Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru | Page 8

region. Our arrieros were unwilling to cross it in the daytime. They said
it was forty-five miles between water and water. The next day we
enjoyed the hospitality of our kindly host until after supper.
So sure are the inhabitants of these oases that it is not going to rain that
their houses are built merely as a shelter against the sun and wind. They
are made of the canes that grow in the jungles of the larger river
bottoms, or along the banks of irrigating ditches. On the roof the spaces
between the canes are filled with adobe, sun-dried mud. It is not
necessary to plaster the sides of the houses, for it is pleasant to let the
air have free play, and it is amusing to look out through the cracks and
see everything that is passing.
That evening we saddled in the moonlight. Slowly we climbed out of
the valley, to spend the night jogging steadily, hour after hour, across
the desert. As the moon was setting we entered a hilly region, and at
sunrise found ourselves in the midst of a tumbled mass of enormous
sand dunes--the result of hundreds of médanos blown across the pampa
of Majes and deposited along the border of the valley. It took us three
hours to wind slowly down from the level of the desert to a point where
we could see the great canyon, a mile deep and two miles across. Its
steep sides are of various colored rocks and sand. The bottom is a
bright green oasis through which flows the rapid Majes River, too deep
to be forded even in the dry season. A very large part of the flood plain
of the unruly river is not cultivated, and consists of a wild jungle,
difficult of access in the dry season and impossible when the river rises
during the rainy months. The contrast between the gigantic hills of sand
and the luxurious vegetation was very striking; but to us the most
beautiful thing in the landscape was the long, glistening, white mass of
Coropuna, now much larger and just visible above the opposite rim of
the valley.
At eight o'clock in the morning, as we were wondering how long it
would be before we could get down to the bottom of the valley and
have some breakfast, we discovered, at a place called Pitas (or Cerro

Colorado), a huge volcanic boulder covered with rude pictographs.
Further search in the vicinity revealed about one hundred of these
boulders, each with its quota of crude drawings. I did not notice any
ruins of houses near the rocks. Neither of the Tejada brothers, who had
been past here many times, nor any of the natives of this region
appeared to have any idea of the origin or meaning of this singular
collection of pictographic rocks. The drawings represented jaguars,
birds, men, and dachshund-like dogs. They deserved careful study. Yet
not even the interest and excitement of investigating the "rocas
jeroglificos," as they are called here, could make us forget that we had
had no food or sleep for a good many hours. So after taking a few
pictures we hastened on and crossed the Majes River on a very shaky
temporary bridge. It was built to last only during the dry season. To
construct a bridge which would withstand floods is not feasible at
present. We spent the day at Coriri, a pleasant little village where it was
almost impossible to sleep, on account of the myriads of gnats.
The next day we had a short ride along the western side of the valley to
the town of Aplao, the capital of the province of Castilla, called by its
present inhabitants "Majes," although on Raimondi's map that name is
applied only to the river and the neighboring desert. In 1865, at the
time of his visit, it had a bad reputation for disease. Now it seems more
healthy. The sub-prefect of Castilla had been informed by telegraph of
our coming, and invited us to an excellent dinner.
The people of Majes are largely of mixed white and Indian ancestry.
Many of them appeared to be unusually businesslike. The proprietor of
one establishment was a great admirer of American shoes, the name of
which he pronounced in a manner that puzzled us for a long time. "W"
is unknown in Spanish and the letters "a," "l," and "k" are never found
in juxtaposition. When he asked us what we thought of
"Valluck-ofair'," accenting strongly the last syllable, we could not
imagine what he meant. He was equally at a loss to understand how we
could be so stupid as not to recognize immediately the well-advertised
name of a widely known shoe.
At Majes we observed cotton, which is sent to the mills