332 IN THE WILDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 



the interlocking branches were draped with long streamers 

 of grayish moss. The ground was perfectly clean and one 

 could see a long distance ahead in the greenish-gray light. 

 The surroundings were almost weird ; subconsciously one ex- 

 pected to find strange sacrificial altars, and bearded Druids 

 officiating at some gruesome rite of a mythical religion. 

 Beautiful little deer walked timidly among the column-like 

 trunks of the garlanded sanctuary, sniffing the air, and nib- 

 bling daintily at a leaf or twig, and made the hunter feel 

 like an intruder in a consecrated place. 



Upon our return to Comarapa we met a gentleman rep- 

 resenting a mercantile establishment in Cochabamba. He 

 was making his semiannual tour of the region, taking or- 

 ders for merchandise, and collecting for goods sold on the 

 previous trip. Most of his customers paid with silver and 

 nickel coins, so that he had several mule-loads of money in 

 his possession. One night our Indian boy came to us in a 

 state of great excitement. He had been drinking chicha in an 

 Indian liquor-store together with the peons belonging to the 

 merchant, and one of them, while under the influence of 

 drink, boasted that he expected to murder and rob his 

 patron. A plan had been carefully formed to suddenly 

 attack the man from behind, while riding along a lonely 

 and precipitous part of the trail. The body was then to be 

 thrown over the precipice into the river below, where no 

 one would ever discover it, and the money taken by the 

 highwayman and his accomplice. Naturally, we lost no time 

 in imparting this information to the traveller, and he at once 

 interviewed the would-be assassin. He first of all questioned 

 the man carefully, and when he had succeeded in obtaining 

 a partial confession, he mauled him back and forth across 

 the room until he was tired out. Thereafter we all trav- 

 elled together, and the plotter, as further punishment, was 

 deprived of his horse and compelled to walk in advance of 

 the party day after day. He had been in the merchant's 

 employ six years, and the latter did not care to turn him 

 over to the police, but was certain that the punishment 



