of Colonel Nuñez del Prado, who paid them a sum of money in cash, and a yearly rental. When he died, he left the concession to his son, who turned it over to a Company in return for a sum down, and a rental of £1,000 a year.
The last expedition into the interior by this Company to pick rubber had turned out a complete failure. Of the three white men in charge, two were murdered by the Indians; the manager, Filippo Barbari, an Italian, had had his hands and feet cut off, and was then thrown into the river, and Rodriguez, the storekeeper, had his head cut off. The third, Donovan, the book-keeper, got away by hiding in the day-time, and following up the river at night, till he got out of the Indian territory; he was the only one who came back to tell the tale. All the rubber and stores were stolen.
The Government at La Paz then thought it necessary to despatch an expedition of 200 soldiers under Captain Cusicanque, with orders to punish the Indians, and also to find out what had happened to Captain Lorenzo Villarde and his lieutenant, Macedonia Villavicencia, who had been sent back as an escort with the Cacique of Challana, after his visit to the authorities at La Paz. Some of the soldiers fell sick with the puna or siroctre (mountain sickness), and others were attacked in the forest by terciana (malarial fever), after crossing the Ylliapo range; however, the rest arrived safely with their captain at the Challana River, which the natives regard as their boundary. To their great surprise, they were met there by Indians armed with rifles, and ready to resist them, under the leadership of Villarde, the very man they had come to rescue. Cusicanque gave the order to fire, but the soldiers refused to obey him, saying that they could not fire on their old captain; most of them actually abandoned Cusicanque, and he was compelled to return to La Paz with 50 men, without their arms. Plans were made to send another expedition at the expense of the Challana Rubber Company, and the Bolivian Government promised to lend 200 soldiers; but it was found that the expense would be too heavy, and it was finally decided to get some one to go in and find out the facts personally, and try to discover what kind of a bargain could be made with the Indians for tapping the rubber.
The Company then made preliminary arrangements to sell the concession to an American Company for £100,000, to be paid half in cash, half in shares, but they stipulated that before anything could be done it would be necessary to send in some reliable man to see what terms could be made between the Indians of Challana and the Government of Bolivia. They realized from the first that to secure such a man a good offer would have to be made, and they promised expenses and £6,000 commission, if the concession was taken over within two years.
The first person to undertake the job was a Mr. Staedlier, the Vice-Consul for Belgium in Bolivia. His mother, who was living with him in La Paz, went to considerable expense to supplement his equipment for the trip.
Accordingly, he started off on his perilous journey. When he got to the boundary, he was met by an Indian with a letter of warning for him on a stick, telling him that his party would not be permitted to cross the River Challana—that they must return at once, and that they must leave behind them all their tents, gear, goods, their diving apparatus, and pipes for gold-washing and their two Kodak cameras, also all their clothes, coats and other garments, with the exception of a shirt and a pair of pants each. They were given till midday the next day to move.
That night they were surrounded by many fires, and when Staedlier saw that he was encompassed by so many armed Indians he thought it only prudent to return. When he got back to Sorata, he had to send a boy back to his mother, asking her to send him some clothes for his journey back to La Paz.
I was told all about this by Mr. Leguia, then Minister of Hacienda, and afterwards President of Peru, and when he asked me if I would care to undertake the trip I accepted at once. An agreement was drawn up whereby I was to be paid all expenses, and a sum of £10,000, if the U.S.A. or any other government took over the concession within two years of my return.
I had several reasons for undertaking this journey. Firstly, I was anxious to visit Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world, and I wanted very much to get up close to one of the highest mountains in the world, the Peak of Sorata. Then there was the long and interesting march through the tropical forest to Paroma, the capital of Challana, and getting back again, a thing which no white man had done since 1845. Last, but not quite least, there was the £10,000.
CHAPTER II
AREQUIPA AND THE JURA BATHS
I LEFT Lima in September, 1903. Mr. Leguia did his best to persuade me not to start, as since he had made arrangements with me Mr. Beauclerk, the British Minister, had called on him and asked him not to let me sign the agreement. He had read and heard of Staedlier’s expedition and its result, and had come to the conclusion that it was far too dangerous for anyone to go in alone. I told Leguia I had already notified the various Chilian horse owners, whose horses I had been training, and had sublet my stable there for the time I would be away; and I said I was prepared to undertake the journey, agreement or no agreement, provided he would agree to abide by the terms if I succeeded in reaching Paroma and getting the information required. He assured me he would do so and expected all the others to do the same.
So in September I left Callao for Mollendo by the s.s. Columbia of the P.S.N. Co. (which, by the way, was lost in a fog on the rocks off the Lobitos Islands the very next year). At Mollendo the landing is generally very rough and the rollers very heavy till you get right in near the jetty; sometimes passengers have to be lowered down in baskets and occasionally they cannot be landed at all, but on this occasion the sea was calm. I put up at the Hotel Ferro Carril where the rooms are large, the food and drinks quite good, and the charges moderate, from 4/-to 6/-a day. There is another hotel in the Plaza, but when I was there the owner was down with bubonic plague and the place had been put in quarantine. Next morning I took the train to Arequipa, 7,500ft. up, a whole day’s journey, and put up at the Hotel Maloni, the best in the place, paying 6/-a day. At this altitude in these parts the atmosphere is the purest and the climate the finest in the world; in fact, all along the Andes Range, from 3,000ft. to 10,000ft., the climate is hard to beat, in my opinion. Over 10,000ft. is rather too high.
In Arequipa itself the streets are well-paved and kept; outside the town there are no roads at all, but just well beaten tracks. The cathedral is one of the finest outside Lima. The police regulations are quite excellent. All policemen are armed with rifles, and at night one of them is posted at every square. Every half-hour throughout the night he blows one sharp call on his whistle which is answered by the next one, and so on; when two sharp calls are blown the men on either side come up to see what is the matter. The inspectors ride round periodically during the night to see that all is well. All the windows are fenced in with stout iron bars built into the masonry so that they can be opened without the risk of thieves breaking in. I went to the Prefect to register my gun, rifle and revolver, and he gave me a special order of permission to use it in self-defence if necessary. Without these documents nobody is supposed to carry arms in Peru.
In this town there is a constant coming and going of Indians, with their strings of llamas; these animals serve them as beasts of burden and food, and their skins provide them with clothes. The town possesses two good clubs where strangers are always made welcome, also a small racecourse. The ladies of Arequipa are justly famous throughout Peru for their beauty.
My next concern was my weight, which was 265lbs., and I thought it was well to reduce this before starting on my long march over the high Andes into the forests below. So I drove over to have a look at the hot springs 21 miles from Arequipa, and the next day I took the train to the famous springs of Jura, 9,000ft. up, which used in former days to be a favourite resort of the Incas of Peru. I decided to remain there till I had reduced my weight to 235lbs.
The regular train from Arequipa to Puno runs twice a week, leaving
