PLAIN OF JUNIN. 



97 



about nearly buried in his cocked bat, while just fourteen men were 

 employed in caparisoning his horse. The drinking had already com- 

 menced ; most of the population were getting drunk fast, and I have no 

 doubt there was a grand row that night. 



Drinking seems a very general vice amongst the inhabitants of these 

 wet, cold, and highly-elevated plains. The liquor is invariably the Pisco 

 or lea brandy, made in that province. It is pleasant to the taste and 

 of good quality. In the Montana we had often occasion to regret the 

 exchange of this for new-made cane rum. 



The hills that bound the plain on the west have two salt springs, 

 from which the inhabitants of the village get their salt by evaporation. 

 The hill oyer which we rode is called the " Cuesta de la Veta" because 

 travellers suffer from this sickness in passing it. As I had felt nothing 

 of it, even at the Pass of Antarangra, I watched very closely for any 

 symptoms of it here; but perceived none, though I sucked a cigar all 

 the way to the top. The road to the top of the Cuesta is about three 

 miles in length, and its ascent brought us to the historical plain of 

 Junin, where Bolivar, on the 6th of August, 1824, gave the Spaniards 

 a heavy and very nearly conclusive oyerthrow. Half an hour's ride 

 over the plain brought into view the Western Cordillera, the Lake Chin- 

 chaycocha, and the pyramid erected by Mariano Rivero (then prefect 

 of the province) to commemorate the battle. It stands off to the left 

 of the road about a league, and is at the foot of a little hill, where the 

 liberator stood to direct the fight ; it is white, and seemed seventy or 

 eighty feet high. Our day's ride of eighteen miles brought us to the 

 town of Junin, where we took lodgings in the house of the governor; 

 more drunken people there. 



July 3. — Junin is a village of one thousand inhabitants, situated 

 about a mile and a half from the southern extremity of the Lake 

 Chinchaycocha, and twelve thousand nine hundred and forty-seven 

 feet above the level of the sea. This lake is twenty miles long, in 

 a N. W. and S. E. direction, and has an average breadth of about 

 six miles. It is said to discharge its waters into the Amazon by the 

 river of Jauxa, which we crossed at Oroya, and which is a tributary of 

 the Ucayali. 



The inhabitants of Junin, and the other towns of this plain, are herds- 

 men. They raise cattle for the supply of Cerro Pasco and Tarma, and 

 mules for beasts of burden. Their houses are built of mud and straw ; 

 and they eat mutton and macas, (a root of the potato kind, but looking, 

 and when boiled tasting, more like a turnip.) The people of these 

 regions find it very difficult to procure vegetables, as quinua and barley 

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