the east, were the heights across which their route was to lead them, and still farther away, behind these, the snow-covered peaks of the Andes towered in the air. The day's journey ended at the hamlet of Omate, a mass of thatched-roof huts which seemed at a distance nothing more than a disagreeable natural feature of the scenery. Two leagues to the northward rose the once formidable volcano of Omate, with its yawning crater, half in darkness and half illumined by the setting sun, sharply inclining to the south-east.

For two days after leaving Omate the travellers journeyed along the western slope of the Andes through a dreary and almost solitary region. When night came they took shelter in a cave-like abode among the rocks in company with the shepherd who inhabited it and his flock. Toward the close of the next day they drew near to Pati, their halting-place for the night. This was a mere group of huts in the heart of the Cordilleras. Here and there along the approaches to it were llama-folds, and on the right of the road, elevated above the plain, was a wooden cross. They found a post-office-or rather post-hut-occupied by a troop of muleteers, who were about sitting down to their supper, and who at first received our travel

lers ungraciously, but after their first surprise and embarrassment had passed away they made the best of the interruption, and were soon on excellent terms with the newcomers, who slept side by side with them before the rousing fire which was kept burning through the night.

Having made an arrangement the next morning with these muleteers to guide them as far as Caylloma, a village which lay in Marcoy's itinerary, and by which the muleteers were to pass on their way to San Tomas, their destination, the travellers bade farewell to their late guide, who was compelled to leave them at Pati to pursue his homeward journey in another

direction, and set out with their new friends toward the north-west and the region of snow.

A few hours of descending march brought them to the Punas or Andean plateaus, a barren and rugged stretch of country furrowed by ridges of minor hills unconnected with any of the greater surrounding chains. The northern boundary of these Punas is the snowy range of mountains known as the Sierra de Huilcanota; and as they approached this chain on the second day of their journey from Pati the road became more precipitous and the arid surface presented the aspect of steep hills and deep gorges, forming a succession of heights and ravines which severely taxed the strength of their mules and horses. These difficulties might have been avoided had the old Carrera Real, or post-road, been followed to Caylloma; but the guides had preferred to pursue a course of their own choosing across the Punas, in order to spare their animals the ill effects arising from the rarefied air at an elevation of seventeen thousand feet, which would have been attained had they gone by the highway.

During the afternoon of this day they skirted the side of a hill at the base of which were three large square openings, evidently the work of man. As Marcoy and Leroux peered into these gloomy artificial caverns, the chief of the muleteers informed them that they were the entrances to the mine of San Lorenzo, formerly renowned for its yield of silver, but which at present is unworked. One league distant is the mine of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, equally celebrated during the period of the Spanish occupation, but now also abandoned. As they progressed, they caught occasional glimpses through breaks in the mountains, of the snowy summits of the Andes ; then, farther on, the white tops were lost to view and the stony heights presented themselves in all their bald nakedness. This appearance in turn of

snow-capped peaks and stony ridges, continued until they reached the point at which the Sierra de Huilcanota joins or rather is confounded with the great chain of the Cordillera or Western Andes. At this stage of the day's journey the scenery on all sides became arctic in its character. The mountains were clothed in a white mantle in every direction, but as the sun was hidden by the clouds, the observer could enjoy the splendours of the view without having recourse to the pasteboard tubes furnished with blue glasses, a sort of spectacles used by travellers in these snowy regions to preserve their eyes from attacks of the surumpe, an ophthalmia occasioned by the reflection of the sun on the snow.

WRECK OF THE RAFT.

The travellers hoped to reach before night a postal station called Machu Condoroma, situated on the western slope of the Huilcanota chain. But as the afternoon lengthened, the sky became overcast with still darker clouds, and suddenly snow fell so thickly as to shut out from their sight objects four paces distant, while the wind, thunder and lightning added to their perplexity. Not a rancho or shepherd's hut was visible as they went on with heads bowed to the blinding storm and trusting to the sagacity of their mules for the selection of the right path. The close of the day found them too far from Machu Condoroma to hope to reach it before darkness should shut out the path, and they therefore prepared for their bivouac for the night by arranging their couches and cooking their supper under the ledge of a projecting rock, whose position had kept the space beneath it free from the drifting snow. After supper, Marcoy and Pierre Leroux lay back to back in a

democratic fashicn piled on top of each

other.

During the night the storm passed

off, and the morning broke clear and cold-so cold, indeed, as to redden the travellers' ears and noses. The journey was resumed while it was yet dark, and after a two hours' march over horrible roads, they passed Machu Condoroma, a wild lonely spot lying in the shadow of beetling ridges. The post-house, built of blocks of stone cemented with clay, stood in relief against the white back-ground of the snow-clad sides of the mountain beyond. At a day's ride from the station lay Caylloma, and they resolved to push forward so as to reach it before night. As they went on they found the roads in a dreadfully slippery condition from the mingling of the melted snow and the clay and ferruginous earth that composed the soil. sionally unhorsed by reason of the inability of their animals to keep their feet, the party finally reached the Rio Condoroma, at that moment a roaring, tumbling, torrent. Crossing this stream, by ascending to a ford three miles higher up than the point at which they had struck it, they stumbled on the village of Condoroma, a humble hamlet that dates from the time of the Spanish domination, during which period its silver-mines were among the most celebrated of Peru.

Осса

At the hour of their entrance into Condoroma all the villagers seemed to be absent, for the doors of the houses were closed, and neither man nor beast was visible. A brief halt was made here for breakfast, and while they were engaged at the meal the horses and mules roamed among the houses, and satisfied their appetite by eating the freshly-laid thatched roof that covered one of them.

Four leagues distant from Condoroma is the hamlet of Chita, consisting of twenty houses and situated in a plain with a picturesquely-profiled range of mountains at its back. A mountain-torrent near by leaped noisily over its rocky bed in its descent from the heights. The travellers saw Chita from a distance, and rode by without

halting. They feared to lose by delay the advantages offered by the fine weather that prevailed. Their hopes of continued favourable weather up to Caylloma were, however, doomed to disappointment, for about four o'clock clouds gathered in the blue sky and obscured the sun. At sunset the heavens were overcast with a reddishgray, against which the surrounding summits were outlined with distinctness, and the cold became intense. At a turn in the road they rode into a plain, and at its farther extremity they saw the houses of a large village. This village, rising mistily before them, was Caylloma, which, on account of the valuable product of its silver-mines in the past, was called for a long time by the people of the country and the Spanish chroniclers Caylloma la Rica, or Caylloma the Rich."

Candles were lighted in the houses of the village when they entered its precincts. As Marcoy and Leroux were without acquaintances in the place, they were obliged to follow the muleteers to the tampu or caravansary at which the latter were accustomed to lodge with their animals on the occasions of their visits to Caylloma. This tampu was a large yard with the sky for a roof. The appearance of the ground, covered as it was with broken straw and other refuse matter, indicated that the place was used as a stable or as quarters for horses and mules. Three sides of the yard were built with small cells of masonry, to each of which a single door admitted light and air. These diminutive apartments were the lodgings assigned to travellers.

up

The arrival of strangers in this remote village was an event of so rare an occurrence that as the cavalcade filed into the tampu a dozen or more of the villagers surrounded the muleteers, plying them with innumerable questions begotten of purposeless curiosity or due to a natural desire to be informed of the events of the outer world. Some of the questioners-the

shopkeepers-wanted to know what merchandise the bundles contained; others--the politicians and intelligent class generally-inquired concerning the latest revolutionary movements in Peru, and were solicitous to learn whether the legal president of the republic had been assassinated or whether he was still in peaceable occupancy of his office. Another element of the crowd-mere idlers-looked on and said nothing, filling the rôle of listeners. Among the last-mentioned class was an individual wrapped in a cloak and with his face shaded by a slouch hat of the kind called in the country pansa de burro. This person gazed with a sort of sympathetic interest at Marcoy and Leroux, as was evinced by the friendly smile that illumined his face when their looks were turned in his direction. Marcoy observed this, and surmising that the unknown desired to make his and Leroux's acquaintance, but was deterred from addressing them by native modesty, he approached him and greeted him with the air of an old acquaintance. Goodevening, friend,' he said. 'You are in good health, I hope?'

Thank you, senor,' modestly replied the stranger. You are very kind to inquire concerning my welfare. My name is Mariano Telar, and I enjoy very good health, Heaven be praised! I live here in Caylloma, where I have many friends among the best people. Just now I overheard you conversing in French with your companion, and my attention was attracted to you because the language in which you spoke reminded me of the Adventures of Telemachus, which I once endeavoured, in a small way, to put into Spanish. My house, senor, is at the service of yourself and friend during your stay at Caylloma if you will honour it with your presence.'

Glad to be spared the horrors of a night passed in the tampu, the travellers promptly accepted the hospitable Cayllomero's invitation.

With a request to them to follow him, Don Mariano set off through the dark and muddy streets in the direction of his house, which fronted on the small square of the village, one side of which was occupied by the church. At the house the guests were presented to their host's wife, a grave, middleaged matron, who welcomed them with

dignified courtesy. The good dame, after a few remarks had been exchanged, disappeared, and half an hour later a servant announced that supper awaited the guests in the comedor, or dining-room. Under the influence of the local wine of Locumba, two kinds of which, the sour and the dulce (the latter being prepared by mixing the sour wine with sugar), were on the table, Don Mariano developed a gay and talkative mood, and the good lady having retired, as is the fashion in England, after the meal, he opened his heart to his guests, and for three consecutive hours, like the genuine Peruvian that he was, discoursed on the subject of how he had made his fortune and had become acquainted with his wife. Noticing, finally, that his guests were about to drop from their chairs with drowsiness, he considerately closed his remarks, and conducted them to the chamber which they were to occupy for the night.

Early the next morning, Marcoy, leaving his companion in bed, rose and went to stroll about the village, which he found to consist of five streets and sixty-three houses, exclusive of a number of thatched-roof huts attached to cattle-yards scattered about the outskirts. The church was a rectangular structure surmounted by two square belfries, each covered with a sort of cap having the appearance of an incomplete cupola. On either side of the altar was a shrine one dedicated to Our Lady of Carmel, the other to Saint Joseph, the patron saint of the republic. These shrines were adorned with a profusion of votive offerings which had been placed on them by the faithful-reliquaries and lamps of solid silver, the

When he returned to the house he found his host and Pierre Leroux conversing, over a glass of rum, on a subject that seemed to possess a special interest for the former. A messenger, it appeared, had just come into Caylloma with the information that a colonel of the national engineer corps had set up his standard metaphorically speaking, in the vicinity of the village,

MINE OF SAN LORENZO.

having just arrived from Cuzo with orders from the Government to survey the boundaries of the province and to obtain its area in square miles. The messenger was this officer's secretary, who furthermore was empowered to notify the inhabitants of the place that they would be expected to furnish the colonel with all supplies he might need while thus engaged in a work which was destined to redound to their glory and to the advantage of the republic. There was great excitement in Caylloma la Rica, for no sooner had the tidings been disseminated in the village than the little community became divided into two parties on the subject of the true purpose of the intruder into their mountain seclusion.

One party loudly proclaimed the colonel a government spy, declaring that

that his real instructions were to im

pose an extraordinary tax on the people of Caylloma. The other side held, on the contrary, that this official visit was an evidence of the interest felt by the president of the republic in their distant and hitherto neglected province, which he desired to see take rank with its neighbours. Don Mariano joined hands with this wing of the population, and vigorously cham

pioned the cause of the maligned colonel. As the dispute was one in which Marcoy and his friend had no excuse to interfere, they decided to resume their journey at

once, or as soon as

possible after the breakfast which their host, who heard of their intention with profound regret, insisted on their sharing with him.

The

After hastily - uttered farewells they left Don Mariano and his neighbours wrangling and gesticulating over the important political event-for so was it regarded-of the morning, and started due west on their way to Chalqui, the next village in their route. The ride for some distance was a fatiguing one, as the road was filled with declivities, pitfalls and quagmires. snow of the previous day had melted, however, and the mules were enabled to make better progress. An hour after their departure from Caylloma their eyes caught sight of Lake Vilafro-called by the natives Lake Huanana-and their attention was attracted to the spectacle of a number of men standing on the shore. These, as they soon learned, were the colonel of engineers and his followers. The colonel was a short, paunchy, bow-legged person, arrayed in a gorgeous uniform,