THE ROAD. 



113 



July 15. — We got alfalfa for our mules, but it is now getting 

 very scarce. The valley, after leaving San Rafael, is very narrow, and 

 the road rises and falls along the bare flanks of the mountains. The 

 character of the rock is a dark schist; the growth, willows — palma 

 christi — maguey, (a species of cactus, with a very long, broad, yet 

 sharp-pointed leaf,) which throws out from the centre of a clump of 

 leaves a light stalk of three or four inches diameter at the base, and 

 frequently thirty feet in height. This flowers towards the top, and bears 

 a sort of nut-like fruit. The stem is much used for roofing houses, and 

 the broad, thick leaves serve for thatch. 



We shot at condors hovering over a dead mule, and saw a small 

 hawk of variegated and pretty plumage, of a species which we had 

 before seen near Oroya. About ten miles from San Rafael we were 

 crossing the highest part of the chain. An opening in the mountains 

 to the right gave us a view of some splendid snow-clad peaks. After 

 an hour's ride over a precipitous and broken path, rendered dangerous 

 in some places by the sliding of the earth and soft rock from above upon 

 it, we commenced a very sharp descent, which brought us, in fifteen 

 minutes, to fruit-trees and a patch of sugar-cane on the banks of the 

 stream. The sudden transition from rugged mountain peaks, where 

 there was no cultivation, to a tropical vegetation, was marvellous. A 

 few miles further on we crossed the boundary-line between the provinces 

 of Pasco and Huanuco. The transition is agreeable, and I was glad 

 to exchange the mining for the agricultural country. At half-past four, 

 we arrived at the town of Ambo, a village of one thousand inhabitants, 

 situated at the junction of the rivers Huacar and Huallaga. The 

 former stream comes down a ravine to the westward ; each is about 

 thirty-five yards broad, and, uniting, they pour their waters by the town 

 with great velocity. The rock of this region is mostly an argillaceous 

 schist, though just above Ambo the road was bordered by a perpendicu- 

 lar hill of beautiful red sandstone. The strata all along this route are 

 nearly north and south in their directions, and have an inclination 

 upwards towards the north of from forty to seventy degrees. 



Two miles from Ambo, on the right or opposite bank of the river, is 

 another very pretty little village, almost hiden in the luxuriant vegeta- 

 tion about it. The whole valley now becomes very beautiful. From 

 the road on which we were travelling to the river's brink, (a breadth of 

 quarter of a mile,) the land (which is a rich river bottom) is laid off 

 into alternate fields of sugar cane and alfalfa. The blended green and 

 yellow of this growth, divided by willows, interspersed with fruit-trees, 

 and broken into wavy lines by the serpentine course of the river, pre- 



