“I didn’t see any hole,” remarked the Englishman, a few minutes later.
“It was at the side of the path; most of it in the jungle, and leaves had fallen over the edge,” Ferguson replied.
“Yes, Ferguson, I know what you are about to say. Boa, puma cub, and holes are barred subjects evermore.”
The path ascended rapidly and the vegetation became less tangled as the travellers proceeded; so too the atmosphere grew somewhat more bracing, for the heavy odor of the valley did not mount to any height. With the setting of the sun the new moon shone for several hours above the horizon, and the silvery rays from the crescent, together with the starlight, illumined their way so they were able to make rapid progress until about ten o’clock, when the ground becoming quite dry—for the rain of the valley had not extended this far—they pitched the shelter-tent and built a rousing fire, near which they placed their damp clothing. Toward midnight they turned in “tired to the bone,” as Harvey expressed it, and none awakened until the sun was two hours’ high. Then, looking down into the valley, they saw a billowy mist, which completely hid even the tallest trees.
“There’s miasma for you!” exclaimed Ferguson, pointing to the vapor. “As we passed through it, perhaps we should take some more quinine.”
They acted on the suggestion, then, after a hurried breakfast, set off on the road again, for they were anxious to reach Huari that day, and the morning start had been late. The road was up grade until the noon hour, then became level again, and the vegetation was the same as on the other side of the valley, before they had plunged into the riot of undergrowth. Toward three o’clock they saw smoke rising lazily ahead and concluded they must be nearing a town. A half hour later they came upon a number of huts on the outskirts. Fields of maize and cotton were under cultivation, and brown men, half naked, were at work in them with primitive tools—ploughs that were but sharpened boughs of the ironwood tree, trimmed wedge-shaped, and drawn by small oxen; shovels made from the same wood; and other agricultural implements with which they were strangers, fashioned from stones that had been worn to sharp edges. All the men wore beards, some quite long.