and coated with a little earth, thus forming an extremely awkward and narrow bridgeway suspended over the stream. At Ambo, nine leagues lower down than Huariaca, the aspect of the country is changed. Here the loud chirping (for it cannot be called croaking) of little frogs heard by night—the granadilla in elegant flowering festoons seen by day on the pacay and lucuma tree, tell the warm and thirsty traveller that he has come to the land of “guarapo,”[7] where he may enjoy the cool of the corridor, and cast off the load of his Sierra ponchos and heavy clothing.

From Ambo to the city of Huanuco we have five leagues of a charming ride; and from Ambo downwards, the Vale of Huanuco may be said to commence. In this vale the writer resided for three years. The year is, as usual, divided into the wet and dry seasons, observing the same periods of change as we have already noticed to belong to the seasons on the high Sierra. In this valley, however, snow never falls, except on the summits of the highest hills; and the thermometer of Fahrenheit is seldom seen to rise above 72° in the shade of the veranda, or wide-spreading fig-tree. In the hottest day, when every little stone on the surface of the newly-turned field glistens in the sunbeams, so as to torment the sight, the thermometer rises very high on being exposed in the open air to the direct rays of the sun; but, upon being removed into the shade, it again falls to a very few degrees above 70°; and scarcely ever throughout the whole year is it seen to sink under 66° of the night thermometer placed within doors,—thus manifesting an equability of atmospherical temperature altogether as extraordinary as it is benignant. So small, then, is the range of the thermometer in this fine locality, that the state of the internal circulation of our frame is but little disturbed by sudden changes induced by vicissitudes of temperature. To the uniform mildness of its atmosphere it may be principally owing that pulmonary consumption is as little a disease of this favoured locality as ague;[8] for we never, during the period of three years that we resided here, had occasion to know of a single instance in which this disease originated in the valley; but those who, by residing in other situations, had their lungs nearly wasted by consumption and spitting of blood, have, in different parts of this valley, found a temporary asylum which afforded a prolongation of life when entire restoration to health was physically impossible. The climate is sometimes complained of as too dry, it being only during the rainy months that the perspiration commonly becomes sensible on moderate exertion. During the greater part of the year the reflected rays of the sun on the sides of the valley would render it intolerably hot, were it not for the daily breeze that, from about 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. comes with uniform regularity from the MontaÑa, through the aperture in the mountains along which the river of Huanuco rolls towards the Huallaga and great MaraÑon.

In August and September, no perceptible dew falls; but during these months, when vegetation among the small neighbouring dales becomes scanty, the deer often steal in herds to the thickets near the river; and we have stalked them at midnight in the midst of the fields, without discovering a trace of moisture on the alfalfa leaf. The nights are always delightful; and the sky, when it does not rain, is pure, bright, and beautiful. The hills on the eastern side of the valley are clothed with pastures, have perennial springs and wood in their dingles and corries, and are capable of grazing cattle all the year: but opposite to these, on the western side, the hills, like those of the coast, are dull arid masses for nine months in the year, only furnishing a sparse growth of flowering shrubs and weeds on their sides; whilst their elevated tops alone throw forth a denser crop of sweet herbage, on which folds of cattle regale themselves in the months of January, February, and March,—at a season, as we have seen, when the uncultivated heights near the coast are scorched, and stripped of all vegetation except cacti and some bulbous plants. But the plains that spread round the base of the hills and mountains that go to form the Vale of Huanuco, are never allowed to take upon them the withered face of winter. By the aid of rivulets from the mountains, sometimes diverted from their natural channels by art, and carried, by circuitous aqueducts of many miles in extent, the numerous flats among the recesses of the heights and slopes, frequently elevated much above the lower plains, are kept ever verdant and productive, in like manner as the fields and enclosures in the bottom of the vale are fertilized by canals from the river. The best sugar-cane comes to maturity in about eighteen months or two years, and yields several cuttings of after-growth. The lucern or alfalfa, without the aid of top-dressing, gives six crops annually for an indefinite number of years; and in some favoured spots it yields a cutting in six weeks, and therefore gives eight crops yearly. The writer had a plot that yielded, at this rate, alfalfa of about a yard in height, and in good flower. The plantain, both long and short, and the richest tuna, or Indian fig, grow in abundance; the finest pineapples are brought from the neighbouring MontaÑa, where vegetation is much more rapid and vigorous than in the Vale of Huanuco. In this vale, however, the palta and cheremoya mellow on the branches in their native soil. The maguey, coffee, cotton, and vine, the pomegranate and orange, the citron, lemon, and lime, &c. flourish here; and the meanest villager, as well as the humblest lodger under a cane-roofed shed, inhales with every breath the odours of never-failing blossoms. As the morning sun gilds the high ridges of this happy valley, its inhabitants are animated to the daily labours of the field by the cheerful voice of the prettily-plumaged inmates of their well-shaded bowers. Such, then, are some of the more prominent beauties and natural advantages of the Vale of Huanuco: and we may here mention, that the city of Huanuco is the principal seat of recreation for him who wastes his strength and frets his temper in the too often delusive pursuit of wealth in Cerro Pasco, and other inclement mining localities in the neighbourhood. In spite of their vexations and misfortunes, few can have invested themselves with a mood so sad or so cynic as not to enjoy and partake of the enthusiastic glee and antiquated gambols of a carnival feast in Huanuco.

The agriculture of Huanuco,—though alluring to the eye of the ordinary traveller, who only glances at its rich and waving fields, enclosed within tapias or fences of mud, and hedges of the Indian fig, and aloe or maguey plants,—is in every way defective as a branch of industry. The fields owe their luxuriance to nature rather than to man, except in the single advantage of water, which he often directs and supplies to them. Manure is a thing never thought of; and the ground seldom requires it, though we see the same spot year after year under crop: but much of the soil which is considered poor might be rendered fertile, in so favourable a climate, if the people would only take the trouble of cleaning out their large cattle-pens once a year; but this would be to diverge from their accustomed routine, which they dislike to forsake. The implements of husbandry are of the rudest kind. The plough, which is slight and single-handed, is constructed merely of wood, without mould-board, which we have seen a one-handed person manage with perfect dexterity. The ploughshare is a thick iron blade, only tied when required for use by a piece of thong, or lasso, on the point of the plough, which divides the earth very superficially. Where the iron is not at hand, as frequently happens, we understand that the poor peasant uses, instead, a share made of hard iron-wood that grows in the MontaÑa. Harrows they have, properly speaking, none: if we remember well, they sometimes use, instead, large clumsy rakes; and we have seen them use a green bough of a tree dragged over the sown ground, with a weight upon it to make it scratch the soil. In room of the roller, of which they never experienced the advantage, they break down the earth in the field intended for cane-plants, after it has got eight or ten ploughings and cross-ploughings, with the heel of a short-handled hoe which they call “lampa;” a tool which they use with great dexterity in weeding the cane-fields and clearing aqueducts. For smoothing down the clods of earth, we have seen some Indians use a more antiquated instrument. It consisted of a soft, flat, and round stone, about the size of a small cheese, which had a hole beaten through its centre by dint of blows with a harder and pointed stone. To the stone thus perforated they fixed a long handle, and, as they swung it about, they did great execution in the work of “cuspiando” or field-levelling.

Lucern or alfalfa is daily cut down, and used green, as scores of cattle and the working oxen for the plough and sugar-mills are to be fed by it; yet the scythe is not in use among the great planters, who find it necessary to keep two or three individuals at the sickle to cut down food for herds, in the daytime fed on irrigated pastures, but at night fed in corrals or pens.

Potato-ground they are accustomed to break up on the face of steeps with deep narrow spades, to which long handles are attached, that afford good leverage. In the same manner the soil is turned up by those who have neither plough nor oxen, but who yet sow maize on the temperate flats on the hill-sides, and in the midst of thickets by mountain streams, where the soil is usually fertile, and materials for fencing are at hand. People thus circumstanced make holes in the ground with a sharp-pointed stick, where they bury the seed secure, that it may not be taken up by the fowls of the air; and that, when dropped in virgin soil, it may yield a luxuriant crop and plentiful harvest. The Indian sows the white-grained maize in preference to the yellow, (morocho,) as he considers that when toasted it makes the best “cancha,” which the poor Indian everywhere uses instead of bread; and that when boiled it makes the blandest “mote,” for so they call the simply boiled maize: it has moreover the credit of making the most savoury chicha, or beer, which they home-brew whenever they have a little surplus grain at their command. They also, as we were given to understand, make a kind of beer from the fermented juice of the maize-stalks compressed between small rollers of wood moved with the hand. The usual application of dry maize-leaves and stubble is to feed cattle, and for this purpose it is considered more fattening than either alfalfa or sugar-cane tops.

Agi, or pimento, is cultivated around the little Indian houses and gardens in the Vale of Huanuco; and without this condiment the natives hardly relish any kind of food.

The sugar-mills in this valley are, the greater number of them, made of wood, and moved by oxen. On the larger estates small brass rollers are used; but with a single exception, on the estate of Andaguaylla, where we were concerned in erecting a water-mill for the purpose of grinding sugar-cane, the proprietors adhere to the old practice of working with oxen by day and by night throughout the year, barring accidents, and feasts or holy-days.

The beautiful hacienda or estate of Quicacan, Colonel Lucar’s, is a model of industry and method after the fashion of the country; and the most distinguished family of Echegoyen have, in Colpa-grande, the finest cane-estate, as far as we know, in the interior of Peru. It extends for nine or ten miles along the fertile banks of the river, from the city of Huanuco towards the ascents that lead into the MontaÑa.

Respecting Huanuco, although the principal city or capital of the department to which it belongs, we have to observe, that the consumption of its agricultural produce, as well as its own internal prosperity, depends on the mineral seat of Cerro Pasco. When the population of the Cerro rises to ten or twelve thousand, every article of Huanuco produce is in high demand; but when, from any cause, the mines are not wrought, or when these are inundated from defective drainage, and the hands employed in working them are fewer in number, the HuanuqueÑos and other neighbouring agriculturists are greatly discouraged or actually ruined; because, deprived of this outlet for their produce, they cannot undertake the expense of sending sugar and spirits on mules to the coast. The consequence is, that they are frequently poor in the midst of plenty; like the owners of extensive herds of sheep on the high pasture-lands, whose wool is of little value to them, as it cannot pay for mule or llama carriage to the coast; and the scanty produce of the looms of the interior have little estimation, as the ruined “obrages,” or manufactories, now amply testify. The shuttle is, moreover, nearly put at rest by the cheaper articles of warm woollen as well as cotton clothing continually introduced from the stores of our English manufacturers.

A staple article of Huanuco commerce with Cerro Pasco is the coca-leaf, from their MontaÑa, only distant about fifteen leagues from the city; an article of which they have several crops yearly. The indigo growers in the contiguous MontaÑa have, we believe, forsaken their enterprise, for want of funds to proceed with the manufacture of what, from the samples produced, was considered a good article.

Much of the fruit of the Huanuco orchards is eaten at the tables of the PasqueÑos, or inhabitants of Cerro; and in the convents are made excellent sweet preserves, which are highly valued, and circulated in the surrounding country as nice and most welcome presents rather than as formal articles of commerce.

Several lands formerly belonging to convents are now appropriated as endowments of the college of Huanuco, named La Virtud Peruana, which is the only school of its kind at present open in the department of Junin. This temple of Peruvian virtue, for so the Lyceum, which was formerly a convent, has been emphatically called, was installed in May 1829, under the rectorship of Doctor Don Gregorio de Cartagena; and the writer would now desire from his native country to offer to this acute and enlightened gentleman his grateful acknowledgments for the generous hospitality of which he was himself the object, when, pilgrim and stranger as he was, he knocked at the gates of the “Temple of Peruvian Virtue.” Doctor Don Gregorio de Cartagena, jointly with his distinguished relative Doctor Don Manuel Antonio de Valdizan, has the honour of being considered the founder of this college in his native city, as we learn from the speech of Doctor Don Buena Ventura Lopez, delivered in the college chapel on the day of installation, and published, with other harangues made on the same occasion, in the periodical then commenced as the first-fruits of the Huanuco press, under the very happy title of “The Echo of the MontaÑa.”

In the speech of Dr. Lopez, he encourages the rising generation to take the best advantage of the new path to knowledge, virtue, and honourable distinction now freely opened to them by the meritorious exertions of two of the most eminent natives of Huanuco. He exhorts his young hearers never to forget how much they owe to these patriots and benefactors:

“And you,” says he, “fortunate young men, in possession of advantages which were denied to your forefathers, let the names of your indulgent friends Valdizan and Cartagena, coupled with the obligations of this day, sink deep into your hearts: warmed as they are with feelings of the purest delight, they will readily receive the generous impression, ay, and retain it for ever.”

The kind and affable inhabitants of this city in the bosom of the Andes have their imaginations excited with the hopes of their rising glories, and their own happy valley is too narrow for their expanding desires. So full are their literati of the flattering idea that an English colony on the river Huallaga may extend its industry and enterprise to the cultivation of the great pampa del Sacramento, that they already fancy proper depÔts and harbours selected, docks prepared, and ships building from the timber of their own MontaÑa, to carry them a voyage of pleasure and profit round the world. They imagine little steamers up to Playa-grande, or even to the falls at Casapi, or the port of Cuchero on the river Chinchao, within a couple of days’ journey of their city; and, when their wishes are realized, they calculate that their now useless and neglected copper mines shall be more precious, and draw in upon them more wealth than ever did brilliants or diamonds on their distant neighbours of Brazil. And no wonder that the natives of this Elysian valley should be overjoyed at such prospects; since their long-continued communication with the canoe-men of the Huallaga on the one side, and in former times with those of the missionaries at the port or settlement of Mayro on the other, familiarise them with the notion of navigating the Huallaga and Ucayali; while the intervening plains of Sacramento they consider to be naturally the richest and most capable of improvement of any in the world. Even the miner of Cerro Pasco finds his fancy warmed when he reflects on the prospect of a steam navigation on the MaraÑon. Don Jose Lago y Lemus, one of the most distinguished of the veteran miners of Pasco, published in 1831 a pamphlet in illustration of the advantages that might accrue to the republic from this navigation. In this pamphlet he endeavours to show that the portions of Peruvian territory hitherto occupied, and consisting of arid coasts and rugged mountainous districts, are not to be compared, in point of natural interest or national importance, with the immense plains and fertile MontaÑa or wooded deserts on the eastern frontier; and he manifests a laudable and patriotic zeal in endeavouring to arouse the attention of his countrymen to this most momentous subject.

Don Jose expresses himself thus:

“The undersigned, being convinced of the truths he lays before the public, and at the same time anxiously desiring, in virtue of his appointment, both the welfare of the department and the province which he represents, he proposes to the most honourable Junta,” (viz. the departmental Junta of Junin, assembled in the city of Huanuco,) “a project of the grandest magnitude, capable of making the entire republic prosper, and of placing her in the rank and circumstances to compete with, and be the envy of, the most powerful states in the world. It will be said truly, that we were not heretofore ignorant of the treasures and riches of the actual productions in the MontaÑas of the Peruvian territory; it is equally certain that the want of hands, capital, and men of enterprise, have been powerful causes why we were unable to enjoy these natural advantages. If this be our state of weakness—if its commencement be traceable to our colonial condition, and that Providence has reserved the remedy till the epoch of our freedom and an age of intellectual light, let us make every effort to reap such incalculable benefits. Commercial relations are those that enlighten the people; by this powerful magic friendships are acquired, and with the most remote inhabitants of the globe bonds of brotherhood are established. Let, then, the grand canal of the MaraÑon be rendered navigable for steam vessels; so that, by the diverse and lesser streams that form this great river, we may procure them entrance to the immediate environs of our cities, towns, and villages, situated on the banks of the Huallaga.

“Ah, gentlemen! What a sudden and extraordinary emotion this idea excites in my mind! My imagination already combines the ideas that suggest themselves respecting this privileged city of Huanuco. Now its spacious fields are held worthy of higher cultivation and care; its abandoned streets I see crowded with useful citizens; the banks of its ample river Huallaga present a varied and charming perspective of shipping, newly elevated towns, open tracts of woodland, and cultivated lawns. Allured by the novelty of this scene, innumerable tribes of the wild Indians will unite themselves with us; they are our brethren, and, when thus intimately brought into contact with us, they may frankly discover to our knowledge those hidden treasures of our forests which their ignorance and barbarism hitherto concealed; and, as integral parts of Peru, they will conduce to its grandeur and respectability. Gentlemen, the most vivid imagination is lost in this contemplation, and finds itself overwhelmed by the number and vastness of the objects which crowd into its thoughts.”

The above patriotic effusion, very worthy of a departmental deputy of Junin, may appear to the reader to paint in too glowing terms the capabilities and importance of the MontaÑa on the confines of Huanuco. But, considering the extent and fertility of the territory, the navigable nature of its principal rivers, and the generally salubrious character of its climate, we believe that he who attempts to depict its various superiorities and advantages is more likely to come short of his object, than to overrate the reality which in imagination he may desire to trace.

Those regions in the MontaÑa which are watered by the Huallaga, Ucayali, and MaraÑon, with various subsidiary rivers interspersed among the intervening grounds, have as yet been but inadequately explored, and therefore only a very imperfect account can be offered of their aspect and natural productions.

From May to November the sun shines very powerfully in the MontaÑa, and consequently the soil, where it is cleared of wood,—for example, in the valley of Chinchao—becomes so parched that its surface opens in chinks; but underneath it always preserves humidity, and therefore needs no irrigation. From November to May it rains much, sometimes for six or seven days without intermission.

In the rivers, alligators, tortoises, and a variety of fish are found; and these also swarm in the ponds or lakes formed during the inundations of the rainy season. The most remarkable inhabitant of these waters is the manati, sometimes called pexebuey,[9] from its supposed resemblance to the cow or ox. Like the cetaceous family to which it belongs, it suckles its young, and also feeds among the grass on the banks of the rivers.

The trees of the forest are inhabited by parrots, tanagers, and a surprising variety of birds, whose exquisite plumage vies with butterflies and flowers in the beauty, delicacy, and combination of their tints. Monkeys are so numerous as to form a chief article of animal food for the Indian hunter, dexterous in the use of the bow and arrow, or of the cerbatÁna, a long and hollow piece of wood through which he blows a small arrow, and hits his mark, at short distances, with fatal precision. There are very many venomous serpents. Wild-boars, deer, pumas, bears, tigers, and tapirs, frequent these forests, and are objects of the chase.

The vegetable productions of the MontaÑa, here considered as articles of commerce, or adopted for economical uses, are numerous. Among the valuable woods are cedar, and chonta or ebony, mahogany, walnut, and almond-tree. Edible herbs and roots, except the potato and yuca, are little cultivated; but coffee, plantains, and sugar-cane, of which a variety called the blue or azul is very luxuriant, are reared with some care, where nature indeed requires but little aid from the hand of man. The sugar-cane comes to maturity earlier than in other parts of Peru, and yields an annual crop at very little cost of production.

In the fertile vale of Chinchao, famous for its coca plantations, a few proprietors of Huanuco cultivate frijoles, or beans, for the use of the coca-gatherers: rice is also grown by the humid banks of the great rivers, and maize is everywhere sown as a necessary of life.

In the MontaÑa, chicha is made from maize, as in other parts of Peru; but the natives here make a drink called masata, not known in more civilized parts of the country, produced by chewing the yuca or maize, &c. and then leaving it to ferment, when, according to the quantity of water added to it, the fermented juice will be found of greater or less intoxicating power.

Indigo, as we have before noticed, is of MontaÑa growth, as is also tobacco.

Cotton, spun and wove into cloths of various texture by the Indians, requires no artificial assistance for its luxuriant growth. Lemons, limes, oranges, citrons, and other cooling fruit, are also productions of those parts.

The pine-apple is very abundant, as well as of delicious flavour, though it grows wild: and among the articles of spontaneous growth in the MontaÑa contiguous to Huanuco we may enumerate cacao or cocoa, cinnamon, guaiacum, vanilla, black wax, storax, dragon’s blood, oil of Maria, gum caraÑa, balsam of copaiba, copal, and many other gums, balsams, and resins. Cinchona and sarsaparilla abound in great quantity.

For the following account of medicinal plants, collected during a journey down the river Huallaga, and through part of Maynas, we are indebted to the kindness of Mr. Mathews, an English botanist, formerly mentioned.