334 IN THE WILDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 



something, so they walked along raising their front feet 

 like well-trained circus horses. 



A ride of thirty miles next day brought us to Pampa 

 Grande. The town was anything but what the name led 

 us to expect. Instead of a vast, grass-covered pampa, 

 there was but a semiarid plain; near by extended the wide, 

 rocky bed of a river that contained not a drop of water. 

 The inhabitants had dug deep down into the gravel and 

 scooped up the small quantity of thin mud that had collected; 

 it is a place about the size of Mizque but wretched-looking 

 and forsaken. Formerly it had a population of sixty thou- 

 sand and was noted for the brilliancy and gayety of its 

 annual fairs, that drew crowds even from the Argentine. 

 Epidemics of fever, it is said, killed off many of the people, 

 and others fled from the threatening shadow of the pesti- 

 lence, until to-day the once thriving city has all but ceased 

 to exist. 



At Pampa Grande we had a very good illustration of 

 two extreme types of BoHvian character. When we en- 

 tered the town, our travelling companion met an ac- 

 quaintance who owned practically the only house of any 

 size. The Bolivian greeted him in the friendliest and 

 most polite manner possible, and insisted that all of us 

 spend the night at his home; he directed us to the house 

 and then excused himself, saying that he would return pres- 

 ently. We found the place without difficulty, but the wife 

 refused to admit us and told us we might wait — in the 

 street — ^until the return of her husband. The school-teacher, 

 seeing our predicament, ventured to offer us the use of the 

 classroom; he apologized because it was so small and the 

 roof leaked; and the next day he refused to accept a single 

 centavo for the accommodation. The first man had not 

 returned home when we were leaving the following morn- 

 ing; from my experience with the same type of person, I 

 am certain that had he returned and admitted us to his 

 home, he would have made an exorbitant charge that cour- 

 tesy demanded our paying. 



