CORNELIO CESPEDES. 



179 



we see here, numbers of land shells. This, then, may be called the snail 

 district. They are certainly in the majority, and the only thing with 

 animal life, which seems to flourish in these inhospitable places. If our 

 poor mules were not so very sure-footed, we would never be able to de- 

 scend by this road, which is so precipitous in some places that horses 

 could not travel and carry a man. The short-legged donkey would be 

 lost in the deep mud holes, which the mules jump into and then leap 

 out. At night they are turned on the path to devour leaves from the 

 bushes, or seek some palatable herb among the trees ; there is no shelter 

 nor pasture for them. Our party encamped in the wilderness as much 

 exhausted as the animals. The climate is damp and sultry, and when 

 we lie down to rest the season is so gloomy, it seems like a long and 

 tedious trance. • Our old arriero proves to be a polite and amusing 

 character. He is a Creole ; makes a living by travelling down this road 

 with salt and returns with chocolate. Every now and then, after we 

 have passed a difficult part, he turns with most downcast expression and 

 says, " Ah ! Patron ! your boxes are very heavy for my mules." We tell 

 him the roads are bad in his country. "They are much better than 

 they used to be." He said when he travelled on the table lands, we 

 became very tired of riding all day, but here we went so slow that he 

 did not feel fatigued, particularly on his way up, when his mules were 

 poor and could scarcely climb back. He told us that it required at least 

 six weeks rest for the mules in Cochabamba, keeping them well fed on 

 lucerne all the time, before they were fleshy enough to load again for 

 another trip down. • His full name is Comelio Cespedes; he had been 

 engaged travelling up and down the Andes for a number of years, and 

 appears to be an honest, worthy man. 1 Cornelio begs me to sell him 

 Rose. I object, because she would have to travel this dreadful road. 



Descending some distance, the first sign of active animal life was a 

 perfect swarm of ring- tail monkeys. They travel along among the tops 

 of the trees at a rapid rate, first swinging to a limb by the feefy and then 

 by their long tails. A little one, who looks in the face like a young 

 • negro, sometimes gets frightened and calls for his mother, who promptly 

 runs to his assistance, when the cunning rascal jumps on her back, holds 

 on to her hind leg with his tail, and gallops her off to the next tree. 

 The noise they make deafens us, particularly after a shot is fired. They 

 are not easy to kill. The men are very fond of the meat, probably 

 because there is not much other to be had on the road. 



Our beds became wet by the rains during the night; this encourages 

 the fleas in our blankate to annoy us, and although we were tired 



