William Lewis Herndon, Lieutenant, U.S.N.

“ 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 half past 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Cargoes must always be landed at this place, and carried around. The canoe, thus lightened, under skilful and practical management, may shoot the rapid; but this should not be attempted where it can be avoided. By prudence, these males pasos (the dread of travellers) are stripped of all danger; but the Indians sometimes get drunk and insist upon the attempt; and thus these places have become the graves of many. Since my return home I have a letter from Castillo, the young man I met in Huanuco, enclosing others which were sent to him at Tarapota from Lima to be forwarded to me. ”

“ Every traveller in this country should provide himself with letters of introduction. People, it is true, will receive him without them, but do not use that cordial and welcome manner which is so agreeable.
The cura had some fifty or sixty new and well-bound books on shelves, and seemed a man superior to the generality of his class. He said that Valle was a poor place, producing only sugar-cane, which the inhabitants put to no other use than to make huarapo to drink; and that, if it were not for the neighborhood of Huanuco, he thought that he should starve. ”

“ Very little meat is raised. I saw a small quantity of pork, with plenty of tallow candles; and rotten potatoes for the consumption of the Indians. Bread is good, but is generally made, in the best houses, of American flour from Lima. Vegetables and fruit are abundant and cheap. This is, par excellence, the country of the celebrated chirimoya. I have seen this fruit in Huanuco quite twice as large as it is generally seen in Lima, and of most delicious flavor. ”

“ Rice, tobacco, and straw hats, in small quantities, are now brought on the backs of Indians from the towns on the Huallaga to Huanuco.
Colonel Lucar showed me his cuarto de habios, or room where he keeps all his horse furniture. He has at least a dozen saddles of various patterns, with bridles, pillons, horse- cloths, holsters, and everything complete. Most of the bridles and stirrups are heavily plated with silver. People take great care of their horses in this country, and are generally good horsemen. There are one or two carriages and gigs in Huanuco, made in England. ”

“ We met at this place some Indians carrying tobacco from Tocache and Saposoa (towns of the Huallaga) to Huanuco. Enterprising men have frequently tried to establish a trade along this river, carrying down cotton goods, knives, hatchets, beads, &c., and getting return cargoes of tobacco, rice, straw hats, rare birds, and animals; but the difficulties of the route seem to have baffled enterprise. ”

“ This is the source of the Huallaga, one of the heal tributaries of the Amazon.
Seven miles in a N. N. E. direction, and passing many haciendas for the grinding of ore, brought us to the village of Quinua, where a mint was established several years ago, but is now abandoned. The machinery for coining is much better than any I have seen in South America. It was made by a Boston man, named Hacket, who also made nearly all the machinery for the sugar-mills near Huanuco. There are gold mines in this neighborhood, but I think they are not worked. ”

“ We met at Quicacan a colonel who was going to Lima, escorted by a number of his friends, to complain to the government of his having been illegally imprisoned by the sub-prefect. I believe the cause was an alleged libel, or libelous publication against the sub-prefect; and if it was of the nature of some of the publications daily seen in the Lima papers, he deserved imprisonment, or worse punishment, for they are generally the foulest and most scurrilous things, which no decent paper in the United States would publish, and which would certainly bring upon the writer a fine or the horse-whip. ”

“ The young women of the country have very good features, and appear lively and good-tempered. Two daughters of the patrona came in on a visit today. I suppose they are out at work (probably as house servants) in some neighboring hacienda. They were dressed in red calicoes, always open in the back, and with the invariable shawl; and one of them had ruffles of cotton lace around the bottom of the sleeves, which did not reach to the elbow. The girls were nearly as dark as Indians, but I presume they had a mixture of white blood. ”

“ Tingo is the Indian term for the junction of two rivers, the Monzon emptying into the Huallaga just above this. The governor, an intelligent and modest young man, a former friend of Ijurra, welcomed us cordially, and gave us a capital breakfast of chicken broth. ”

“ Only sufficient coffee and surgar-cane are planted for the use of the inhabitants. Señor Martins gave us some very good caçacha, or rum made from the cane, and some tolerable pine-apples and plantains. A little cotton is cultivated, and a coarse cloth is woven by hand from it. Every old woman goes about her household avocations with a bunch of cotton in her hand, and a spindle hanging below. ”

“ The mornings and evenings are very pleasant, though the sun is hot for an hour or two before the breeze sets in. The height of Huanuco above the level of the sea is, by boiling point, five thousand nine hundred and forty-six feet.
There is a college with about twenty-two internal, and eighty day scholars. Its income, derived from lands formerly belonging to convents, is seven thousand and five hundred dollars yearly. ”

“ The ascent of the hill was very tedious, and I should complain of the fatigue but for shame’s sake; for there were Indians along, young and rather small men, who were carrying a burden of nearly one hundred pounds on their back. Their manner of carrying cargoes is to have a sort of cotton satchel, of open work, with a broad stout strap to it. ”

“ The end of the trunk or package, which is placed on end, is put into the bag, and the Indian, sitting down with his back to it, passes the strap over his forehead, and then, with a lift from another, rises to his feet, and, bending forward, brings the weight upon the muscles of his neck and back. A bit of blanket, or old cotton cloth, protects the skin of the back from chafe. ”

“ A carga is two hundred and sixty pounds. The value in Huanuco is generally three dollars the arroba. This would make the value of the crop twenty-one thousand eight hundred and forty dollars. The hire of the seven hundred mules required to carry it to Huanuco is two thousand eight hundred dollars, which reduces the value to about nineteen thousand dollars. There are not many haciendas, but a number of small farms; the owners of which sell their coca on the spot for two dollars the arroba. ”

“ Smyth’s route to the Pachitea.
Acomayo is a very pleasantly-situated village, of about three hundred inhabitants. When the authorities are asked concerning the population of any place they always give the number of families. This place has seventy casados, or couples of married people; and I judge, from experience, that five to each family is a fair allowance. The water here is very good, which was an agreeable change from the Huanuco water ”

“ They seem to be tolerably honest and faithful, (when once on the road) , and, with judicious treatment, one can get along with them very comfortably. It rained heavily all the latter part of the night.
July 26 — At this place we were to await the Indians from Tingo Maria, (a village at the head of canoe navigation on the Huallaga,) to carry our luggage on. Ijurra had written from Huanuco to the governor of Tingo Maria requesting him to send them to us at Chihuangala, sending the letter by one of Castillo’s company who was returning, We had hard commons here, our charqui beginning to decay. ”

“ The lower class of people do not attend to this, and thus the disease is more general with them than with the higher classes. It is disagreeable to walk out in the middle of the day, on account of a strong northerly wind which sets in at this season about noon, and lasts till dark, raising clouds of dust. ”

“ It is here some sixty yards wide, and the Chinchao thirty, both much obstructed with shoals and banks of gravel. The peons waded the Huallaga above the junction, and brought up a canoe from the hacienda of Chinchayvitoc, a few hundred yards below, and on the opposite side. We passed in the canoe, which the Indians managed very well. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The trees of the forest are large, tall, and without branches for a great distance up. Ijurra pointed out one to me, of smooth bark, about four feet diameter near the ground, and which ran up sixty or seventy feet without a branch. ”

“ 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 ”