112 



THE ANDES OF SOUTHERN PERU 



to comfortable altitudes. It seemed good news when the guide 

 told me that there were mosquitoes in the marshes of Camana. 

 Any low, hot land would have seemed like a health resort. I had 

 been in the high country so long that, like the Bolivian mining 

 engineer, I wanted to get down not only to sea level, but below it ! 

 If the reader will examine Figs. 65 and 66, and the photographs 

 that accompany them, he may gain an idea of the more important 



Fig. 65 — Regional diagram to show the physical relations in the coastal desert 

 of Peru. For location, see Fig. 20. 



features of the coastal region. We have already described, in 

 Chapters V and VII, the character of the plateau region and its 

 people. Therefore, we need say little in this place of the part 

 of the Maritime Cordillera that is included in the figure. Its 

 unpopulated rim (see p. 54), the semi-nomadic herdsmen and shep- 

 herds from Chuquibamba that scour its pastures in the moist 

 vales about Coropuna, and the gnarled and stunted trees at 13,000 

 feet (3,960 m.) which partly supply Chuquibamba with firewood, 

 are its most important features. A few groups of huts just under 

 the snowline are inhabited for only a part of the year. The de- 

 lightful valleys are too near and tempting. Even a plateau 

 Indian responds to the call of a dry valley, however he may shun 

 the moist, warm valleys on the eastern border of the Cordillera. 



