The traveller cannot have any dealing with the muleteers without discovering that he is entirely in their power; and that they will furnish him no cattle for his journey, unless he pay them money on account, or “adelantado,” beforehand. Of course he will have to advance some part of the mule-hire before he can budge on another man’s beast; but he should not be ignorant of the Peruvian rule on such occasions, which is, to suspect every man to be a cheat till very certain of the contrary,—a rule which is entirely indispensable. Acting upon the opposite English precept,—to believe every man honest till we find him a rogue,—we were once cheated by the military commandant of Junin, who, being paid “adelantado” for two beasts for the next morning’s journey, furnished one of them with only three legs, the fourth being so contracted that it could not reach the ground. He maintained—and, as he was the first authority in the place, he did so successfully—that as he only agreed to provide two beasts, without respect to quality, he would neither replace the lame nag, nor return our dollars.
The arrieros with cargoes usually take nine or ten days, and sometimes more, from Lima to Pasco, as they make short stages, consulting the ease of their cattle and convenience of lucern or pasture; and at Obrajillo they commonly rest a day at least, to refresh or perhaps relay some of their cattle, before they proceed to brave the toils of the Cordillera. From Obrajillo to Culluai, a small village near the foot of the Cordillera, there are three leagues; and the road leads through a rock-bound passage by the course of a river with a rugged bottom and ruffled stream. There are one or two bad passes to be surmounted in this part of the journey, from the summit of one of which a panting pony laden with part of our baggage once fell over, and broke his neck in the fall. This narrow quebrada or break, is not destitute of interest to the botanist; as in the rainy season, amongst the interspaces of the stones and crags, flowering shrubs of considerable beauty and variety present themselves: indeed, the highest Cordillera entrances are not without their hardy flowers amid the shelves of the rocks. We may remark that, between the cliffs in the neighbourhood of Culluai, may be seen samples of those tiers of gardens, built up one above the other on the face of the acclivity, to which we alluded in our preceding chapter, “on the general features of the Sierra,” as surviving proofs of the industry of the ancient Peruvians.