A BEAUTIFUL VALLEY 
valley. The journey by that lower trail could be accom¬ 
plished in one day and a half. The elevation by hypso- 
metrical apparatus of this camp (Xumber 71) was 
5,663 feet. 
On January twenty-third we descended rapidly 
through beautiful forest from Camp 71, where we had 
halted for the night, to a large tambo called Enenas, in 
charge of an Italian. The place was situated in a beau¬ 
tiful valley intersected by a streamlet saturated with lime. 
It looked exactly like milk, and hurt your gums consid¬ 
erably when you drank it. The excellent mule I was 
riding had unfortunately hurt one of its legs while we 
were crossing a swollen torrent, where the mule and my¬ 
self were nearly swept away in the foaming current. Bid¬ 
ing on the lame animal, which was all the time stumbling 
and falling down on its knees, was unpleasant. In the 
narrow trail it was not possible to unload another animal 
and change the saddle, and it was out of the question for 
me to walk. 
I arrived at the tambo with a ravenous appetite, but 
unfortunately nobody had telephoned from the previous 
tambo that I was coming, so that it was impossible to 
get lunch, and I had to wait two or three hours before 
I could get anything to eat at all. The men in charge 
of the various tambos were rather negligent in telephon¬ 
ing and making arrangements with the next tambo, as 
the kind of travellers they had on that trail was not of 
the highest type and could not always be relied upon for 
payment. The people in charge of the tambos were poor 
devils, half abrutis, to use a most appropriate French 
expression, by the life they had to lead in that forlorn 
country. 
On January twenty-fourth we continued our journey 
over horrible deep mud-holes, which made the trail ex¬ 
tremely dangerous. On that particular day we were 
travelling over sticky soil, so that when the mules trod 
383 
