THE COASTAL DESERT 111 



might also be included in the picture. The head of the Majes Val- 

 ley is a vast hollow bordered by cliffs hundreds of feet high, and 

 we reached the rim of it only a few minutes before sunset. 



I remember that we halted beside a great wooden cross and 

 that our guide, dismounting, walked up to the foot of it and kissed 

 and embraced it after the custom of the mountain folk when they 

 reach the head of a steep "cuesta." Also that the trail seemed 

 to drop off like a stairway, which indeed it was. 1 Everything else 

 about me was completely overshadowed by snowy mountains, col- 

 ored sky, and golden-yellow desert. One could almost forget the 

 dark clouds that gather around the great mass of Coropuna and 

 the bitter winds that creep down from its glaciers at night — it 

 seemed so friendly and noble. Behind it lay bulky masses of rose- 

 tinted clouds. We had admired their gay colors only a few min- 

 utes, when the sun dropped behind the crest of the Coast Eange 

 and the last of the sunlight played upon the sky. It fell with such 

 marvelously swift changes of color upon the outermost zone of 

 clouds as these were shifted with the wind that the eye had 

 scarcely time to comprehend a tint before it was gone and one 

 more beautiful still had taken its place. The reflected sunlight 

 lay warm and soft upon the white peaks of Coropuna, and a little 

 later the Alpine glow came out delicately clear. 



When we turned from this brilliant scene to the deep valley, 

 we found that it had already become so dark that its greens had 

 turned to black, and the valley walls, now in deep shadow, had lost 

 half their splendor. The color had not left the sky before the 

 lights of Chuquibamba began to show, and candles twinkled from 

 the doors of a group of huts close under the cliff. We were not 

 long in starting the descent. Here at last were friendly habita- 

 tions and happy people. I had worked for six weeks between 

 12,000 and 17,000 feet, constantly ill from mountain sickness, and 

 it was with no regret that I at last left the plateau and got down 



1 Raimondi (op. eit., p. 109) has a characteristic description of the " Camino del 

 Pefion " in the department of La Libertad: "... the ground seems to disappear from 

 one's feet; one is standing on an elevated balcony looking down more than 6,000 feet 

 to the valley . . . the road which descends the steep scarp is a masterpiece." 



