364 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



There are not, perhaps, in any part of the globe, roads 

 so bad as those which are to be found in all the provinces of 

 the interior of Peru. The passes which are the least dangerous 

 and inconvenient, are the brinks or declivities of the moun- 

 tains : and these have rather the air of narrow cornices, 

 fastened to the summit of the Cordillera, than of paths des- 

 tined for the continual journeying of men and beasts of burden. 

 The steep descents, the little balconies, as they are named, 

 the quarries of stone, and precipices, are nothing when com- 

 pared with the passes denominated barbacoas, or steps. In 

 descending these last, a man, mounted on a horse or mule, 

 forms with his head, and with that of the beast, an obtuse 

 angle, the base of which is the road itself, in the midst of his 

 descent. From this description it will readily be perceived, 

 that the risk of the traveller is the greater, inasmuch as he pro- 

 ceeds, out of the equilibrium, by a plane nearly perpendicu- 

 lar : consequently, on the mule or horse making the slightest 

 trip, or on the least inadvertence of the rider, the precipice is 

 inevitable. 



The barbacoas consist of cross poles, fixed in the rock, but 

 without being fastened at the extremities. They are usually 

 placed at the sharpest prominences of a rock by which the 

 road is interrupted, and which it is necessary to cross, by pass- 

 ing on the top of these bridges, so weak that they tremble, 

 and are sometimes bent double by the weight of the passenger. 

 On one side of these barbacoas rises an inaccessible mountain ; 

 and on the other, and beneath them, are precipices of a 



league 



