YANACOTO. 



47 



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 com- 

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

 of Yanacoto, by Mer. alt. of y Crucis, to be 11° hT 20". 



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

 healthful 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 Sangre de Christo, 

 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 



