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.  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.  “W” is unknown in Spanish and the letters “a,” “l,” and “k” are never found in juxtaposition.  When he asked us what we thought of “Valluck-ofair’,” accenting strongly the last syllable, we could not imagine what he meant.  He was equally at a loss to understand how we could be so stupid as not to recognize immediately the well-advertised name of a widely known shoe.

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.  The residences of the wine growers are sometimes very misleading.  A typical country house of the better class is not much to look at.  Its long, low, flat roof and rough, unwhitewashed, mud-colored walls give it an unattractive appearance; yet to one’s intense surprise the inside may be clean and comfortable, with modern furniture, a piano, and a phonograph.

Our conscientious and hard-working arrieros rose at two o’clock the next morning, for they knew their mules had a long, hard climb ahead of them, from an elevation of 1000 feet above sea level to 10,000 feet.  After an all-day journey we camped at a place where forage could be obtained.  We had now left the region of tropical products and come back to potatoes and barley.  The following day a short ride brought us past another pictographic rock, recently blasted open by an energetic “treasure seeker” of Chuquibamba.  This town has 3000 inhabitants and is the capital of the province of Condesuyos.  It was the place which we had selected several months before as the rendezvous for the attack on Coropuna.  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.