364 IN THE WILDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 



streams. The temperature varies 100° each twenty-four 

 hours. At two in the afternoon the thermometer registered 

 132° F.; at night ice formed on the water in our pails. 



Christmas day was spent at Puno, with every member 

 of the party ill from the effects of the climatical changes. 

 The inhabitants went about their occupations as usual, 

 quite ignoring this all-important opportunity for a, fiesta. 



All the dwellings of the Indians were made of adobe. In 

 the walls of some of them rows of disused earthenware 

 pots had been used as building material. When the huts 

 crumbled, a fine collection of pottery was covered up in the 

 mound. This is probably an ancient custom and may ac- 

 count for much of the material found in old ruins to-day. 



Two days later, the last of the long, weary miles across 

 the cheerless upland had been left behind, and at noon we 

 galloped briskly into Villazon, on the Bolivian side of the 

 border. 



Villazon contains about a score of scattered, low, adobe 

 buildings. We arrived on a Sunday, when the custom- 

 house was closed, but the officials in charge very courteously 

 permitted us to proceed on our way. A brook three or four 

 feet wide separates the two republics and, stepping across 

 this, we found ourselves in La Quiaca and — in Argentina. 



