ACROSS THE ANDES 145 



gether, then again we might travel for twenty 

 miles without a sign of a habitation or a human 

 being. In one place there was a cluster of build- 

 ings and a little schoolhouse. We stopped to 

 shake hands with the teacher. Some of the 

 ranch-houses were cleanly built and neatly kept, 

 shade-trees being planted round about — the 

 only trees we saw during the entire motor 

 journey. Other houses were slovenly huts of 

 mud and thatch, with a brush corral near by. 

 Around the houses of this type the bare dirt 

 surface was filthy and unkempt, and covered 

 with a litter of the skulls and bones of sheep 

 and oxen, fragments of skin and hide, and odds 

 and ends of all kinds, foul to every sense. 



Every now and then along the road we came 

 to a solitary little store. If it was very poor 

 and squalid, it was called a pulperia; if it was 

 large, it was called an almacen. Inside there 

 was a rough floor of dirt or boards, and a 

 counter ran round it. At one end of the counter 

 was the bar, at which drinks were sold. Over 

 the rest of the counter the business of the 

 store proper was done. Hats, blankets, horse- 

 gear, rude articles of clothing, and the like were 

 on the shelves or hung from rings in the ceiling. 

 Sometimes we saw gauchos drinking at these 

 bars — rough, wild-looking men, some of them 



