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Those who would naturally be supposed to be best informed, the priests, merchants, and lawyers, are really the most ignorant, and it is only from the arrieros, or muleteers, and the correos, or runners, that any knowledge of this kind can be obtained, and then only in a very confused form, and with most preposterous and contradictory estimates of distances and elevations.
In the morning Ramon and the arrieros returned with their lading, and by sunset we had everything on board and was ready for a start. The next thing was to settle our course. I wanted to reach a port where I could turn some of my diamonds into cash and take shipping for England, the West Indies, or the United States.
The ground is irregular and broken, and is for the most part covered with that species of brushwood called carrasco, amongst which winds a bridle- path, by no means well defined, chiefly trodden by the arrieros, with their long trains of mules and borricos. It is here that the balmy air of beautiful Andalusia is to be inhaled in full perfection.
Neither food nor drink was offered to us, although we were both thirsty and hungry. We were kept in this place for about an hour. "They have joined another party here," said Raoul, "with pack-mules." "How know you?" I inquired. "I can tell by the shouts of the arrieros. Listen! they are making ready to start."
The "voyageurs" form a kind of confraternity in the Canadas, like the arrieros, or carriers of Spain, and, like them, are employed in long internal expeditions of travel and traffic: with this difference, that the arrieros travel by land, the voyageurs by water; the former with mules and horses, the latter with batteaux and canoes.
Around this were groups of arrieros, in their red leathern garments, securing their charge for the night, and laying out their alparejas in long rows by the wall. Over the opposite roofs for our position was elevated we could see the bright fields and forest, and far beyond, the Cofre de Perote and the undulating outlines of the Andes.
There was a mingling of voices exclamations addressed to their animals by the arrieros, such as: "Mula! anda! vaya! levantate! carrai! mula mulita! anda! st! st!" In the midst of this din I fancied that I heard the voice of a woman. "Can it be ?" The thought was too painful. A bugle at length sounded, and we felt ourselves again moving onward. Our road appeared to run along the naked ridge.
Several years ago, when traveling on muleback across the great plateau of southern Bolivia, I had learned the value of sweet, hot tea as a stimulant and bracer in the high Andes. At first astonished to see how much tea the Indian arrieros drank, I learned from sad experience that it was far better than cold water, which often brings on mountain-sickness.
Then, wherever the road is particularly narrow, and there is a precipice of two or three hundred feet to fall over, one or two of them will fall down, or get their packs loose, and so block up the road, and there is a general scrimmage of kicking and shoving behind, till the arrieros can get things straight again.
For the most part arrieros, with their long trains of mules hung with monotonous tinkling bells.
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