Chap. VII. PUEKTO DE AHUANCA. 545 
fashion. They let their long hair hang down, and had 
wound round their foreheads a yellow China silk handker- 
chief. The men were naked, with the exception of a cloth 
fastened round their thighs. 
Warner's Kancho was the place where the three divisions 
of our caravan were to assemble again. On the third day 
after our arrival the last division came up, and, to our 
great joy, not a single animal was missing, nor had any 
misfortune befallen us during that dreaded march. An ox 
was purchased and killed, and the whole party joyfully 
celebrated the termination of our toils and privations in the 
long journey across the steppes and deserts of the con- 
tinent. 
We had not yet, however, entered the pale of civili- 
zation, and had still several mountain passes to cross before 
arriving on the plain of Los Angeles. The first of these 
passes was called the Puerto de Ahuanca, after a small 
Indian village. On its western side we found ourselves 
between two parallel mountain-chains, on a small plain on 
which was a salt-water lake. At this advanced season 
there was not a green blade of grass to be seen far and 
wide, and our animals fed on the grass and clover seed 
which lay an inch deep on the ground. The mountain- 
chain farther west, through which our road now lay, was 
rather high and steep 5 and the part we traversed consisted 
of greenstone porphyry passing over into a dioritic slate. 
Vegetation here must be very luxuriant in the spring. On 
every side withered tendrils of passifloras, and a pretty 
climbing asclepias, still in blossom, entwined themselves 
among the bushes. After crossing a mountain-chain still 
farther west, we at length reached the Rio de Santa Ana, 
where we saw the plains covered with cattle. This ground 
is part of the Hacienda de Santa Ana, the property of an 
2 N 
