114 Mr Ouckshanks 1 s Excursion from Lima to Pasco. 



two trunks on a mule, we set out, accompanied by our hospitable 

 friend, who rode with us to the boundary of his estate, where he 

 left us to pursue our journey. The road continued to wind 

 round the foot of the hills on the south side of the valley, to the 

 estate of Cavallero, where there is a post-house, generally made 

 the first stage from Lima, from which it is distant six leagues. 

 Near this place there is a bend in the valley, and in order to 

 avoid the detour, it is usual to proceed up a ravine among the 

 hills, from whence the road falls again into the valley, several 

 leagues farther up. The ravine is called Rio Seco, (dry river,) 

 and dry enough it certainly is, for not a drop of moisture is seen 

 for a distance of five leagues, although there are unquestionable 

 marks of its having been, at some former period, the bed of a 

 considerable stream. This Rio Seco presents a very fair speci- 

 men of Peruvian barrenness, of which it is hardly possible to 

 form an idea without witnessing it. I have already alluded to 

 the desert appearance of the coast, where you may travel whole 

 days, over pure sand, without any trace of vegetation ; or, if the 

 road lies occasionally near a range of mountains, the scene is 

 only varied by masses of bare rock, of which the fragments that 

 cover the road are as fresh and unsoiled as if they had fallen but 

 yesterday from the hammer of a mason. 



" As the day advanced, we found the heat excessive, having 

 now exchanged the hazy atmosphere of the coast for the clear 

 deep blue sky of a tropical mountain region. At the head of the 

 Rio Seco, the road winds up a steep hill, from the summit of 

 which, the green valley is seen at a distance of two leagues, tan- 

 talizing the thirsty traveller during the two hours that his mule 

 takes to crawl over the rough stony bottom of the ravine that 

 leads to it. 



We regained the main valley about three o'clock, at a place 

 called Yangas, consisting only of half a dozen houses, immedi- 

 ately beyond which is the village of Alcocota, five leagues from 

 Cavallero, by the road we came ; by the valley it is six leagues 

 and a half. The valley, where we turned off, is nearly a league 

 in breadth, but here it had contracted to about a mile, and the 

 hills that bound it are high and steep, especially on the north 

 side, where the rock forms a perpendicular wall. 



" Alcocota is considered the boundary of the rainy district, 



