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And, added to this was the discomfort, amounting at times to positive pain, caused by the soroche. Hardly ever did we find ground sufficiently broad for a breathing space, save when our arriero led us, almost by magic it seemed, to a camping place for the night.
In spite of fair promises that we would leave at three, it was 4:40 before we started, though we had risen at half-past-two. Our arriero was the best we ever had; far from sparing his good horse and grumbling at our speed, he was continually complaining at our slowness. "Why don't the boys want to go fast?" he would say. "Don't you want to get there at a good hour? Why do you go so slowly?"
These, the young girl, whom we have seen, carefully avoided; crossing in the middle of the numerous squares scattered about the city, she arrived, without interruption, at the bridge of the Rimac, listening to catch the slightest sound which her emotion exaggerated, and hearing only the bells of a train of mules conducted by its arriero, or the joyous stribillo of some Indian.
I can quite imagine, as Sir F. Head describes, the different expressions of those who HAVE passed the gulf, and those who ARE passing. I never heard of any man being drowned, but with loaded mules it frequently happens. The arriero tells you to show your mule the best line, and then allow her to cross as she likes: the cargo-mule takes a bad line, and is often lost.
A leathern belt, and apron of reddish-coloured sheepskin, tanned, completed the costume of an arriero of the humbler class the mozo, or assistant. But the change in the two other men the chief and him addressed as Roblez was of a far more striking kind.
The arriero looked anxious, and urged the mules on with whip and voice, turning his eyes furtively, now and then, in the direction of the dark clouds. Presently, on turning one of the bends in the track, they came upon a singular party travelling in the opposite direction.
In another arcade are the shops of those who specialize in everything which appeals to the eye and the pocketbook of the arriero: richly decorated halters, which are intended to avert the Evil Eye from his best mules; leather knapsacks in which to carry his coca or other valuable articles; cloth cinches and leather bridles; rawhide lassos, with which he is more likely to make a diamond hitch than to rope a mule; flutes to while away the weary hours of his journey, and candles to be burned before his patron saint as he starts for some distant village; in a word, all the paraphernalia of his profession.
We therefore rode only two or three miles down the valley, and stayed there the ensuing day in hopes of recovering the mule, which the arriero thought had been hidden in some ravine.
Early next morning we started on an excursion to the valley lake, each of us mounted on a fine mule from the abbé's stables, and attended by an arriero.
And since there was nothing better to do, I called to the arriero and asked him to conduct us on a tour of exploration among the mass of boulders, gray and stern, that loomed up on our right. He nodded his head in his usual indifferent manner, and fifteen minutes later we started, on foot. The arriero led the way, with Harry at his heels, and Desiree and I brought up the rear.