At the chulpas our mules had begun to pant and stagger under the influence of the soroche, or rarefaction of the air, but which Berrios insisted was from the veta, or influence due to mineral substances (vetas or veins of metal) in the earth. And, in reality, at a little distance farther on, although meanwhile our ascent had been constant, they seemed to have sensibly recovered, but still showed signs of the soroche.

At three o'clock we turned abruptly from the gorge of the torrent, which we had been following, now reduced to a trickling rivulet, and began to climb the steep mountain-side on our right, zigzagging towards the cumbre or crest. Two hours were occupied in this slow and painful ascent, the mules suffering much, and frequently stopping to recover breath. From the summit of the ridge-which was the divide between two of the sources of the Rio de Tacnaalthough bleak mountains still rose above us, cutting off from view the still higher Nevadas, or snowy mountains beyond them, we could, nevertheless, look down with scarce an interruption on the great sandy plateau of the coast, in which the valley of Tacna appeared only as a speck. A thin white, but confusing, haze cut off our view of the ocean; but the intervening desert, dull and monotonous, was clearly defined.

On what may be termed the saddle of the crest are the remains of tambos, or stone edifices, which the provident Incas had erected as hospices or refuges for the travelers between the coast and the interior. So-called Spanish civilization has supplied nothing of the kind, albeit, as I have said, this is the principal route of travel and commerce between the capital of Bolivia and the sea.

Descending from this ridge we found ourselves in another gorge or valley somewhat wider than that by which we ascended, and watered by a larger stream. Following up this, it being now late in the afternoon, we began to experience the cold consequent on our great altitude, and became aware of an unnatural distension of our lips and swelling of our hands, due to diminished atmospheric pressure. Icicles depended from the dripping rocks in shaded places, and the pools of the stream were bridged over with ice. Suddenly we came to a point where the rocks closed so nearly as to permit but one loaded animal to pass at a time, stumbling through the stream among loose stones and the skeletons of mules-a dark, cold, shuddering place! Fortunately the pass, which is that of La Portada (the portal), is not long, and we soon emerged from it, in sight of the great corral and depository of barilla, of the same

The merchants of Tacna have built here a rude inclosure for the droves of llamas that come from the interior with products for the coast, and here also is a little cluster of buildings for persons connected with the tradehomely and poor, but a welcome refuge for the tired traveler. As we rode up a troop of more than a thousand llamas, with proudly-curved necks, erect heads, great, inquiring, timid eyes, and suspicious ears thrust forward as if to catch the faintest sound of danger, each with its hundred pounds of ore secured in sacks on its back, led, not driven, by quaintly-costumed Indians, filed past us into the inclosure of the establishment.

We obtained hospitality in one of the buildings of La Portada. But let not my readers mistake the meaning of the word hospitality. In Peru it consists generally in permitting you, with more or less of condescension, to spread your own bed on the mud floor of an unswept room, alive with vermin, with a single rickety table for its chief and often its only article of furniture. It consists in permitting you to cook your own food, with fuel for which you will not be obliged to pay your host or his servant acting under his direction, much more than four times its value, and who expects that you will permit him to take the lion's share of your preserved meats, and no inconsiderable portion of your last bottle of the stimulant you most affect, which can not be replaced, and which is here often vitally necessary.

I have crossed the Alps by the routes of the Simplon, the Grand St. Bernard, and St. Gothard, but at no point on any of them have I witnessed a scene so wild and utterly desolate as that which spreads out around La Portada. There is neither tree nor shrub; the frosty soil cherishes no grass, and the very lichens find scant hold on the bare rocks. In altitude La Portada is 12,600 feet above the sea, or about 1000 feet higher than the hospice of the Grand St. Bernard, and but little lower than the untrodden summit of the Eiger. The night was bitterly cold. The cañaso, aguardiente, or native rum, which I had purchased for making coffee in my cafetéra, refused to burn, and extinguished the lighted match thrust into it as if it were water. I was obliged to abstract some refined alcohol from my photographic stores to supply its place, with which my Bolivian companions made themselves free, besides taking the best places for their beds, and leaving only the table and a narrow bench for Hand myself.

Before going to bed I went out to the corral. The llamas had been fed each with a handful of maize, and were crouching on their bellies, with their legs mysteriously folded beneath their fleeces and invisible, but with their heads erect, and ears thrust forward, chewing their cuds with an expression of distant contemplation

water was frozen solid. The murmur of the stream that flowed past La Portada was hushed beneath its icy armor. At eight o'clock we seemed to be close on the cumbre, but it was nine o'clock before the silver peaks of Tacora and Chipicani began to show themselves, and the sun to stream into our faces from the east -a genial and welcome apparition.

Half an hour later, our mules laboring severely and stopping momentarily to recover breath, we reached the Pass of Guaylillos, marked, as is every other high pass in Peru, by an apacheta, or great cairn, raised by the Indians, each one of whom as he passes casts a stone on it or a quid of coca, as an offering or propitiation to the genius of the mountain, who has the power of conferring strength and relieving fatigue. This apacheta is about twenty feet high, surmounted by a rude cross, and with its slopes covered with the skeletons and desiccated bodies of mules that had here succumbed under the influence of the soroche.

The Pass of Guaylillos is 14,750 feet above the sea, or but little less than the altitude of Mount Blanc, and more than double that of Mount Washington. The view backward from this point presents only a series of dark-brown, desolate ridges radiating toward the sea, the buttresses of the high, broken plain in front, bristling with snowy peaks, from some of which may be seen issuing plumes of smoke, indicating their volcanic character. Between us and the icy Tacora and Chipicani, rising. 8000 feet above our heads, their pure summits yet untouched by human foot, is a broad but shallow valley covered with hardy puna grass, now sere and withered, but affording food for a flock of graceful vicuñas, which lift high their heads and stare straight at us as I fire my rifle, the report of which sounds wonderfully hollow and weak in the thin atmosphere. While we sat gazing on this grand but bleak and wintry scene, the distended nostrils and heaving sides of our animals telling painfully how great was their difficulty in breathing, we were startled by the sudden fall from his saddle of one of our Bolivian companions under the effects of the soroche. On lifting him from the ground we found him nearly senseless, with blood trickling from his mouth, ears, nostrils, and the corners of his eyes. Copious vomiting followed, and we administered the usual restoratives with good effect.

In doing this I drew off my gloves, and was surprised to find my hands swollen and covered with blood which appeared as if it had oozed from a thousand minute punctures. Excepting this, a tumefaction of the lips, and occasionally a slight giddiness, I did not suffer from the rarefaction of the air or from the veta while in the interior of Peru, although for six months I was seldom less than 13,000 and often as high as 18,000 feet above the sea.

We wound down by an easy path into the valley that intervened between us and the base of Tacora, at the bottom of which we came to the

are yellow and orange with sulphurous deposits, and lined with the skeletons of horses, mules, and llamas that had ventured to drink its poisonous waters. I tasted the water, and found it abominably acrid and bitter. Indeed, all the water of the Despoblado, even that which to the taste does not betray any evidence of foreign or mineral substances in solution, is more or less purgative, and often productive of very bad effects. In many parts of the country the thirsty traveler discovers springs as limpid and bright as those of our New England hills; yet when he dismounts to drink, his muleteer will rush forward in affright with the warning cry, "Beware; es agua de Veruga!" The Veruga water is said to produce a terrible disease, called by the same name, which manifests itself outwardly in both men and animals in great bleeding boils or carbuncles, which occasion great distress and often result in death.

From the Rio de Azufre our path wound round the base of Tacora, which is of volcanic origin, and 22,687 feet in elevation, and gradually ascended to a broad plain, sloping gently to the right, covered with stones, sere ichu grass, and clumps of a low resinous shrub called tola. Groups of vicuñas were scattered over the plain, and at a low, marshy spot, near where a patch of ground white with the effloresence of some kind of salts showed the existence of a shallow pool in the season of rains, we observed a belt of light green grass, on which a troop of llamas was feeding. They were interspersed with vicuñas, which grazed by their side as if members of the same community.

I need not say that we were eager to get a shot at the vicuñas, but they were shy, and kept well out of reach. I dismounted, and endeavored to steal from one clump of bushes, and from one rock to another, until within reasonable range; but always at the critical moment the male of the family-they always run in groups of ten or a dozen, females and young ones, under the lead of a single patriarchwould stamp his foot and utter a strange sound, half-neigh half-whistle, and away they would dart with the speed of the wind, only, however, to stop at a safe distance and stare at us intently, not to say derisively. After several attempts and failures I ventured a random shot at a group fully half a mile distant. They bounded away, all but one, which after going a few yards stopped short. "Es herido! es herido!"

he is wounded! he is wounded!-shouted my companions, who threw off their ponchos and alforgas, and calling to me to follow their example, started on a chase after the wounded animal. And such a chase I venture to say was never before seen at the foot of solemn old Tacora! The shot had broken one of the forelegs of the vicuña, just below the knee, but we soon found that with his three sound legs he was more than a match for us, on a stern chase. After half an hour's hard riding we stopped to arrange a little piece of strategy, and the vicuña

He regarded the whole proceeding with complacency, and never moved, except to contemplate us one after another as we closed slowly and cautiously around him. Nearer and nearer, and still he never moved. We were almost within pistol range, and our fingers were already on our triggers, when with a bound he dashed between me and Berrios, who had joined in the chase, with the velocity of an arrow. I fired twice rapidly, and Berrios discharged his rusty horse-pistol, loaded with a half-pint of slugs, without effect, when our excited Bolivians, closing in, commenced an irregular fusillade, sending their bullets singing around us in most unwelcome proximity. I suspect I came much nearer being shot than the vicuña, and not choosing to take more risks gave up the chase. But the Bolivians kept on, while Berrios, H—————, and myself toiled back to the mulepath and onward to the tambo of Tacora.

This tambo, which is a favorable type of what in Switzerland would be called "refuges," consists of four low buildings of stones and mud, thatched with ichu, and surrounding a small court, in which the travelers' animals are gathered at night. Sometimes, and for the accommodation of the troops of llamas, there is a large supplementary corral, or inclosure, con

Often these tambos are without keepers, occupants, or furniture of any kind; but that of Tacora had a resident, who occupied the principal building, in which he had a scant store of wilted alfalfa, or lucern, and a few articles of food, principally the flesh of the vicuña. Another building served as a kitchen; a third for the storage of cargo and as a dormitory for the arrieros; while the fourth was reserved for travelers. It had no entrance or opening except the doorway, elevated two feet above the ground, and barely large enough to permit a full-grown person to squeeze through. This was closed with a flap of raw hide. The interior was dark and dirty beyond description. I doubt if it had been swept, or if any attempt had been made to cleanse it, for many months. It had no furniture whatever, only there was the usual mud bank on every side of this den whereon the traveler might spread his bed.

We

The keeper of the tambo, wearing a slouched felt hat, and wrapped in a blue cloak with a fur collar and a gilt clasp at the neck as big as one's hand, complied loftily and somewhat haughtily with our request for some cebada, or barley, for our mules; and motioned to one of his Indian women to cook some chupe for our mozos. preferred to open a can of stewed beef and a box of sardines for our dinner. I observed that the proceeding arrested the attention of our distant host, with whom we had signally failed to open conversation, but who now seemed to have been suddenly called down from his contempla