THE SANTO DOMINGO TRAIL*

Santo Domingo Mine, June 5, 1932. My DEAR "IVA GRACIOUS":

Your letter dated May 22nd arrived in record time and my last "effusion" must have reached you in a little better than record time. Your so kindly expressed sympathy for my distressing plight when I heard the news of Clarence's illness is very dear to me and fully appreciated and while I am sorry that the recital of my worries, trials and perils made you weep, yet, my dear, that is true sympathy and I am increasingly grateful for the sincere, warm friendship that has been ours ever since we first met so many, many years ago and which we both "just know" has never wavered, although we have allowed many a month to slip by without an outward sign of awareness of each other's existence. I, too, shed copious tears again while I was recounting the events to you but that, of course, was mere self-pity, a thing to be everlastingly "scotched." Clarence is now well, actively engaged in trying to make up for lost time, and we are endeavoring to completely blot out that nightmarish experience.

But, Iva, my dear, you simply can't realize how thrilled I am at even the suggestion of a possibility that you and "Wag" may come to Santo Domingo; here's hoping with all my strength, heart and soul that the Alaska venture turns out much better than your expectations, so that in six months or so you will be on your way to this country, where 'most everything seems "topsy-turvy" and different: the sun shines from the north, our coldest month is July, the hottest, January; we go north to get warm and return south to cool off; instead of celebrating All Fools' Day on April 1st, December 28th is the day for childish pranks; here the people say "white and black" instead of our "black and white"; one puts the clothes to sleep instead of to soak; if you want a cake iced, you tell the cook you want the cake with bath, if it is to have no icing, then it appears on the table without a bath; you dream with a person instead of him, which gave rise to the following "might have been" embarrassing situation: I do not recall whether I wrote you in one of those Pulacayo letters, that a recently arrived "schoolma'am" lived with us a couple of months, while her habitation was being prepared for her. The Manager asked us to take her for only a few days but the days lengthened into weeks and the weeks into months, before her house was ready, but we enjoyed having her and she helped me a lot in my Spanish. One morning at the breakfast table she calmly remarked that she had dreamed with my husband all night long! Startled, Clarence and I looked at each other and then fairly howled with laughter, much to Miss Gandarillas's amazement, and then I told her about those pesky prepositions, which I still contend cause much more grief and annoyance than the verbs.

In waving good-by down here, these people gesture toward themselves, while in motioning one to come, the hand is waved away from the gesticulator; one says, "No?" when he means yes; when a young man is courting his lady fair, he is "stripping the feathers off a turkey"; a woman is a bride when engaged to be married and ceases to be one as soon as the wedding ceremony is performed; the bridegroom buys the bride's complete trousseau as well as the engagement ring and a ring for himself, which are worn on the third finger of the left hand but are put on the same finger of the right hand during the marriage ceremony where they remain; if the man becomes a widower, he wears two rings! In the home and at parties, men are served first—it took me weeks to impress upon Marcelina that she must serve me before serving Clarence and to serve all women guests before serving the men; to a guest, a hostess invariably says, "My house is yours," and ofttimes you wish it were literally true, and once in a great while you are glad it is but a meaningless phrase; if one is especially extravagant, she is said "to throw the whole house out of the window"; a girl gives a man the pumpkin instead of the mitten; unless a man wants more than one pair, he orders a pantalón—a friend of ours ordered a pair of pantalones from a tailor and was very much surprised to receive two pairs! "Milady" of South America almost invariably takes her breakfast in bed and rarely appears before almuerzo (luncheon); she is a charming hostess and is past mistress of all the social graces but punctuality is not in her vocabulary—she will make an engagement with you, say, at two o'clock, "dos en punta, sin falta" (two sharp, without fail), and meet you smilingly at four or perhaps not even come at all and yet she can reach you by telephone—it simply never enters her pretty head that time is of any value. But the Indian, on the contrary, is up at daybreak, in fact, I have been told that at a neighboring mine, the Indian is up at three, builds a fire and starts his chupe, and he is usually ahead of time, never late, in getting to work. There are many more, to us, odd sayings and peculiar customs among these contrastive peoples but it is these very contrasts and "differentnesses" that make a foreign country so interesting.

And I will come all the way to Mollendo to meet you, even come out to your boat and will take your picture as you descend the accommodation ladder, as you make the jump into the motor launch and again as you make the famous ride in the Mollendo landing chair—you will need the pictures to convince yourself what a scared look you have. It goes without saying that Clarence and I both hope you will find another "El Dorado" or another Santo Domingo right close to us.

Now to the description of the Santo Domingo trail: it must necessarily be a composite description of the many trips I have taken since that first one of July 19 and 20, 1928, for no one trip would suffice to gather in all these details. The first time I came over the trail, I was too scared at first and too tired toward the latter part of the trip to be able to register much; and this description cannot be called complete, for every trip, no matter how many previous ones, is an adventure; whether going out or coming in, each trip will furnish one or more thrills, for there will be something different to see or something unusual will happen and no trip over the Santo Domingo trail can ever be commonplace. Hence, what I am attempting to tell you of the trail now includes impressions of the many trips I have taken over this trail in the last four years.

Iva, I am confident that in all the wide world there exists no trail which surpasses this one from Huancarani to Santo Domingo for greater variety of scenery, of climate and of altitude; that is, in a trail of forty-five miles, which is the approximate distance between the end of the motor road to the Santo Domingo mine. And I hope if I am tempted to put Q.E.D. at the end of this long recital, you will agree that I am justified in doing so.

Usually we leave Huancarani in a blinding snowstorm, a heavy downpour or in a drizzling rain and only occasionally in bright sunshine. Huancarani has an elevation of 13,625 feet above sea level and is situated among the bare granite peaks of the lofty Andes—in less than five hours we are among orange trees at Oconeque! Oconeque is a little more than 6,000 feet high, hence there is a drop of more than 7,000 feet in the little more than twenty-three kilometers (about fourteen miles) and that drop is not only precipitous and "twisty" but it is breath-takingly beautiful as well. The trail from Huancarani to Limbani, about one third of the way to Oconeque, is a leisurely ride of an hour and a half, but it takes fully an hour longer in ascending from Limbani to Huancarani; the mules are already tired from the steep climb from Oconeque, the air is steadily growing rarer and to me, this last lap of the trip seems interminable; in the many times I have been out, I always forget to count the curves and, as I look ahead, I invariably hope the next curve is the last one and there will be ten more, perhaps, before the huddled buildings of Huancarani gladden my impatient eyes. This last lap of the trail is hard on the mules, too, and just recently while a Government inspector was returning from an official visit to our Bella Pampa power plant, his mule fell dead at the same instant the inspector dismounted —the mule had succumbed to soroche (mountain sickness).

The road (it is almost one) from Huancarani to Limbani is wide in most places and offers no special thrills; it needs but a few gigantic boulders to be dynamited out of the way and a little widening here and there to make it fit for motor transportation and how glad I shall be when this is accomplished! Some work has been done to this end, off and on, but more "off" than "on." It will, indeed, be a luxury, pure delight, to get into a car at Limbani, lean back comfortably and forget all about those unnumbered curves, while it will be a "super-delight" not to have to stop at Huancarani, not to have to eat the inevitable spaghetti, but to motor directly to Tirapata—what a pleasure that will be!

In the comparatively level stretch where Huancarani is situated, the stream, sometimes called Aricoma, from the summit which we have recently crossed, meanders placidly along for, perhaps, a half kilometer, then it gathers momentum and we wind in and out around points of rock, losing sight of the stream, and when it again comes into view, it is a rapidly moving current and long before we reach Limbani, it has become a raging torrent; at Limbani, an Indian village of about an hundred souls, the stream is called the Limbani, retaining this name until Quitun is reached, whence it acquires the name of Quitun and it remains the Quitun until it is lost in the Inambari at Bella Pampa, which marks the confluence of the Quitun and the Inambari and where the Company's new power plant is located. All along the route, the water is augmented by innumerable waterfalls and side streams, until at Sagrario, the foot of the renowned Bandarani heights, the once purling brook has become a mighty river.

Almost at once after leaving Huancarani we wind in and out around huge, gray granite boulders, some as high as thirty feet, and many of these boulders contain tiny holes at their base, drilled there for the dynamite which is to blow them into tiny fragments and then the fragments are to be smoothed out of the way for the long-hoped-for automobile road. At rather close intervals we pass groups of Indian huts of stone, with thatched roofs of grass, each group surrounded by fences of stone, and near each group are patches of plowed ground, plowed with a pointed stick—man, woman and child each contributing his labor while the baby, too young to help, is "parked" within the enclosure; these small patches for potatoes and, farther down, for corn as well, have deep zigzag ridges for irrigation and are also rock fenced; many of these little patches are on such incredibly steep mountain sides that you wonder how the seeds ever stay "put"; sometimes these fincas (farms) are close to the river and again they are perched high above the trail. It is interesting to note how ingeniously the Indian has bridged the now turbulent Aricoma-Limbani stream: several of the bridges consist of but one huge slab of slate thrown across the foaming water, with the approaches neatly "cobble-stoned" to meet the slab; one artistic bridge is arched, the rocks fitted in as carefully as if they were cemented.

At Huancarani there is nothing but stunted grass but soon tiny white flowers with no stems are seen; apparently they are blooming from the rocks themselves—this same little flower grows in Chojñacota, 15,600 feet above sea level and also without stems. Seemingly scapeless dandelions appear, no larger than a dime, gradually growing larger as we descend, until at Limbani they have become great splotches of gold, big as a teacup. Small shrubs become larger, stunted trees grow bigger, blackberry vines are very much in evidence; soon there is a wealth of dainty buttercups, glorious marigolds, bright sunflowers—yellow is the predominating color but occasionally one sees short-stemmed honeysuckle of a rich red color and deep-blue lupin and some cosmos of various colors. Limbani is in sight some little time before we enter the village, in fact it spreads out lengthwise almost a half kilometer; it boasts hot springs, whose mineral or curative properties have not yet been determined and the enterprising citizenry collected donations from Santo Domingo and I presume from elsewhere with which to build the swimming pools; the pools still lack roofs and judging from the few people we meet in Limbani's one street, the pools are lacking patrons, too.

Immediately after leaving Limbani, the vegetation becomes more luxuriant, the path becomes narrow and occasionally one must dodge overhanging vines and branches of trees; a cactus with a very pretty pink blossom becomes alluringly plentiful but you will not need to be told twice to leave the blossoms strictly alone—I picked one and the sharp barbs penetrated my heavy riding gloves, inflicting wounds which were painful for several hours! We got strong whiffs of mint—this particular locality must be especially adapted to mint, for its agreeable odor greets one at any time of the year. The ascent of the Limbani hill is not steep but laborious and at the summit is a large wooden cross. It seems to me that every summit in Bolivia or Peru has not only a cross but a huge pile of rocks—every Indian in passing adds another rock, so the pile continues to grow; but the crosses appear not only at the summits but very often at irregular intervals between the summits; the frequency of them is strikingly apparent on "La Fiesta de la Cruz," May 3rd, when practically every cross is gayly decorated with the brightest flowers obtainable. Usually the cross marks the last resting place of some accidentado (one who has been killed by an accident) and these crosses are about as effective "danger signs" as can be designed. The descent of the Limbani hill, however, is "something else again," so steep that all "tenderfeet" and a good many "hardened" ones dismount and walk. On a sunny day, at your right you can see the deep gorge cut by the Limbani River, while at the left, far below, is a comparatively large meadow, a carpet of rich green studded with dandelions, marigolds and other golden-yellow flowers; I am quite sure that at any season of the year, although there are many varieties of multicolored flowers, as well as the yellow ones, yet on this stretch from the bottom of the hill to Huancarani, the yellow eclipses all the other colors.

Once when Lee (of course, you remember that Lee is our son) and I were coming up the Limbani hill—it was Lee's first trip to Santo Domingo—his mule fell prostrate in the trail. It was a foggy day, the fog so dense, one couldn't see fifteen feet ahead and we had the monthly payroll with us. What to do? It was useless to return to Limbani as Limbani has no telephone service. Of course, Lee removed the saddle from the fallen mule at once and we both thought the mule was "out for keeps." We decided to put the saddlebags, containing the money, on my mule and that I should ride on until I met Juan, the trail rider, who had left Oconeque to meet us as soon as he had been apprized of our arrival at Huancarani. Was I scared? I shuddered at every bush or rock, from whence I expected to see a bandit emerge, flourishing his revolver and demanding, "Hands up," while at every curve, I was fearing a whole gang of desperadoes. Just riding alone in that thick fog was enough to frighten me, but when I began the descent, I forgot all about the payroll or "holdups." It was my second trip "in" and I remembered the descent as terrifying, with long series of steps cut in the rock and the trail switchbacking so that one could see the extremely precipitous flights of steps ahead, but this time the dense fog prevented my seeing what was coming next, adding to my terror, and the drizzle had made these breakneck declivities slippery. So I held the reins taut and clung to the saddle.

I rode all of three kilometers in this panicky silence before I met Juan at the bottom of the hill—it wasn't silent all the time either for I called, "Juan, Juan," several times to give me courage and with the vague hope that my calling might hurry him up a bit; however, he did not hear me and was so astonished to meet me thus alone that I had some difficulty in getting my message over. But when he finally comprehended that Lee's mule had fallen by the wayside, that I had come on alone with the payroll, then, in true South American fashion, he first complimented me very highly for being so "valiente," then told me to continue riding across the Agualani River and to continue until I crossed the little bridge near the quinine farm, where I was to await Lee; that he would give his mule to Lee and we two could then proceed to Oconeque, and that he would try to procure a mule in Limbani and perhaps overtake us. I schooled myself for a long wait and was most agreeably surprised to see both Lee and Juan come riding across the little bridge, scarcely a half hour later; Lee's mule had had an attack of colic but recovered shortly after I left so he resaddled her and met Juan about two thirds of the way down the hill.

It is not until we reach this quinine farm, that the vegetation becomes tropical; then as you round the next curve, you have the sensation that you are riding directly into the jungle. The change is so abrupt, you feel that a magic wand has brought forth this profusion of wonderful pink begonias and their velvety beautiful leaves cause you to exclaim with delight. As you drop down, the pink takes on a deeper hue and the leaves become even larger; gorgeous fuchsias "hit you right in the eye," hanging down in such opulent clusters that they seem scarcely able to bear their own weight, and there is such an outpouring of bleeding-hearts that your own heart almost stops its beat in admiration. Here pinks and reds predominate but not always—the prevailing color changes with the seasons, or shall I say the time of year? for there is so little variation in temperature the year around that season seems a misnomer; what was once a riot of pink in a few months may be all purple.

Sometimes, but not on every trip, always in October, you will be charmed with the deep-red amaryllis or belladonna lily, which grows two on a stem—the lily that is nurtured so tenderly in our hothouses, grows wild and relatively abundantly on this trail. There are lovely petunias, the graceful cosmos, phlox in white, crimson, blue, purple and lilac; the dainty lady's-slipper, provided with no sparing hand (metaphorically, however, more like a 3DD size than milady's 6AAA); Canterbury bells of many shades and the cobalt-blue harebells; and intertwining among bushes and trees the prolific morning-glory of blue, striped blue and white and of a deep red. Growing on a vine, but not so prolifically, are the prettiest pink balls, which remind me, every time I see them, of the pretty clover blossoms I once had on a favorite hat, one of those wide-brimmed droopy hats, a Leghorn. There is lupin and there is larkspur aplenty; lilacs, too, and a flowering tree whose blossoms are dark purple similar to the bougainvillea; a sprinkling of mock-orange blossoms and an enormous number of flowers whose names I do not know, many of which looked strange, nearly all beautiful but a few actually hideous to my northern eyes.

But of all the flowers I have mentioned, the begonias are preeminent, acres and acres of them, if one can imagine an acre without width, for these flowers and trees and bushes, apparently fighting for the privilege to live, grow on such precipitous heights that you are aware only of length and the dimension, width, becomes non-existent. Returning to Santo Domingo once in early May, I saw such an exuberance of the lovely pink begonias, intermixed with the white, feathery, dainty flowers, somewhat like sweet alyssum, that I said to myself, "Here are more than enough shower-bouquets for all the brides in Peru this day."

But for fragrance, the exquisite, fair Madonna lily is supreme; on this May trip, the trail repairers were cutting out the protruding branches and overhanging vines—it was the end of the rainy season, when the brushing out of the trail starts and continues until the next rainy season and you filled your lungs with the delightful odors of lilacs, of orange blossoms, of lilies, of violets and of new mown hay—a redolence of sweet smells that could not be duplicated anywhere in the wide, wide out-of-doors.

Even if there were no blossoms at all, the unusual, the remarkably beautiful foliage makes a trip to Santo Domingo worth while: leaves, varying in size from a tiny baby-tooth to one that would not go into a large washtub, the serrated leaf, truncated, petiolated, cancellated—all the "ateds" of a botany textbook, cornuted and latticed or what will you have? Then the almost endless variety of coloring: yellows, russet brown, soft red, the tender green of early spring deepening to almost black. Vines are multifarious and omnipresent. As to trees, it would take an arboriculturist to give the names of all the trees but I hazard a guess that the palm tree with its "57" varieties is the most numerous, and almost every tree is encumbered with curious vines or parasites. You will see, invariably out of reach, rare orchids of many hues and sometimes a ravishingly beautiful orchid with a monstrous yellow parasite resembling an ugly toad on the same tree; the orchids choose the most inaccessible trees from which to flaunt their beauty. Peru is noted for its orchids— the choicest orchids of the world have been found in Peru. At a recent orchid show in Miami, Florida, a Lima, Peru, citizen, whose hobby is collecting the orchids of Peru, carried off every prize! We transplanted some in our front yard and strangely enough they grew—and are still growing—and quite semi-occasionally we grace our dining table with a bouquet of exquisite orchids.

And the ferns! They simply beggar description—you may have your choice from the tiniest, delicate maidenhair fern up to the gigantic tree fern; merely one trip convinces you that a specialista on ferns alone would be able to label them all, there is such a bewildering variety. There is one little, dainty one, whose name I would like to know—it resembles a cluster of tiny green stars, the whole cluster no larger than a child's thimble. And the mosses! I confess right now that I do not know the difference between a moss and a lichen, but what I call moss here is the prettiest, velvety stuff in soft greens, reds and browns, cushioning the rocks to a depth of eight or ten inches, perhaps even more. I have been told that the poor people in Germany gather moss, tear it apart, dry it in the sun and then use it for stuffing mattresses but while the poor folks down here have tons and tons of this wonderful moss, all theirs for the picking, yet they don't know what mattresses are, as I have learned to my discomfort. (We had to seek refuge one night in an Indian hut and the bed consisted of a pile of rocks, or rather a bench of rocks with a few sheepskins thrown on top.)

I am sorry I cannot tell the names of more flowers and I am still sorrier that I didn't study botany more assiduously in my "salad days," and sorriest of all that I have almost forgotten what little I did assimilate. A botanist would need a score of assistants and even so, I am sure it would take a long, long time to classify only the lilies, or the ferns, or the orchids, etc.

Very shortly after passing the quinine farm, we descend steeply a pathway hewn out of slate cliffs, the rock above overhanging: the miners call them half-tunnels and there are miles and miles of these half-tunnels, not continuous but at irregular intervals, and they are the most permanent part of the trail, for being cut out of solid rock, they do not slide and slip off into the river below as many other parts of the trail have done and which some are still trying to do. The trailing vines and overhanging branches get into one's eyes, showering one with water, and these half-tunnels drip copiously even in the driest season, hence I always tie my slicker on the saddle in front, so I can don it quickly. To one's right is a sheer precipice, sometimes several hundred feet above the rushing stream, and again the trail winds down to almost the river's edge, ascending steeply again, and around such sharp curves, one wonders if the mule can make it and soon learns that a mule can turn on a dime and leave a nickel for change! At the very steep places, you would like very much to dismount but there doesn't seem room enough on the cliff side, while, of course, the precipice side is out of the question, not only for fear of stumbling headlong over the cliff, but the mule might object to your dismounting on the "off" side; hence, you grasp the reins tightly, confident that the mule doesn't want to go over the precipice either, and to bolster up your courage you begin repeating Psalms, the Twenty-third around a short, bare precipice, the Ninety-first when a longer "scary" stretch looms in sight, and any other Psalms you may know in between.

Escorting Mr. and Mrs. Stretter over this trail about a year ago, darkness overtook us before we had climbed out of the canyon and not one of us had a flashlight, not even a match. I was extremely nervous, knowing the dangers of the way and feeling the responsibility of conducting our guests safely to Oconeque. I stayed on my mule as long as I possibly could—it seemed hours to me since I first wanted to dismount—for I had been told many times that it was safer to be on a mule after dark than on foot, but when it became pitch dark and even the mule quivered as we rounded a curve, I decided I would put my trust in my own feet and calling back to the others, I told them I was dismounting, so they did likewise. By crowding close to the cliff, "keeping in touch" with it most of the time, we gropingly descended. I knew that Flores, the trail rider, would send an Indian to meet us and he did, but when the Indian attempted to apply the match—he had but one—he found there was no oil in the lantern! Fortunately it was only about a half hour more until we haltingly emerged from the canyon; there was an Indian hut at the summit of a small hill to the right but it could not provide us with either oil or matches, but the sympathetic owner rigged up a lantern made of a candle stuck in a tin can and he lighted the candle from the still glowing embers of the fire with which the evening chupe had been cooked. No 100-watt electric globe was ever more welcome and I am sure that candle was more tenderly guarded than any electric globe ever was. Mrs. Stretter and I remounted, for we were very tired; the Indian who had brought the lantern but no oil and but one match, led my mule, Mr. Stretter that of his wife, while the Indian who had accompanied us from Huancarani took care of Mr. Stretter's mule and the two cargo-mules. It is but a ten minutes' ride from the "Good Samaritan" Indian hut, down a very steep hill, over a small wooden bridge, a few feet more down hill until we reach the first suspension bridge (two small ones that we have crossed do not "count"). And so Mrs. Stretter had the unforgettable thrill of crossing her first suspension bridge by candlelight; the roaring of the black, swirling water beneath the swaying, lurching bridge—the faint glimmer of light allowing one to see white foam as the river tumbled headlong over the huge boulders—augmented the thrill, but she was a good sport and walked across apparently unafraid. These suspension bridges have no railings, and are made of five-foot hewn planks, long-wired together and slung on cables, three underneath which carry the major weight, two suspension cables on either side and four coming at right angles from the stream to the center of the bridge, thus making a surprisingly steady structure; yet they sway sideways and up and down—leading one's mule helps to minimize the vibration. Personally, I have never minded crossing the bridges at all; to me, they are as nothing compared to the dizzy heights, and "familiarity has bred contempt” almost, for the lofty escarpments. Yet I do not care to be reminded of "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" when on one of these suspension bridges for it was not so very distant from this region that that bridge collapsed with such disastrous consequences to all the travelers on it; however, such a wholesale disaster could not occur on a Santo Domingo bridge, as only one person is allowed to cross at a time. Excessively timid persons have been permitted an escort, and two persons leading a mule does minimize the swaying appreciably, provided the people walk out of step. There are nine suspension bridges in all, one a few minutes before we reach Oconeque, four between Oconeque and Quitun, another but a short distance beyond Quitun, often called the "Monkey bridge," because we occasionally see monkeys here, the first monkeys on the trip; a short bridge that crosses the Sagrario Creek, at the foot of Bandarani, and but a few minutes before we arrive at Sagrario; then the ace of all the bridges, the one that crosses the Inambari at Oroya, and the final one which bridges Santo Domingo Creek, about five kilometers from the mine.

Normally, I think it takes about two hours, more or less, to ride through the shady, damp, but always beautiful canyon between the quinine farm and Oconeque. There are many birds, but due to the dense foliage, it takes a practiced eye to see them and I will write you a lot about birds later. In the many trips I have taken back and forth, I have seen but five snakes on the trail and someone has always had the start of us and killed those snakes. But butterflies, ah, myriads of them and a later letter will "spill over" about butterflies.

Oconeque, the Company's roadhouse, provides quarters for its employees going out and coming in and permanent quarters for the mules, and is also the Company's source of supply for fresh vegetables and much of its fruit. Oconeque, a group of stone buildings in the midst of a forty-acre, relatively flat and cultivated area, is an always-welcomed shelter, a haven looked forward to, whether "going or coming," for man and beast are well taken care of; a mule needs no further urging when within a kilometer or so from Oconeque and tired man "perks up" a bit in anticipation of the chicken dinner with all the "trimmings" awaiting him. If not too tired, the "inner" man satisfied, you will enjoy strolling through the really lovely garden and the well-kept orchard, but most of all you will enjoy a clean, comfortable bed with real springs and real feather pillows.

In the garden are carefully cultivated plots of corn, beds of cabbage, of cauliflower, tomatoes, lettuce, celery, carrots, beets, acelgas (our spinach or its twin sister), squashes and what not, nearly all the temperate zone vegetables; by rotating crops, we have fresh vegetables the year around. Recently we had our first taste of rhubarb in South America: the seed was sent from the States and Flores, our "mayor domo" of Oconeque, planted the seeds, which grew so rapidly that Flores was amazed; he did not know "pie plant" so Lee showed him which was the edible part and also cautioned him not to let the rhubarb take the whole garden. I myself showed Blanco, the cook, how to prepare the rhubarb for the pie, and never before in South America, entre nous, was a pie so enjoyed or so extravagantly praised.

The orchard contains oranges, lemons, citron, peaches, papayas, granadillas. The granadilla resembles the pomegranate somewhat but is yellow or greenish-yellow; the seeds are surrounded by a tart, green jelly; if you have no spoon, swallow the seeds and jelly whole, about as you would manipulate a raw oyster; it is very refreshing on a hot day. The flower of the tree is very beautiful, decidedly exotic, called the passion flower, is blue outside, white and purple inside; it is called passion flower from its resemblance to the crucifixion: the stigmas represent the nails of the cross, the anthers, the wounds, while the rays of the corona are the crown of thorns.

Oconeque boasts another even more exotic flower than the granadilla—a green rose! A rosebush of green roses! Page "Believe-it-or-not-Ripley"! I never heard of a green rose before, have you? I will bring some to you, not only that, but, if possible, I will bring some cuttings, and we will see what we can do for St. Patrick's Day, for they are real, genuine roses.

If it is your first trip to Oconeque, you are probably too tired—muscle-weary, eye-weary and yes, even ear-weary—to be at all interested, even in passion flowers or green roses; muscle-weary from the unaccustomedly long time in the saddle, eye-weary from seeing so many things new and trying all the time not to miss anything, while your ears feel they could not stand much more of that continuous pounding and roaring of the Limbani River. The balmy air of Oconeque is also conducive to sleep, hence shortly after supper you are off for a deep sleep of ten hours or more, yet you feel sure you have slept but a few minutes when you are called at five-thirty, at dawning, for another day's muleback traveling. If it is not raining, it is well to have your slicker handy, not only for the half-tunnels, which are at closer intervals and also much more "drippy" in the stretch between Oconeque and Quitun, but it is almost sure to rain before the day is ended.

A few minutes of riding below Oconeque, one sees the first banana trees growing wild—the stalks of whose fruit hangs upside down in our grocery stores and markets; the trees have leaves six to eight feet long and from twelve to fifteen inches wide, while the stalk of the tree itself ranges from two to six feet and even more. The foliage, all the vegetation, becomes yet more tropical in appearance—we are now riding in the montaña (literally, mountains, but as here used, means thickly wooded or the jungle), aptly named, "Green Hell"; the huge-leaved plants become even more huge, the lush vegetation has become indeed "jungly." In the hour and a half's steep descent to Quitun, one must cross four suspension bridges—the trail could go no farther on this side, so perforce the river was bridged and then that happened again on the other side; four times up and down and across, and this fourth bridge is not the longest but it is decidedly the "swayiest" and the trail over this stretch was made possible only by blasting the way through solid rock almost, but not quite, continuously.

Quitun is a coffee plantation and on our first trip coffee was being dried in the sun in front of the large "barny" house of the hacienda, or I presume I should call it cafetal: I have never lost my admiration for the manner in which words are coined in Spanish—cafetal for coffee plantation, platanal for banana plantation, piñal for pineapple farm— of course, you will gather that cafe is coffee, platano, banana and piña, pineapple. On the tree the coffee bean is in a bright red pod, surrounded by a juice which is quite sweet. There are coffee trees on both sides of the river and the only means to cross the river, that I saw, was a single cable with a basket on a pulley, just like the cash baskets in a department store, only larger and not so "fancy"; the coffee is thus transported from the far side of the river to the side we were on, and all the laborers propel themselves on this cable, and after seeing this self-propulsion above, high above, that turbulent, foaming river, I would have been ashamed to be afraid to cross a suspension bridge with its five-foot wide, solid planking beneath my feet.

There are approximately one hundred and fifty acres in this coffee plantation but if one were to draw a map of it, it would be practically all length and very little width. The mountain rises so abruptly back of the residencia of the coffee plantation that it seems even a llama could not retain a foothold, yet it is terraced and cultivated and "they say" there is quite a grazing region on the summit. One is constantly amazed at the steepness of the mountain sides, as constantly wonders at and increasingly admires the ingenuity and what must have been the tireless efforts of the Incas in subduing this precipitous and almost inaccessible country, and is most astonished of all that their work has been so permanent.

Our narrow trail through the cafetal is rocked up about four feet high on both sides, while the trail itself is paved with rocks and one must be constantly guarding against overhanging branches of the coffee trees; the whole plantation gives the impression of great neglect, for the trees have not been pruned for many years. Our path leads steeply down to a rushing side stream, whose bed at our crossing has been securely paved with boulders and a sort of parapet has been built also of boulders, where the stream falls precipitately five or six feet on its mad rush to join the Quitun River; there are times when this creek is a raging torrent, sometimes impassable for several hours; even when only knee-deep, it is comforting to know the parapet is there, thus allaying one's fears of being carried over the precipice—the boulders in the parapet are spaced wide apart and not too high so the water does not form a deep pool. Now we cautiously guide our mules over a stretch of loose shale, about one hundred and fifty feet of these shifting, treacherously moving rocks, some as small as pebbles and others as large as a dining table; this spot has been the occasion of many a landslide, causing delays of passengers, of mail or freight, from a few hours to a whole week; the whole mountain side seems to be bent on sliding into the Quitun River.

After about an hour's descending, around sharp curves, through half-tunnels, splashing through innumerable waterfalls, we come to a section of the trail that winds steeply down hill in steps cut in the rock and around a point, very narrow, where the river actually undercuts the trail and the steps slope outward towards the edge! Opposite, the high smooth rock-wall of the mountain is inclined over the river and, looking up, you can see but a thin line of blue sky. We are so close to the mad rapids that the roar of the pounding water is deafening—the "white caps" tear and tumble over gigantic granite boulders; this is the most picturesque, the wildest, the most awe-inspiring part of the whole trail; what a setting for a Zane Grey novel! We climb out of this inferno of noise and roar and in a very short time we breathe a sigh of relief as a relatively large space, "the wide, open space" compared to the narrow gorge we -have just left behind, is "untwisted" before us; we usually stop here for lunch on our way out and to allow the mules a few minutes' respite before tackling the heavy upgrade just beyond; also from here is the beginning of the declivitous ascent to famous Bandarani, the ace of dizzy heights.

I often wondered why the trail was built so excessively high and recently I was informed thus: Bandarani means the "place of the flag" and when the American Company first took over the Santo Domingo mine the Manager sent Mr. Yungling as surveyor to scout a trail along the Quitun River; he climbed down from the ridge to set this flag where he could see it from either side for a long distance—he wanted to be sure that he remained in the Quitun valley, or rather I should say canyon, and if you ever see the multitudinous, knifelike ridges in this section of the high Andes, you will understand why the flag was necessary to assure him that he was still in the same canyon. He had no intention of putting the trail up to that flag; he was called away from this work and some time later a road crew with a native boss was sent to build the trail, and the boss had the men work up to this flag and then, perforce, they had to work their way down again! A row of graves, each marked with a wooden cross, is a mute and ghastly reminder of the loss of life which this sector of the trail entailed; it is said that the life of eight men was snuffed out by a single landslide and these eight men have no crosses. There is no record of the total death-roll which this trail has cost and perhaps it is better so.

We laboriously climb up and up and up, from about fifty feet above the Quitun River until we are more than three thousand feet still higher up, so much higher that the ever-increasing pounding of the river can scarcely be heard at all—its resounding uproar becomes a mere murmur. For more than an hour, the trail seems to hang like a narrow shelf in front of us and it is not well to look too far ahead, for the dizzy height of what appears a tiny, long thread to travel over is not conducive to comfort. I am always pleased when the precipitous "down" side is covered with vegetation, for although I know I am riding along a sheer precipice, yet I can look down into the tops of trees with more equanimity than down into space; when a bare precipice looms into view, I bethink myself of a Psalm and I used to keep my eyes glued to the "up side" of the trail, occasionally allowing myself the thrill of glancing down at the toy river below; however, now, while still thrilled, I can really enjoy the thrills without feeling those little tremors of dread running a gamut up and down my spine. And I am still glad when the trail begins to descend, for then I know the worst is over.

But we descend so steeply that all but the most seasoned travelers dismount; looking ahead you wonder how the mule can retain his equilibrium over those sharply pitched switchbacks, over those steps cut in the rock, but a mule has never fallen over the cliff along here—higher up and on the summit of Bandarani, several mules have been hurtled to a mangled mass far below but each time a mule has gone over the cliff it has been due to the crowding of other mules in the pack train. Almost never have I ridden over Bandarani without meeting a mule train; a rider always takes the inside of the trail and usually there is no difficulty in passing, but occasionally we have had to turn back several rods in order to find space enough for the bulkily laden mules to pass us. Generally we dismount, leading our mules as closely against the mountain side as it is possible to do, so with much yelling of "Mula, mula" and with plenty of maneuvering by the arriero (muleteer), the mules are brought safely past us, then this always-exciting episode over, we jog along until we hear the tinkling of the bell on the bell-mule or perhaps see another mule train in the "offing" long before we can hear the bell, whereupon the same procedure is enacted.

The descent to the sixth and rather short suspension bridge which spans Sagrario Creek seems very brief compared to the toilsome, steady grind of climbing to the summit, yet on going out, this too becomes quite a climb. Sagrario Creek, a tributary of the Quitun, currently reported to be rich in gold-bearing gravel, is but a stone's throw (a lengthy one, though) to the public roadhouse, Sagrario; if it weren't for the mud, and the trail is always muddy here at any time of the year, it is not worth while to remount for in a moment or two we are at this hospitable inn, where Natalia, its widely known hostess, is indefatigable in her efforts to please. She has a well-cultivated chacra, which provides feed for the mules, and a variety of fruits and vegetables for her "other" guests; her specialty is "Fresco," a delicious, cool drink made of the juice of pineapples, oranges, lemons and papaya or, which is my favorite, the juice of pineapple alone, which she beats with an egg beater, first adding just a little sugar, until it looks very much like a delectable icecream soda and which I have named, "Pineapple delight." Pineapples grow practically the year round at Sagrario, hence pineapple delight may be enjoyed as long as the egg beater holds out. Our first two years here we always hurried through Sagrario, stopping only to say "Saludos" and to enjoy a fresco, if already prepared, for we felt impelled to "make" the mine going in or Oconeque in going out, but now I look forward to staying over night at Sagrario, which makes the journey much less arduous and does away with that uncomfortable, "I must hurry" feeling.

Almost exactly a league farther on, following the right bank of the Quitun River, the trail slopes gently downward until we arrive at Bella Pampa, the lowest point of the trail, 3150 feet above sea level, and which also marks the confluence of the Quitun and Inambari Rivers. In this drop of considerably more than ten thousand feet from Huancarani to Bella Pampa, in a day and a half's muleback trip, I have tried to give you an idea of the variety of scenery, of climate and of altitude; we have come from the high, wind-swept, barren granite rocks of the Andes through temperate and semi-tropical sections to Oconeque and from Oconeque quickly into the tropical montaña or "Green Hell"; the transition from the hardy, scapeless dandelions and stemless buttercups to gigantic tree ferns and huge-leaved plants is absolutely startling; the flowers of gorgeous hues, many of them unfamiliar, seem almost unreal; what few birds we see are of vivid, bright-colored plumage; the myriads of butterflies are of all the colors of the rainbow and then some, a few of them as large as saucers (these of iridescent blue and gold) while the smallest is about the size of a violet and also that color. We were freezing at Huancarani, neither too hot nor too cold but just "right" at Oconeque, while long before we arrive at Bella Pampa we have discarded all wraps and are grateful for every bit of shade which the trail may afford. Have I demonstrated the three propositions, so that I may now "justifiedly" add Q.E.D.?

At Bella Pampa "our" company has a new 540 H.P. hydro-electric power plant. It was begun many years ago during Senator Emery's regime; all the parts were assembled but the construction and its final installation awaited our coming. The whole plant is underground. The tunnel which conveys the water from the Quitun River to the plant is one-half mile long, while the discharge from the "big wheels" flows again into the Quitun about three-quarters of a mile farther down the stream from whence it was taken. It is the only plant of its kind in Peru and was put underground on account of the constant danger of landslides.

And if this plant had not been underground, it would have been completely demolished last April, when there was an enormous landslide, which wrecked the house and office, built at the entrance of the short tunnel which leads to the "works." Muto San, who had not quite finished the installing of the plant, barely escaped with his life—his second hairbreadth escape from death at Bella Pampa; the first close shave occurring when the Company's house in which he was living was swept into the rapidly rising, tumultuous, swirling black waters of the Quitun, shortly after midnight and he had to jump out of a window, which, fortunately, overlooked the road, where the water was still shallow; there was no other means of exit.

But in the awful landslide last April an Italian, a tourist, who with a companion was on his way to Maldanado to finish "doing" Peru and thence to the Amazon, was instantaneously killed, while his friend sleeping in the same room, in a bed next to his, was unhurt; two of Muto's assistants sleeping in the same house were badly hurt, one of them being pinned under debris so that it took several hours to extricate him, and these two men were so nerve-racked that they had to be transferred to other work. A Subprefect was also visiting Muto that night and the two men were sleeping in one room; neither can explain his almost miraculous deliverance from death. Muto says his first recollection of anything at all was that he was under his bed and then, remembering the Subprefect, he called to him and he, too, was under his own bed! They made their way out through the debris and with the help of all the men in Bella Pain pa rescued the men who were still in what was loft of the house—entire trees, roots, trunks, branches and all, were jumbled up with rocks, boulders and dirt. Of course the lights were extinguished and the telephone was put out of commission but word was sent at once from Oroya, only a mile distant, to Santo Domingo advising the doctor of the tragedy and of the wounded and he immediately left for the field of disaster, while as soon as it was daybreak a large crew came down from the mine to help clear away the debris. And while the doctor was taking care of the wounded at Bella Pampa, a miner had his leg crushed by a falling boulder in the mine, and the doctor had to amputate the leg as soon as he returned from Bella Pampa. Such a chapter of accidents! This all occurred while Clarence and I were on our way home from his "sick-leave" and when we arrived at Bella Pampa, almost a week later, the trail was still choked with rubbish and we had to ride in the river bed and then climb strenuously to get back in the trail.

Generally, Bella Pampa is another haven of rest and refreshment. The man in charge, having been notified by telephone that we are coming, "tips off" his wife, so a delicious almuerzo is awaiting us; soup, for soup is served twice a day everywhere in Bolivia and Peru; chicken or duck (and ducks "do" exceedingly well in this wet country), potatoes or yucca, sometimes both, lettuce and one or two other vegetables; always fruit for dessert, pineapples, bananas and papayas being "in season" throughout the year. We always have plenty of paltas (alligator pear or avocado) when in season and a salad of paltas is as satisfying as a hearty meal. But while the refreshment may be "long," the rest is short, for we are so near home that we want to be on our way.

A short half-league over the pampa (Bella Pampa signifies beautiful pampa or flat) and we are at the ace of all the suspension bridges, the famous Oroya bridge, 359 feet long, swinging like a rope high above the Inambari River. At the Oroya end of this bridge is a gate, over which a toll-house is built, for the trail from Huancarani to Santo Domingo mine is privately owned—only Government officials and Santo Domingo employees have pases libres (free passes). The toll gatherer is also inspector, for it is his duty to search all suspects and their cargo for contraband gold as they are going out and to search for alcohol on suspects coming in; lie also telephones the office who and at what time anyone is crossing the bridge—if the traveler is a merchant, the inspector informs the office what wares he has to sell and if the store is already overstocked with such wares, the merchant is advised, thus saving him an unnecessary trip. With telephonic connections at the mine, at Oroya, Bella Pampa, Oconeque and Huancarani, we are kept in fairly close touch with all movement on the trail. Knowing exactly when a traveler leaves a certain station, if he does not arrive at the next station within a reasonable time, the man in charge of this station sends a scout out to investigate. The toll is one sol (forty cents in normal times) for a mounted or carga mule; a half-50/ or fifty centavos for a mule without saddle or cargo; eighty centavos for a burro with load; fifty centavos for llamas with cargoes; thirty centavos for a cow, twenty for a sheep, twenty-five for a person on foot with a load. But all the tolls pay but a very small fraction of the cost of the upkeep of the trail.

Shortly after leaving Oroya we round a curve and see a grayish-muddy creek—that telltale color which denotes mining operations farther on; we have come to Santo Domingo Creek and the pollution of that once joyous, care-free stream reminds one of the North Pole story: had the Pole been of gold, it would have been discovered centuries earlier; and so, I presume, the waters of Santo Domingo Creek would still be crystal clear, if gold had not been discovered at its source. The trail is now narrower and several friends, who have come to Santo Domingo a number of times, insist that the trail from the mouth of the Santo Domingo Creek to the mine is the most picturesque, the most "untamed" part of the entire trail. It ascends gradually until we reach the Santo Domingo suspension bridge, the ninth and last one-it seems the highest of all and appears as a thread swaying high up in space, but it is one of the short ones. It was but a short distance from this bridge that a woman was supposed lo have pushed her husband over the cliff, and later married the "younger and handsomer" man, who first relieved the husband of his gold before the wife gave him the fatal shove.

From the Santo Domingo bridge the trail is almost literally "straight up"—the difference in altitude between Oroya and the mine, 3,500 feet, is comprised almost entirely in the last three miles. A mere few hundred yards from the bridge, we pass through a very short defile and immediately to the left is a well-defined path to the Tunquipata power plant, which is situated but several hundred feet below in the Alta Gracia gorge. We follow the precipitous mountain ridge on the right side of the Santo Domingo ravine, climbing to heights which almost rival Bandarani. The mine is just below the top ridge, the last ridge before entering the Amazon Basin, but before we see this top ridge we enter a large curve, almost a semicircle, which to me is the loveliest of all spots of the entire trail; very nearly at the center is a wonderfully beautiful waterfall, whose waters cascade almost perpendicularly from dizzy heights above, splash over the culvert and fall vertically several hundred feet to mingle with the onrushing waters of Santo Domingo Creek. As we enter the twilight in this curve, for the sun never penetrates within its tips, and hear only the musical cadence of the murmuring, falling water and see the graceful ferns, the exquisite, the flower-like mosses—in this dim stillness, one can readily imagine himself in another world, in a dream world, a fairy grotto; and yet, what do you think the Quechua Indians have named this enchanting spot? "Supay Puncu"—Hell's Gate!

Very shortly after emerging from my fairy grotto—I will not call it "Supay Puncu"—we see the huge tanks of concentrates, the mill and a few other buildings, but distances are deceiving and there is a good half hour's strenuous climbing before we dismount "for good." We are told that there are nine tanks, each twenty-four feet high and sixteen feet in diameter—thus each has a capacity of 57,500 gallons; multiply 57,500 by nine and you have the storage of the tailings from the mill and these tailings, by means of a cyanide plant and a furnace, are expected to yield a goodly sum of gold. Of course, the tanks had to be brought in in sections, but if they were carried in on Indians' backs, as they very likely were, their cost of transportation must have taken a goodly sum of gold as well. When you are almost opposite the mill, its "innards" can be plainly seen, for this "stair-steps" building has a galvanized iron roof, or better roofs, but no walls— the weather is warm throughout the year and hence it does not need to be enclosed; but at Chojñacota—br-r-rr—it was so cold that it was a problem to keep not only the men but the machinery as well from, getting "froze up."

After getting a glimpse of the camp, we are too anxious to reach our destination to pay any further attention to abysses, narrowness of trail, or to splashing through waterfalls, for from the time we have left Limbani, it seems a kaleidoscope of a jumbling of ridges, peaks, gorges and waterfalls; and looking back as we approach Santo Domingo, we see a succession of knifeblade ridges, which you know are separated by profoundly deep gorges and I, for one, breathe a sigh of relief that I am not expected to traverse all those stupendous ravines. But this last bit of trail does require our undivided attention—innumerable slides have wiped out the trail and each time the trail has been dug back into the trail itself. This entire mountain side, like that near Quitun, seems determined to plunge headlong into the stream below.

On the occasion of our first trip "in," Santo Domingo was brilliantly lighted for our reception and never before in all my life were lights so welcome. Muto San, the Japanese electrician and general factotum since the mine had been closed down, some four years previous to our coming, met us at the turnstile and smilingly (his smile is renowned throughout southern Peru) conducted us to our new home— and our life in Santo Domingo began.

Now, my dear, I hope I have described the trail so that its beauty and charm far outweigh any impressions of fear or weariness; that the thrills of grandeur and gorgeousness exceed those of terror or nervousness.

P. S. I read somewhere recently that the Arabs have a legend that when God made the world, he put all the stones which were to cover it into bags and gave the bags to an angel; while the angel was flying over Palestine one bag broke, hence Palestine is so stony. If this same angel had been flying over this section of the world much later, for we are geologically much younger than Palestine, and of course the bags would have become much older, I am quite sure at least a dozen bags broke and some of those stones are still standing on end!

* From High in the Andes -- Peruvian Letters of a Mining Engineer's Wife by Josephine Hoeppner Woods
G. P. Putnam's Sons New York
1935