Vol. XIX, No. 4 



WASHINGTON 



April, 1908 



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ALONG THE OLD INCA HIGHWAY 



By Harriet Chalmers Adams 

 With photographs by the author 



ON a June morning a season or two 

 ago, we started out from Sicuani, 

 then the terminus of the South- 

 ern Railway of Peru, for Cuzco, ancient 

 capital of the Incas. We had decided not 

 to engage passage on the regular stage 

 coach which connects Sicuani with Cuzco, 

 but to journey instead by private vehicle, 

 that we might loiter by the wayside to 

 study the Quichuas, the remnant of a 

 once mighty people who prospered in this 

 highland country. Remembering the 

 Spanish proverb, "If you can't get what 

 you like, like what you get," I pretended 

 to be quite enthusiastic over our equi- 

 page, which consisted of a rickety cart 

 holding the two of us and our cholo 

 driver, two slow but well-meaning mules 

 in the lead. The Peruvian cholo is of 

 mixed Indian and Spanish blood and con- 

 siders himself in every way superior to 

 the pure-blooded Quichua. 



From Sicuani we traveled over the old 

 Inca highway, worn by the feet of many 

 pilgrims, of many llama- trains, in the 

 days before the Spanish conquest. The 

 home life in these bolsones, the fertile 

 mountain basins which are linked with 

 the valley of Cuzco, is little changed since 

 the long ago. The people are now of 

 Roman Catholic faith and a church tower 

 marks the site of each village, oxen and 

 other domestic animals have been intro- 



duced ; but the crude huts, the homespun 

 dress,' the primitive method of agricul- 

 ture, belong to centuries long past. 



We were so fortunate as to make this 

 journey at harvesting time, and while 

 farming in the World's Roof Garden isn't 

 exactly "up to date," it is most inter- 

 esting to the traveler. In threshing the 

 grain the men drive the oxen about in a 

 circle, encouraging the poor animals by 

 yanking their tails ; in winnowing, the 

 grain and chaff are blown out through a 

 horn, that the wind may separate them. 

 A crooked stick is used in plowing, but 

 what the Quichua farmer lacks in mod- 

 ern machinery he makes up in the deco- 

 rative head-dress of his oxen. 



In costume these mountaineers are 

 most picturesque. Throughout the An- 

 dean highlands the headcovering changes 

 with the locality, and on the road to 

 Cuzco it consists of a large, flat hat, 

 usually of homespun, dyed bright blue or 

 red, bedecked with tinsel (a modern in- 

 novation). Both men and women wear 

 this headgear. The men are attired in 

 knee-breeches, short jackets, and pon- 

 chos; the women in short skirts and low- 

 cut blouses. They are bare-legged and 

 seem scantily clad at an altitude of 11,000 

 feet above the sea. 



In the villages through which we passed 

 the huts were built of mud and thatch, 



