"La vi tan fermosa Que apenas creyera Que fuese vaquera De la Finojosa."
Potatoes, quinoa, and barley were cultivated in the skirts of the hills bordering on the plain.
The village of Caracoto is at the extreme end of a long rocky spur, running out across the plain; a street of neat mud huts, with a plaza and dilapidated church. At the post-house a child had died, which was set out on a table with candles burning before it, and the friends of the postmaster were holding a wake, singing, fiddling, and drinking. Between Caracoto and the next village of Juliaca there is another swampy plain: most of the road was under water, and we encountered a heavy hail-storm. The lights and shades on the cordilleras and nearer hills, the heavy black masses of cloud in one part of the heavens, and the sun's rays breaking through in the other, were very fine. Juliaca is a small town built under a spur of the mountains, with a handsome stone church. It was Easter-Sunday, and I was invited to meet all the principal families at dinner at the house of the cura. Several Indian alcaldes were in attendance; consequential old fellows in full dress, consisting of broad-brimmed black felt hats, sober-coloured ponchos, and black breeches very open at the knees, no stockings, and _usutas_ or sandals of llama-hide. The distinctive mark of the alcaldes, of which they are very proud, is their staff of office, with silver or brass head and ferule, and rings round it according to the number of years the owner has held office. The Indians here wear the hair in numbers of very fine plaits reaching half-way down their backs. An Indian always accompanied the post-mules from one village to another, in order to take back the return-mules; and at Juliaca, while I was quietly enjoying the cura's hospitality, the Indians took my own mule back to Caracoto, as well as the post-mules. Next morning, therefore, I sent for it, and received an answer that the postmaster knew nothing about it. I was eventually obliged, after seeing the gardener and luggage on their way to Lampa, to go back to Caracoto, where the postmaster was drunk and insolent; and at length I found it, with a troop of others, on the great plain beyond Caracoto. Several Indians took much trouble for me in catching my mule; and it was late in the afternoon before I got back to Juliaca, and was ready to set out on my journey to Lampa. I mention this incident in order to show the trouble and inconvenience of acting as one's own muleteer, although such a mode of travelling is certainly four or five times as cheap as hiring an arriero; and I may add that the travelling by post-mules caused me incessant annoyance and trouble. Whenever they saw a chance the vicious brutes always ran off the road in different directions, bumped their cargo against rocks, and tried to roll, keeping us constantly employed in galloping after them, and greatly increasing the fatigues of the journeys. On several occasions, too, an animal was provided which was so weak or tired that it sank under its cargo before it had gone a league, and obliged me to return to the post-house for another. The adjustment and lashing of the cargos, like everything else, requires considerable knack and skill, which is only acquired by experience; the Indians were as ignorant in such matters as we were; and during the first three or four journeys our troubles were increased by the cargos constantly slipping on one side, when the mules always seized the opportunity of rushing off the road and kicking furiously.