PACAYAR. 



45 



stony road. To the right were the green cane and alfalfa* fields, about 

 Miraflores and Chorillos ; and on the left and behind, the vegetation 

 afforded by the valley of the Rimac ; but ahead all was barren, grim, 

 and forbidding. 



Just before sunset we stopped at the hacienda (estate, or farm, or 

 settlement) of Santa Clara, and applied for pasturage. We were told 

 by an old negro woman sitting on the ground at the door of the house, 

 that there was none ; which was confirmed by two men who just then 

 rode up, and who expressed their regret at not being able to accom- 

 modate us. It was remarkable to see such poverty and squalid wretch- 

 edness at nine miles from the great city of Lima; it was like passing 

 in a moment from the most luxurious civilization into savage barbarity — 

 from the garden to the desert. We rode on, about three miles further, 

 to the hacienda of Pacayar, where we arrived at half-past six o'clock, 

 p. m. 



Before the mules could be unloaded it became very dark ; so that 

 the arriero and Mauricio had considerable trouble in driving them to 

 the pasturage. Indeed, some of them got away ; I could hear them 

 galloping furiously up and down the road, and I went to bed, on a 

 table, in the only room in the house, with the comfortable reflection 

 that I had balked at starting, and should have to return or send back 

 to Lima to buy more mules. 



Tormented with these reflections, and oppressed with the excitement 

 and fatigue of the day, I could not sleep; but tossed "in restless 

 ecstasy" for many a long hour, until just before daylight, when, as I 

 was dropping to sleep, a couple of game cocks, tied by the leg in the 

 room, commenced " their salutation to the morn," and screamed out 

 their clarion notes within a yard of my ear. This was too much for 

 me. I rushed out — to meet a heavenly morning and old Luis, with the 

 intelligence that the mules were " all right." I took off my upper 

 clothes, and plunged head, neck, and shoulders, into the water of a 

 little mountain stream that rushed clear and cold as ice by the road- 

 side in front of the house. Thus refreshed and invigorated, the appear- 

 ance of affairs took a new aspect, and light-heartedness and hope came 

 back as strong and fresh as in the days of boyhood. 



The mayordomo, or steward of the estate, was a Chino, (descendant 

 of Indian and negro,) and seemed an amiable and intelligent fellow. 



* A very green and pretty kind of lucern, universally used in this country 

 for pasturage. 



