MOUNTAIN OF PUY-PUY. 



67 



half-dozen steps. Gibbon declared that this was the only occasion in 

 which he had ever found the big spurs of the country of any service ; 

 for when he slipped and fell, as we all frequently did, he said that he 

 should inevitably have gone to the bottom had he not dug his spurs 

 into the soil, and so held on. I think that I suffered more than any of 

 the party. On arriving at the top, I was fairly exhausted ; I thought 

 my heart would break from my breast with its violent agitation, and I 

 felt, for the first time, how painful it was 



" To breathe 



The difficult air of the iced mountain's top." 

 I soon recovered, however, and was amply repaid by the splendor of 

 the view. The lofty cone-shaped mountain, clad in its brilliant mantle 

 from the top even to the cylindrical base upon which it rested, rose in 

 solitary majesty from the plain beneath us ; and when the sunlight, 

 bursting from the clouds, rested upon its summit, it was beautiful, 

 indeed. Gibbon almost froze taking a sketch of it ; and the rest of us 

 tired ourselves nearly to death endeavoring to get a shot at a herd 

 of shy vicunas that were seen feeding among the distant rocks. We 

 had a fatiguing ride, and enjoyed a late dinner and a good night's rest. 



June 4. — We took leave of our hospitable friends, (whom I could no 

 longer intrude our large party upon,) and started at meridian, leaving 

 Richards too sick to travel. We rode down the "Valley of the Lakes" 

 in about an E. N. E. direction, visiting the silver mining hacienda of 

 Tuctu as we passed, which belongs to the establishment of Morococha. 

 We travelled over a heavy rolling country ; the southern sides of the 

 hills clothed with verdure, and affording tolerable pasture ; the northern 

 sides bare and rocky — no trees or bushes. About nine miles from 

 Morococha, we crossed a range of hills to the right, and entered the 

 village of Pachachaca. 



This is situated in a valley that comes down from Yauli. The 

 stream of the Valley of the Lakes at this place joins with the larger and 

 very serpentine stream of the Yauli valley. This valley has a flat and 

 apparently level floor of half a mile in width, affording a carriage-road 

 of two or three miles in length. There is a hacienda for smelting silver 

 here ; but having no letters, and but little time, (for the arriero begins 

 . very justly to complain that we are delaying him an unreasonable time 

 upon the road,) I did not visit it. 



Pachachaca is a small village of two hundred inhabitants. The 

 people seem more industrious than those of the villages on the other 

 side. There are fine crops of barley here, and we saw cabbages, onions, 

 peaches, and eggs, in the shops. We were greater objects of curiosity 



