J 96 PASS OF SURUPANA. Chap. XI. 



we readied the little village of San Jose, under a conioal 

 hill, and close to the sno\vy mountains of Surapana. 



I dined with the cura. Fray Juan de Dios Cardenas, who 

 gave me a list of medicinal herbs used in Azangaro ; and 

 the beasts from that place were so infamous that I was 

 obliged to invoke liis assistance to procure fresh ones. It 

 appeared that two Frenchmen had passed a few days before, 

 on their way to establish a saw-mill in the Caravaya forests, 

 with a view to floating timber down the river of Azangaro 

 to lake Titicaca, and that they had ill-treated some Indians. 

 It was thus very difficult to induce them to furnish ponies, 

 but the alcaldes, with their great hats and long sticks, were 

 summoned, and, after some negotiation, they were induced 

 to supply four ponies to go as far as Crucero, the capital of 

 the province of Caravaya. It was most fortunate that I was 

 enabled to do this, for, during the night, the owners of the 

 Azangaro ponies came out to San Jose, and stole them, so 

 that we should have been left without even this wretched 

 means of conveyance. 



From San Jose the path winds up a long ravine for several 

 leagues, down which a torrent dashes furiously over the rocks, 

 descending from the snowy peak of Accosiri. The moun- 

 tain scenery, consisting of steeiD grassy slopes, masses of 

 rock, torrents, and distant snowy peaks, was very fine. The 

 ravine led up to the summit of the pass of Surupana, where 

 it was intensely cold, and the height of which I roughly esti- 

 mated, with a boiling-point thermometer, at 16,700 feet above 

 the sea. Here I met an active young vicuna-hunter, well 

 mounted, and provided with a gun, who said he was a servant 

 of the Cacique Chuquihuanca of Azangaro, on his way to buy 

 wool in Caravaya. He continued in my company during 

 most part of the day. Loud claps of thunder burst out in 

 different directions, and a snow-storm was drifting in our 

 faces. The ravines were covered with deep snow, between 



