more, for the hills on each side now began to close in and present the appearance of mountains; and I have no doubt that, though still going down hill, we have begun to cross the second range of the Andes. We could get no supper at this place. I was tired enough to care little about it. Had Ijurra been with us he would probably have found something; but he was absent, having dropped the compass on the road and ridden back to look for it. The height of Chiquirin, by boiling point, is eleven thousand five hundred and forty-two feet above the level of the sea.

July 14.-We had a pleasant ride down the valley, which opens a little and gives room for some cultivation. There were pinks and hollyhocks in the little gardens adjoining the cottages; also, cabbages, lettuce, and onions. We stopped to breakfast at Cararmarquilla, a village of some eight or ten houses. The cura received me hospitably, and gave me some breakfast. He told me there were one hundred and fifty souls in the Doctrina. I should judge there were about thirty in the village. The rock of this district is red sandstone and conglomerate. At six miles further we passed a hacienda where there were roses in bloom, and the flowering pea, with wheat on the hill-side, and a grist-mill; also, alfalfa and maize. Immediately afterwards, a valley from the southward and eastward joined the one I was travelling in, bringing its stream of water to swell the Huallaga. Gypsum crops out of the hills on the road-side, making the roads white. Houses here are whitewashed with it. A mile further is the village of Huariaca, a long, straggling place of one, and in some places two streets. It contains about seven or eight hundred inhabitants. I thought I saw more white people and more industry in this place than is common in the small Sierra towns. We met continually mules laden with tobacco, coca, and fruit, going from Huanuco and the Montaña beyond it to the Cerro. We stopped, at halfpast five, at San Rafael, an Indian town of some two hundred and fifty souls, with a white lieutenant governor, and put up at his house.

I had my bed made inside, instead of outside the house, which was a mistake, as I was "pigging in" with all the family; and, from want of air, and villanous smell, expected to catch tabardillo before morning. The thermometer was at 62° at 7 p. m., and I imagine did not fall lower than 50° during the night; so that I could very well have slept outside, and advise all travellers to do so, providing themselves with warm bed-clothing. Here I was joined by Ijurra, whom I was very glad to see, and the delinquent arriero, with his two mules. The height of San Rafael, by boiling point, is eight thousand five hundred and fiftyone feet above the level of the sea.

July 15.-We got alfalfa for our mules, but it is now getting very scarce. The valley, after leaving San Rafael, is very narrow, and the road rises and falls along the bare flanks of the mountains. The character of the rock is a dark schist; the growth, willows-palma christi-maguey, (a species of cactus, with a very long, broad, yet sharp-pointed leaf,) which throws out from the centre of a clump of leaves, a light stalk of three or four inches diameter at the base, and frequently thirty feet in height. This flowers towards the top, and bears a sort of nut-like fruit. The stem is much used for roofing houses, and the broad, thick leaves serve for thatch.

We shot at condors hovering over a dead mule, and saw a small hawk of variegated and pretty plumage, which we had before seen near Oroya. About ten miles from San Rafael we were crossing the highest part of the chain. An opening in the mountains to the right gave us a view of some splendid snow-clad peaks. After an hour's ride over a precipitous and broken path, rendered dangerous in some places by the sliding of the earth and soft rock from above upon it, we commenced a very sharp descent, which brought us, in fifteen minutes, to fruit-trees and a patch of sugar-cane on the banks of the stream. The sudden transition from rugged mountain peaks, where there was no cultivation, to a tropical vegetation, was marvellous. A few miles further on we crossed the boundary-line between the provinces of Pasco and Huanuco. The transition is agreeable, and I was glad to exchange the mining for the agricultural country. At half-past four, we arrived at the town of Ambo, a village of one thousand inhabitants, situated at the junction of the rivers Huacar and Huallaga. The former stream comes down a ravine to the westward; each is about thirty-five yards broad, and uniting, they pour their waters by the town with great velocity. The rock of this region is mostly an argillaceous schist, though just above Ambo the road was bordered by a perpendicular hill of beautiful red sand-stone. The strata all along this route are nearly north and south in their directions, and have an inclination upwards towards the north of from forty to seventy degrees.

Two miles from Ambo, on the right or opposite bank of the river, is another very pretty little village, almost hidden in the luxuriant vegetation about it. The whole valley now becomes very beautiful. From the road on which we were travelling to the river's brink, (a breadth of quarter of a mile,) the land (which is a rich river bottom) is laid off into alternate fields of sugar-cane and alfalfa. The blended green and yellow of this growth, divided by willows, interspersed with fruit trees, and broken into wavy lines by the serpentine course of the river, pre

sented a gay and cheerful appearance, which, contrasting with the for bidding aspect of the rocks we had just left, filled us with pleasurable emotions, and indicated that we had exchanged a semi-barbarous for a civilized society. The only drawback with me was excessive fatigue. When Ijurra rode back to Cerro Pasco for the compass, he happened to be mounted on my mule. This gave her extra work; and the ride of to-day was a long one, so that the little beast by this time could barely put one foot before the other. There is scarcely anything more fatiguing than to ride a tired horse; and when I arrived (at five) at the hospitable gates of the hacienda of Quicacan, and with difficulty lifted myself out of the saddle, it was with the deep sigh which always accompanies relief from pain, and which was much more pleasurable than the sight of waving fields and babbling brooks.

The owner of the hacienda-an English gentleman, named Dyer, to whom I brought letters from Cerro Pasco-received me and my large party exactly as if it were a matter of course, and as if I had quite as much right to enter his house as I had to enter an inn. The patio was filled with horses, belonging to a large party from Huanuco bound to Lima, and every seat in the ample portico seemed filled. I was somewhat surprised at the size and appointments of the establishment. It looked like a little village of itself, with its offices and workshops. The dwelling a large, substantial, though low building, with a corridor in front supported on massive arches, and having the spaces between the pillars enclosed with iron wire to serve for cages for numerous rare and pretty birds-occupied one side of the enclosed square; store-rooms occupied another; the sugar-house, another; and a chapel, the fourth. A bronze fountain, with an ample basin, decorated the centre. I was strongly reminded of the large farm-houses in some parts of Virginia: the same number of servants bustling about in each other's way; the children of the master and the servant all mixed up together; the same in the hospitable welcome to all comers; the same careless profusion. When I saw the servants dragging out mattresses and bed-clothing from some obscure room, and going with them to different parts of the house to make pallets for the visitors who intended to spend the night, I seemed carried back to my boyish days, and almost fancied that I was at a country wedding in Virginia. We dined at six in another spacious corridor, enclosed with glass, and looking out upon a garden rich with grape-vines and flowers. After dinner, the party broke up into groups for cards or conversation, which continued until ten o'clock brought tea and bed-time.

I conversed with an intelligent and manly Frenchman named Escudero.

His account of the seeking and gathering of Peruvian bark was exceedingly interesting; and I should judge that it is an occupation which involves much fatigue and exposure. He spoke very highly of the mechanical abilities of my countryman, Miguel Hacket, and gave me a letter to deliver to him wherever I might find him.

I also had some talk with quite a pretty young woman, who had come from Quito by the way of the Pastaza, Marañon, and Huallaga rivers. She said she was scared at the malos pasos, or rapids of the river, and never could relish monkey soup; but what gave her most uneasiness was the polite attention of the Huambisas Indians. She declared that this was frightful, and swore a good round oath, (that might have satisfied Hotspur in a lady,) "Caramba! but they were mad for a white wife." Report here says that she prefers Yankee to Indian, and is about to bestow her hand upon a long countryman of ours, the head blacksmith, named Blake.

July 16.--Dyer had put me into a wide "four-poster." None but a traveller in these parts can imagine the intense pleasure with which I took off my clothes and stretched my weary limbs between linen sheets, and laid my head upon a pillow with a frilled case to it. I could scarcely sleep for the enjoyment of the luxury. Rest, too, has renewed my beast; and the little black, which I thought last night was entirely done up, is this morning as lively as a filly.

The sugar-mill of Quicacan is composed of an overshot wheel, turned by a race brought from the river far above, and giving motion to three heavy brass cylinders that crush the cane between them. The juice falls into a receptacle below, and is led off by a trough to the boilers, which are arranged in order over the furnaces like a common kitchen range. After a certain amount of boiling, it is poured by means of ladles into wooden moulds, greased and laid on the ground in rows. This makes the chancaca, so much used throughout Peru. It supplies the place, in this country, to the lower classes, which the wares of candy shops do in our own. Two of the moulds are put together and enveloped in the leaf of the cane. They make a pound, and are sold at the hacienda for six and a quarter cents.

Cutting the cane, bringing it in, stripping it and cutting off the tops, supplying the mill, boiling the sugar, and making the chancaca, employ about twenty men and four mules. With this force one hundred dollars' worth of chancaca may be made in a day; but Mr. Dyer says that he is not now making more than twenty or thirty dollars, and not paying his expenses. He attributes this to the fact that his fields are wearing out and require replanting. He thinks that cane should be

replanted every ten or fifteen years. It is fit for cutting in two years and four months after planting. This is a very extensive establishment; and Mr. Dyer, besides his cane-fields, which are on the river-side, cultivates a farm for raising wheat, maize, peas, beans, and potatoes, on the hills above.

We left Quicacan at noon, in company with Mr. Dyer and my French friend. Stopped at another hacienda, about a mile and a half from this, belonging to a gentleman named Ingunza, and at another a little lower down, called Andabamba, belonging to Señor San Miguel, to whom I brought letters from Lima. All these, with another on the same road, belonged to a Colonel Lucar, of Huanuco, who gave them to these gentlemen, his sons-in-law. Quicacan was the family mansion, and had been longest under cultivation. At half-past four we arrived at Huanuco, and, presenting a letter to Colonel Lucar, from his son-inlaw Dyer, we were kindly received, and lodgings appointed us in his spacious and commodious house.

July 17.-Huanuco is one of the most ancient cities in Peru. It is prettily situated on the left bank of the Huanuco, or Huallaga river, which is here about forty yards wide, and at this time (the dry season) about two feet deep in the channel. It however, every two or three hundred yards, runs over rocks or a gravelly bed, which makes it entirely innavigable, even for canoes, though when the river is up I believe articles are transported on it from hacienda to hacienda in small scows. A smaller stream, called the Higueros, empties into it just above the city.

The houses are built of adobe, with tile roofs, and almost all have large gardens attached to them-so that the city covers a good deal of ground without having many houses. The gardens are filled with vegetables and fruit-trees, and make delightful places of recreation during the warmer parts of the day.

The population numbers from four to five thousand. They seem to be a simple and primitive people; and, like all who have little to do, are much attached to religious ceremonies-there being no less than fifteen churches in the city, some of them quite large and handsome. The people are civil and respectful, and, save a curious stare now and then at my spectacles and red beard, are by no means offensive in their curiosity, as Smyth represents them to have been some seventeen years

ago.

The trade of the place is with Cerro Pasco on the one hand, and the villages of the Huallaga on the other. It sends chancaca, tobacco, fruit, and vegetables to the Cerro, and receives foreign goods (mostly English)