From Yanga to Huaramayo, the glen through which lies the road to Cerro Pasco by Canta is extremely narrow and confined, except at Santa Rosa, where it is somewhat more open. The way often recedes from, though it is generally in sight of, the bed of the river; and is bound in on each side by lofty and sterile granite mountains, which, on the left side of the river as we ascend, are frequently intersected with narrow, perpendicular veins that arise from the level of the water to the very summit of the mountain, and, from the road, present a ferruginous appearance, suggesting the idea of grand conductors of the electric fluid. It is only by continued irrigation that the few patches and strips of soil, which at this distance here and there relieve the tedium of a rugged way, are compelled to throw forth their vegetable luxuriance.
At Huaramayo the temperature is intermediate between that of Sierra and the coast; and, as in the warm inland valleys in the centre of the Andes, so here, in a region of corresponding benignancy on the western acclivity of the same great mountain pile, we have the tree called molle, or mulli, in abundance along the river’s edge. This tree is much prized as fuel; and the sugar-refiners of the interior use the ashes from it, in preference to those from any other wood, on account of their higher alkaline properties, and consequent efficiency in purifying the cane juice while being boiled down to a proper consistence to be cast in moulds. The Inca tribe, as we learn from Garcilaso de la Vega,[26] made a highly valued and medicinal beer, which some of the Indians of the interior still occasionally prepare, from the clusters of small-grained fruit that hang gracefully and abundantly from this pretty tree. We have said that the climate here corresponds to that of the warm central valleys of the Andes; but though analogous in several respects, yet there is this marked difference, that at Huaramayo, and other headlands like Huaramayo, as, for example, Surco, on the San Mateo route to the Sierra from Lima, there is neither winter nor summer, but one perpetual spring. It does not rain here for several months in the year, as in the more inland vales; but it agrees with them in being out of the sphere of frosts, and exempted from the raw fogs and sultry heat of the coast. At Surco, Huaramayo, and other similar localities in narrow glens extending from the coast to the Cordilleras, the sun appears to rise late and to set early, for it is only for a few hours in the middle of the day that it shines strongly between the perpendicular and lofty hills of the valley; and the mid-day heat arising from the powerful reflection of the sun’s rays on the bare rocks is succeeded by a cool and agreeable evening. Here then the atmospherical currents of mountains and coast meet and neutralize each other,—the extremes of both disappear: and the result is a delicious climate for the convalescent, whose tender organs require a gentle uniform temperature, alike removed from the extremes of heat and cold, dryness and moisture; and he who has the precaution or prudence to keep in the shade while the sun crosses the vale in the middle of the day, may, in truth, enjoy undisturbed all the curative qualities of a delightful and renovating temperature. With this important fact the delicate inhabitants of Lima are perfectly acquainted, and they are accustomed to resort to the cabezadas, or headlands of valleys, where these verge on the joint air of mountains and coast; as, for example, Matucana, the favourite resting-place of phthisical and hæmoptic individuals, who find themselves obliged to retire from the capital, in order to recover health by visiting those celebrated sites of convalescence—Tarma and Jauja.