"In the woods there are almonds of various kinds and superior quality. Towards the east there is another small lake called Puaja, whose waters (united with those of Rogoaguado and Yapacha) form the river Yatachico, or Black river, which is a confluent of the Mamoré. I presume the Yata Grande is only an arm of the Beni from the clearness of its waters, from the declivity of the land towards the Mamoré, and because its sources are not found in the Steppes, (Llanos) there only arising from these the Black river of the Lake Rogagua of Reyes, which is a confluent of the Beni.

"The navigation of the Yata Grande is a matter of interest; and I would have attempted it when I descended the Mamoré had I had at my disposal an armed party, which is absolutely necessary on account of the multitude of savages which dwell upon its banks; nevertheless, I did ascend to its first rapids, where there is an abundance of pitch. The Iruyani should be explored for the same reasons as the Yata Grande."

It was suggested by Mr. Pissis that I should take the route of the Beni on account of the honor of discovery, and the addition I should make to geographical knowledge; and General Ballivian, ex-president of Bolivia, who was then in Valparaiso forming plans for revolution in that country, which he afterwards endeavored to execute, but without success, strongly urged me to take one of the Bolivian rivers; but an unanswerable objection to this in my mind was, that such a route would bring me into the Amazon very low down, and make the necessity of ascending that river to its sources; a work which would occupy years in its execution, and probably break down a much stronger man than I am.

Upon my arrival in Lima, I immediately set to work to investigate routes. The best informed people of Peru are wide awake to the importance of opening an inland communication between their territories to the east of the Andes and the Atlantic, and many attempts have been made to secure the aid of government in the opening of such a communication. From time immemorial a jealousy has existed upon this subject between the people inhabiting points on the three most feasible routes; that is, that of the valley of Huanuco, that of Chanchamayo, and that of Paucartambo, to the eastward of Cuzco. This jealousy originated in the fact that the valley of Huanuco, the first settled, at one time supplied all the coca that was used in Peru. The people of that valley saw in the opening of the Montaña of Chanchamayo a rival interest that would decrease their gains, and at one time they had such interest at Court as to get an order dismantling the

fort that had been built in Chanchamayo, and breaking up the roads. The Tarma people never forgave this, and in 1808 Urrutia, the Interdente of that province, addressed a pamphlet to Abascal, the Viceroy, setting forth the advantages of the Chanchamayo, and depreciating the Mayro or Huanuco route to the Montaña.

"Surely, surely," says he, (and I entirely agree with him,) "nothing but the especial concitation of the devil (thus interfering with the conversion of the heathen) could have induced the government to SD suicidal a step as to break up so thriving a colony as that at Chanchamayo." He says that he can scarcely refrain from tears at thinking to what it would have grown in the twenty-five years that have been lost between then and now. He writes with earnestness; and probably would have succeeded in obtaining the aid of the government, but that the cloud of the revolution was then above the horizon, and Viceroy and Intendente soon had other matters to think of.

In 1827 General La Mar again ordered the opening of the Chanchamayo country. The direction of the work was given to my acquaintance and very good friend General Otero, then prefect of the department. He pushed the matter of opening the roads with success for some time; but the roughness of the country, the difficulty of obtaining supplies, and the steady hostility of the Indians, interposed so many obstacles, that the work languished and was finally abardoned; the Indians taking possession of the few plantations that had been made.

In 1847, however, the people of Tarma resolved to take advantage of so fine a country so near them. They republished the pamphlet of Urrutia; made an appeal to the government, and themselves broke into the country under the lead of Colonel Pablo Salaverry. They drove the Indians over the rivers of Chanchamayo and Tulumayo; and Don Ramon Castilla, the President, (ever alive to the interests of his country,) sent a company of eighty soldiers, under a captain in the navy named Noel, with engineers, artificers, tools and supplies, and constructed the little stockade fort of San Ramon, at the junction of these rivers. Under the protection of this fort the Tarma people have begun to clear and cultivate, and the former desert is now beautiful with the waving cane, the yellow blossom of the cotton, and the red berry of the coffee.

Juan Centeno, deputy in Congress from Cuzco, in strong and earnest terms advocated the propriety of taking the Cuzco route, telling me that ten thousand dollars, appropriated by the government for the survey of the river Amarumayo, now lay in the treasury, waiting the

proper time and man to take it up; and that he had no doubt but that I might organize a surveying party and employ this money for that purpose. It was a tempting proposition, but I feared the proverbially dilatory action of the Peruvian government; and what I had seen in the journals of Smyth and Castelnau regarding the efficiency of the cooperation of Peruvian officials, revived school-boy recollections, and brought to my mind Virgil's

"Non tali auxilio; nec defensoribus istis."

This route had, moreover, the same objections as that by the Bolivian tributaries; that is, that it would bring me into the Amazon too low down. It is, however, a route of great importance, and well worth investigation. Señor Centeno placed in my hands a pamphlet (“El brillante porvenir de Cuzco") written by the confessor of his family, an Italian Franciscan, Father Julian Bobo de Revello, in which the advantages of this route are strongly and ably argued; and which argument induced the above-mentioned appropriation by the Peruvian government. The Father declares that he himself, in visiting the valleys of Paucartambo, in company with Don José Miguel Medina, prefect of the province, saw from the heights of Acobamba an interminable horizon of woods towards the N. E.; and in the midst of this immense plain, the winding course of the great navigable river " Madre de Dios." He labors to prove that this Madre de Dios is the same river which, under the name of Purus, enters the Amazon a few days' journey above the Barra do Rio Negro.

There is no doubt that there is a great unknown river in these parts. Every expedition made into this country brought back accounts of it, and represented it under various names-such as Amarumayu; Tono; Mano; Inambiri; Guariguari; and Madre de Dios, according to the nomenclature of the various tribes that live upon its banks-as great, and containing much water-(Grande y Caudaloso.) It is impossible to say whether this river turns to the N. W. and joins the Ucayali, flows straight N. E., and, as either the Yavari, the Jutay, the Jurua, the Teffe, the Coari, or the Purus, empties into the Amazon; or, flowing east, is tributary to the Beni. It is, of course, likewise impossible to say whether or not it is free from obstructions to navigation; but it is reasonable to suppose, from the fact that the country through which it flows (supposing it to take the general direction of the rivers there and run N. E.) is very far from the Andes on one side, and the Cordillera Geral of Brazil, which form the obstructions to the Madeira, on the other, that it is free from impediments for an immense distance up. This route, however, takes its importance, in a commercial point of view, from the following facts:

It will be recollected that I stated, in the preceding chapter, that the defeated followers of Almagro, hiding themselves in the valleys and dens of the broken country to the eastward of Cuzco, called Carabaya, discovered, in the small streams that dashed down from the neighboring Cordillera, washings of gold of great value-that they built villages, and sent immense treasures to Spain.

In the month of June, 1849, two brothers named Poblete, seeking Peruvian bark in the valleys of Carabaya, discovered grains or pits (pepitas) of gold in the "Gulch" of Challuhuma. They were soon joined by other hunters of bark; the news spread in the province; companies were formed; and petitions made to the board of miners for titles: quarrels arose about priority of discovery and rights, and the paths were broken up, and bridges and rafts for crossing the rivers destroyed, so that, up to the time of my information, little had been done in gathering the gold.

It appears from an official letter of Pablo Pimentel, sub-prefect of the province of Carabaya, in answer to certain questions propounded to him by the Treasury Department, that the mining district is situated in the valleys to the N. and E. of Crucero, the capital of the province, and is reached from that place by the following routes and distances. (It will be as well to premise that Crucero is situated in about latitude 14° south, and longitude 74° west from Greenwich; and that to reach it by the nearest route from the Pacific coast, one should land at Islay; and travelling on horseback through the cities of Arequipa and Puno, he will arrive at Crucero, by easy stages of fifteen miles a day, in about twenty days.) From Crucero the route, running to the eastward, and crossing the Cordillera at probably its highest and most difficult pass, conducts the traveller to the small and abandoned village of Phara, forty-two miles from Crucero.

Here he puts foot to ground, and travels seventy-two miles (four days' journey) to the banks of the great river Guariguari; although his provisions and implements may be carried to this point on mules or asses. He crosses this river on a perilous swinging bridge, called Oroya, and makes his way thirty miles further towards the north without any broken track, save an occasional one made by the bark hunters.

This brings him to Challuhuma.

This valley, or gulch, is from thirty to thirty-six miles long from the top of the mountains, whence descend the three small torrents which form the auriferous stream called Challuhuma, to its entrance into the Guariguari; but it is calculated that only about a fifth part of this can be worked, as the other four parts are hemmed in by precipitous rocks

on each side; and "to turn the course of the river at these parts, so as to get at its bed, would be about as easy a task as to remove the Andes." Pimentel supposes that from the time of the discovery, in June, to the date of his letter, in November, about one hundred thousand dollars had been collected; but that the best parts had been worked, and such success was no longer to be looked for. He says, moreover, that the difficulty of obtaining provisions and supplies is very great, from the small number of persons engaged in agriculture, the general laziness of the people, and the difficulty of transportation.

It is quite evident that Pimentel is disposed to throw difficulties in the way, and to distract attention from Challuhuma by dwelling upon the undiscovered riches in other valleys, and the great vegetable wealth of the country a little to the eastward of it. Other accounts from this district give a different version, and represent Pimentel as a party in one of the mining companies, and interested in keeping secret the true state of affairs. The quarrel on this subject ran very high in the department of Puno, and even the motives and conduct of General Deustua, then prefect of the department, and now governor of the "Provincia Littoral” of Callao-a man of the very highest standing and character in his country-were impugned. He vindicated his reputation in a very spirited letter to the Secretary of State for the Treasury Department, demanding to be relieved, and receiving an apologetic reply from the government.

It appears from some notices of this country, written by Manuel Hurtado, a citizen of Puno, "that the province of Carabaya has an extent of one hundred and eighty miles, from north to south, rendered more to the traveller, who wishes to pass over its whole length, on account of his having to cross the spurs of the mountains, which divide the whole country into valleys, having auriferous streams; for, from Cuia to Quica, there are eighteen miles; to Sandia, forty-two; to Cuyo-Cuyo, twelve; to Patambuco, eighteen; to Phara, thirty-six; to Uricayas, forty-five; to Coasa, eighteen; to Thiata, thirty; to Ayapata, eighteen; to Ollachea, forty-two; and to Corani, eighteen; making three hundred and seven miles. All these villages, except the last, are in the line of the edge of the Montaña. The villages of Macusani and Crucero are on this other side of the Cordillera. The population of the province is thirty thousand souls, over and above strangers, who come to collect the gold and cascarilla.

"The exportation of the products of the province for the last year were about three hundred thousand pounds of cascarilla, twenty-five thousand baskets of coca, (of twenty-one pounds each,) and one thousand