THE GREAT CORDILLERA. 



179 



locked it, and we entered a room full of feathers 

 and fleas, and without any glass in the window. 

 " Aqui sta,^' said the boy, and he added that I 

 was to pay two reals (ten pence) a day. He said 

 I could get dinner cooked at the next house. I 

 accordingly went there, and found a woman who 

 had the remains of very great beauty, and her 

 daughter, of about eighteen years of age, who 

 very much resembled her. 



They both received me with the greatest kind- 

 ness, and they insisted on my lying down on the 

 bed. The old lady asked me what I would have 

 for dinner for my party, and I told her all we 

 wanted was the very best dinner she could give us, 

 and that I begged to leave it to her good taste and 

 judgment. 



Away she went to get all the materiel," while 

 her daughter attended to me. She brought me a 

 plate of the most delicious cool figs I ever tasted, 

 and then a glass of iced lemonade, and all the time 

 I was eating the figs she was sitting by the bed- 

 side pitying me. 



In about two or three hours the party arrived, 

 mules and men quite fagged and exhausted, and I 



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