United States or Mauritania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Clement Markham, collecting quinine-plants for the British government, came upon a splendid hacienda thirty miles from the village of Ayapata, in a valley of the Andes near the scene of this exploration.
We will get back to Cuzco and make a fresh start from there." "In that case, senor, there is no doubt as to the best route. There is a pass over the mountains just on the other side of Mount Tinta; it leads to the town of Ayapata, which lies somewhere at the foot of that peak. I have never been there, but I know its situation.
Between this town and the Carabaya range, a hundred and fifty miles to the south, was to be found the rich gold deposit to which Dias had referred. So far, however, as the traditions he had received informed him, it was situated near the slopes of the Tinta volcano, and between that and Ayapata.
Besides, he understood them too well, and if all Peru had asked him to be president, he knew well enough that conspiracies against him would begin the next morning. Ah, he was a great man! "Well, senor, I think that before we start it will be well that I at least should go on to Ayapata and find out what is doing.
The cascarilleros explained this appearance as due to former arrangements for gold-washing in an old river-bed, the San Gavan or the Ayapata, that had now changed its locality.
There we should be nearly in a line with this place you know of, and can keep due west that is to say, as nearly due west as the mountains will allow. It would be three or four hundred miles shorter than by taking the pass at Ayapata. We should have a good deal of sport by the way, and should certainly have no trouble with the brigands till we got to Cerro.
"Well, senor, if we go round by Ayapata to Crucero, and then to Macari, it would be nearly a thousand miles." "Quite a thousand, I should think. That is three months' steady work. By the time we get there it will be about a year from the time we left England.
They were questioned by four armed men as they came down, and the goods they were carrying down to Ayapata were taken from them. They say that traffic has almost ceased on the road." "That is bad, Dias." "Very bad, senor. We need not be afraid of brigands if they meet us as we travel along the foot of the hills, but it would be another thing in the passes.
The estimate made by Eusebio, however, of the trend or direction of the calisaya groves, induced him to forsake the bed of the Cconi, and strike south-eastwardly, so as to cross the Ollachea and the Ayapata. "But the mountains are disappearing," hazarded Mr. Marcoy. "Will not the cinchonas disappear with them?"
"People are thinking too much of fighting each other or their neighbours to care anything about the complaints of a few muleteers, senor." "Is there no other way of crossing the mountains than by this pass?" "There is a pass, senor, between Ayapata and Crucero, but it is a very bad one." "And where should we be then, Dias?"
Word Of The Day