56 ARC ECOLOGICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL 



only that more stringent laws for protecting the breeding of animals wonld have 

 to be passed. 



From Piura I travelled toward the Andes, traversing the desert this time to the 

 east, as I had crossed its northern portion when coming to Piura. In the first 

 villao-e I came to, called Encantado, I found many tumuli, which were burial-places 

 of the ancients. In those which had been opened nothing but some pottery was 

 found. There was but one earthen vessel in the village thus obtained, which the 

 owner would not show me without being paid for it. 



As soon as I entered the region of the mountain spurs I found the remains of 

 an imposing aqueduct, extending for many miles. Its object seems to have been 

 twofold: first, the irrigation of the desert of Piura, and the prevention of the 

 overflowing of the river of the same name. This latter object was achieved by 

 receiving all the streams on the left side of that river. 



On a hill near the hacienda Coco was a wall eight feet high and six feet thick 

 near the ground, extending from the base of the hill to its top, where the remains 

 of edifices likewise were seen. At the beginning of the defile which leads to the 

 high lands of the Andes and where it makes a sudden angle, a seat was cut in the 

 almost perpendicular rock, around which the road bends, undoubtedly for the 

 accommodation of a sentinel ; and some distance furtlier on was a niche in the 

 rock about six feet high and three feet deep, with an even bottom and rounded on 

 the top, most likely for a similar purpose. Having ascended the high lands and 

 starting on from San Felipe, the guide who was to conduct me was so drunk as to 

 be unable to keep the saddle, and I had to stop in a solitary house on the road. 

 The owner of it was absent in Pomawhuaca (Germ, spell.), a hamlet of four houses, 

 where the feast of the patron was being celebrated, and only his daughter and 

 granddaughter were present. I could not induce these women to sell me some 

 of the green maize-stalks growing near the house ; they gave as an excuse the 

 impossibility of getting anybody to plant the maize again. I off"ered to plant for 

 them as much as they would sell me, but they would not even allow me fo weed 

 the lot, which was overgrown, hoping my horses would eat some of them. So I 

 had the painful feeling again of seeing my horses starving. 



The next afternoon I reached Pomawliuaca at the conclusion of the feast. 

 These occasions last eight days, the celebration consisting in drinking day and 

 night without intermission. There I could buy some grass, but nobody was willing 

 to cut it; so I had to do it myself with a knife. I found there again the indigo 

 plant J'ujullite, growing wild, the people not knowing its properties. To get to 

 the next village, Pucara, I had to pass a river on a kind of raft (halsa) constructed 

 of three trunks of trees of very light wood, about fourteen feet long. These stems 

 form the sides and centre of the raft, and between them is a bamboo four inches 

 thick. These five pieces are fastened near their ends to a piece of wood lying 

 across. Between the stems and the bamboo are open spaces to give the raft more 

 width. To protect the luggage from the water coming through these open spaces 

 some brush is laid on the top of the raft, and the ba£r?a<re is placed on this. For 

 the same reason the passenger has to pull off his shoes and socks, if he has any 

 on, and roll up his pantaloons, as the raft submerges almost entirely when any 

 weight is put on it. Luggage and passenger have therefore to cross separately. 



