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Tucker finished his triangulation of the lake I told the arrieros to find the shortest road home. They smiled, murmured "Arequipa," and started south. We soon came to the rim of the Maraicasa Valley where, peeping up over one of the hills far to the south, we got a little glimpse of Coropuna.
Again I noticed that as the result of my experiences on Coropuna I suffered no discomfort, nor any symptoms of mountain-sickness, even after trotting steadily for four or five hundred yards.
We were kindly welcomed by Señor Benavides, the sub-prefect, who hospitably told us to set up our cots in the grand salon of his own house. Here we received calls from the local officials, including the provincial physician, Dr. Pastór, and the director of the Colegio Nacional, Professor Alejandro Coello. The last two were keen to go with us up Mt. Coropuna.
A dispute ensued as to how much he knew, even about the foot of Coropuna. He denied that there were any huts whatever in the canyon. "Abandonado; despoblado; desierto." "A waste; a solitude; a wilderness." So he described it. Had he been there? "No, Señor." Luckily we had been able to make out from the rim of the canyon two or three huts near a little stream.
Hinckley was able to reach Arequipa that night, but his enforced departure not only shattered his own hopes of climbing Coropuna, but also made us wonder how we were going to have the necessary three-men-on-the-rope when we reached the glaciers. To be sure, there was the corporal but would he go? Indians do not like snow mountains. Packing up the tent again, we resumed our course over the desert.
We learned that the Peruvian "winter" reaches its climax in July or August, and that it would be folly to try to climb Coropuna during the winter snowstorms. On the other hand, the "summer months," beginning with November, are cloudy and likely to add fog and mist to the difficulties of climbing a new mountain.
Perhaps the voluble housewife was herself one of the famous Coropuna devils. She certainly talked "more freely" than usual. Or possibly she thought that the Coropuna "devils" were now appearing to Indians "in the form of" Christians!
Six months previously I had written to J. Hicks, the celebrated instrument maker of London, asking him to construct, with special care, two large "Watkins" aneroids capable of recording altitudes five thousand feet higher than Coropuna was supposed to be. His reply had never reached me, nor did any one in Arequipa know anything about the barometers. Apparently my letter had miscarried.
Although I had been studying South American history and geography for more than ten years, I did not remember ever to have heard of Coropuna. On most maps it did not exist. Fortunately, on one of the sheets of Raimondi's large-scale map of Peru, I finally found "Coropuna 6,949 m." 9 meters higher than Aconcagua! one hundred miles northwest of Arequipa, near the 73d meridian west of Greenwich.
We reached the top together, and sank down to rest and look about. The Camp on the Summit of Coropuna Elevation, 21,703 Feet One of the Frequent Rests in the Ascent of Coropuna The truncated summit is an oval-shaped snow field, almost flat, having an area of nearly half an acre, about 100 feet north and south and 175 feet east and west.
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