120 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



AT THE) RAILROAD STATION I I,A PAZ 



gether missed the scenery, as the coach 

 was enveloped in a cloud of dust during 

 the entire journey. 



Our lodging place, an annex of the 

 Hotel Guibert, was a stately old edifice, 

 evidently the residence of a Spanish 

 grandee in the days of the vice-royalty. 

 A crest surmounted the doorway and a 

 massive marble stairway connected the 

 inner court-yard with the dwelling rooms 

 above. Our windows opened on a nar- 

 row Old World balcony, overhanging the 

 street, from which we next day viewed a 

 passing play of great interest and variety 

 — a play staged and costumed by a master 

 hand. 



The curtain was rung up in the early 

 morning, distant trumpeters announcing 

 the prologue. Hurriedly throwing on a 

 dressing gown, I rushed to the balcony 

 to see the Bolivian regimental band 

 marching down the hill. For a half hour 

 the brilliantly uniformed soldiers played 

 in the plaza opposite our windows, and 



sweeter music I have never heard. In 

 the clear highland atmosphere the notes 

 had an unusual quality. Often in a minor 

 key, the music seemed expressive of the 

 sorrows of the Andean people rather 

 than of their victories. 



As the soldiers marched away the 

 water-carriers gathered by the fountain 

 in the center of the plaza, filling the im- 

 mense copper jars which they carried on 

 their backs. They were Indians, full- 

 blooded Aymaras, descendants of a peo- 

 ple conquered by the Incas. The origin 

 of their ancestry is shrouded in mystery, 

 but many ethnologists believe them to be 

 descended from the earliest American 

 aborigines known to us, the builders of 

 Tiahuanaco, now in sand-swept ruins not 

 far from Lake Titicaca.* 



The costume of the water-carriers 

 was certainly unusual. It consisted of 

 jackets and short trousers of homespun, 



* See National Geographic Magazine for 

 September, 1908. 



