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Three women, grouped around her, rose and stooped and swayed, putting a touch here and a touch there, gathering in, looping up, and altering until all was to their taste. "There!" said the head dressmaker, giving a final pat to a rosette of gray silk; "I think that will do, your Majes that is to say, madame." The lady smiled at the adroit slip of the courtier dressmaker.
At Majes we observed cotton, which is sent to the mills at Arequipa, alfalfa, highly prized as fodder for pack animals, sugar cane, from which aguardiente, or white rum, is made, and grapes.
It is said that the Majes vineyards date back to the sixteenth century, and that some of the huge, buried, earthenware wine jars now in use were made as far back as the reign of Philip II. The presence of so much wine in the community does not seem to have a deleterious effect on the natives, who were not only hospitable but energetic far more so, in fact, than the natives of towns in the high Andes, where the intense cold and the difficulty of making a living have reacted upon the Indians, often causing them to be morose, sullen, and without ambition.
As the moon was setting we entered a hilly region, and at sunrise found ourselves in the midst of a tumbled mass of enormous sand dunes the result of hundreds of médanos blown across the pampa of Majes and deposited along the border of the valley.
The desert of Majes, which now lay ahead of us, is perhaps the widest, hottest, and most barren in this region. Our arrieros were unwilling to cross it in the daytime. They said it was forty-five miles between water and water. The next day we enjoyed the hospitality of our kindly host until after supper.
The next day we had a short ride along the western side of the valley to the town of Aplao, the capital of the province of Castilla, called by its present inhabitants "Majes," although on Raimondi's map that name is applied only to the river and the neighboring desert. In 1865, at the time of his visit, it had a bad reputation for disease. Now it seems more healthy.
Let us elevate, let us regenerate literature; let us bear it aloft to those noble spheres where the soul soars in her native majes" I was declaiming with fire, my enthusiasm was becoming more and more heated, when Henry Murger interrupted me by asking, "Do you think Monsieur Buloz will pay me in advance?"
Yet not even the interest and excitement of investigating the "rocas jeroglificos," as they are called here, could make us forget that we had had no food or sleep for a good many hours. So after taking a few pictures we hastened on and crossed the Majes River on a very shaky temporary bridge. It was built to last only during the dry season.
The climate here is delightful and the fruits and cereals of the temperate zone are easily raised. The town is surrounded by gardens, vineyards, alfalfa and grain fields; all showing evidence of intensive cultivation. It is at the head of one of the branches of the Majes Valley and is surrounded by high cliffs. The people of Chuquibamba were friendly.
The sub-prefect of Castilla had been informed by telegraph of our coming, and invited us to an excellent dinner. The people of Majes are largely of mixed white and Indian ancestry. Many of them appeared to be unusually businesslike. The proprietor of one establishment was a great admirer of American shoes, the name of which he pronounced in a manner that puzzled us for a long time.
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