YANACOTO. 



43 



the side of the hill. It was very narrow, and seemed in some places to 

 overhang the stream fifty feet below it. Just as we were turning an 

 angle of the road we met a man driving two horses before him, which 

 immediately mingled in with our burden mules, and endangered their 

 going over the precipice. Our arriero shouted to the man, and, spurring 

 his horse through the mules, commenced driving back the horses of the 

 other, who flourished his whip, and insisted upon passing. I expected 

 to see a fight, and mischief happen, which would probably have fallen 

 upon us, as the other had nothing to lose, when Ijurra called out to 

 him, and represented that our cargoes were very valuable, and that if 

 one were lost he should be held responsible ; whereupon he desisted, 

 drove his horses back, and suffered us to pass. This caused us to be 

 more careful in our march ; and I sent Gibbon, with Richards, ahead, 

 to warn persons, or give us warning, in time to prevent a collision. 

 The burden mules were driven by the arriero and the servant, in the 

 middle ; while Ijurra and I brought up the rear. 



At 2 p. m. we stopped at the Tambo of Yanacoto. I determined to 

 stay here a day or two to get things shaken into their places, and obtain 

 a new error and rate for the chronometer, which had stopped the day 

 before, a few hours out of Lima, though we had not discovered it till 

 this morning. I cared, however, very little for this, as I was satisfied 

 that it would either stop again or so vary in its rate as to be worthless. 

 No chronometer will stand the jar of mule travel over these roads, 

 especially if carried in the pocket, where the momentum of the jar is 

 parallel to the movement of the balance-wheel of the watch. Were I to 

 carry a chronometer on such a journey again, I would have it placed in 

 its box on a cushion on the saddle-bow; and when I travelled in a canoe, 

 where the motion is the other way, I would hang it up. We pitched 

 the tent in the valley before the road, and proceeded to make ourselves 

 as comfortable as possible ; got an observation for time, and found the 

 latitude of Yanacoto, by Mer. alt. of y Crucis, to be 11° 51' 20". 



May 23. — Bathing before breakfast is, on this part of the route, 

 both heathful and pleasant. There seemed to be no cultivation in this 

 valley, which here is about half a mile wide. It is covered with bushes, 

 except close to the water's edge, where grow reeds and flags. The 

 bushes are dwarf willow, and a kind of locust called ISangre de Ckristo, 

 which bears a broad bean, containing four or five seed, and a pretty red 

 flower, something like our crape myrtle. There is also a bush, of some 

 ten or twelve feet in height, called Molle. This is the most common 

 shrub of the country, and has a wider climatic range than any other of 

 this slope of the Andes. It has long, delicate leaves, like the acacia, and 



