After breakfast they watched from the veranda a train of llamas coming down the mountain side, bearing panniers filled with silver ore.
“Those are wonderful beasts,” said the superintendent.
“Yes,” remarked Hope-Jones; then he added: “Until recently, I believed they belonged to the same family as the domestic sheep of Europe and North America, but I ascertained by reading that they are more closely allied to the camel.”
“So I have heard, and so examination would convince even one not versed in natural history. They are much larger than sheep, are powerful and more intelligent; besides, they can go for a long time without water and endure as heavy burdens as a mule.”
“I understand that their flesh is good to eat.”
“Yes, it is quite palatable. So the llama is valuable for three purposes—as a beast of burden, for its long, silken wool, and for its flesh.”
An hour later Hope-Jones, Ferguson, and Harvey bade the superintendent good-by, after thanking him for his hospitality, and started on their journey to the northeast. While in Chicla they had secured canvas for a shelter-tent. It was unnecessary to carry poles, because these could be cut each evening; and the additional burden, divided among the three, was not heavy.
The first day’s travel was uneventful until toward sundown, when snow commenced to fall, and Harvey for the first time saw the crystal flakes beneath his feet, and swirling through the air. They had attained quite an altitude above Chicla, how much higher they did not know, not having brought instruments. But in the morning they would commence to descend again to the region of the Montaña, the great table-land valley of Peru which lies between two parallel spurs of the Andes at an altitude of six thousand to eight thousand feet—a valley rich with forests and with smaller vegetation, a valley through which flows the river Marañon, and is inhabited by the Ayulis Indians; and in this valley somewhere on the river Marañon, was a great white rock that marked a nature’s storehouse of gold.
They pitched their shelter-tent, lighted a fire, and ate a hearty supper of food they had carried from Chicla; then, after talking for an hour, they went to sleep, lying close together, wrapped in both blankets, for the night was cold.