The servant intrusted with the cargo-mule dropped behind; and not being acquainted with the route, or able to keep sight of us, he went off the road, wandered into a neighbouring valley, Caraguacayan, and did not appear till morning. The gentlemen alluded to had, therefore, to shift for the night as less provided travellers usually do. Their _alforjas_ (saddle-bags) served them as pillows, their _pellons_ and saddle-cloths for beds, and their _ponchos_ as their best covering. They thus lay cooped up on the floor of a dirty little hovel, too small to allow them to stretch their limbs without risk of burning their toes in the hot ashes around the fire-place. The sharp wind pierced through a hundred crevices of the rude wall, and was ill excluded from the low and narrow door-way by a tattered sheep-skin fitted with thongs into a hurdle-frame.
Restless, chirping guinea-pigs—constant inmates of every wretched hut,—persevered during the early part of the night in a bold attack on our bread magazines; pulling at our wallets, placed under our heads, and nibbling at their contents with a degree of boldness and fearlessness which we believe hunger only could inspire. These assailants had scarcely left us to repose in the silence of night, when the wakeful cock from a chink in the wall (originally occupied by an image or household saint) began his repeated crowing at unmeasured periods till well on towards grey morning, when all were in motion: the shepherd rounded his flock, guarded all night against the hostility of the fox and other enemies by the faithful dogs inseparable from the sheep; the muleteer shook himself in his poncho, and went to collect his mules; and the housewife left her sheep and llama-skin bed, and commenced her daily task of boiling the caldo, or soup, for breakfast, and smoking her guests from their uneasy couch.
With so many incitements to bestir ourselves, we were glad to turn out and breathe the fresh air, while things were getting ready for our departure on a fresh day’s journey, with only a headache left for our common annoyance.
The writer had frequent occasion afterwards to cross this same part of the Cordillera, and, profiting by his first lesson, he took care always to start early in the morning on his day’s journey, so as to arrive early in the evening at his quarters for the night. He got refreshment, and turned into bed as soon as possible after his arrival; and took care that he slept warm and dry. By thus avoiding cold and wet, which check perspiration and overload the deep-seated blood-vessels, he ever after on this route avoided the Cordillera sickness.