Page:Isaiah Bowman - Desert Trails of Atacama (1924).pdf/40

 could not get near the latter who kept peeping out at us from behind the corners of huts. All the rest of the villagers were scattered about the hillsides herding llamas and sheep or gath- ering and threshing their crop of barley and quinoa, for this was the harvest season.

The prices one must pay in such tiny settlements vary with the year and the locality. One place may have a scarcity of forage and charge more for green barley and eggs than we should have to pay in New York City. Bargaining is abso- lutely necessary, but at best we were able to get eggs only by paying 20 cents Bolivian money, or 5 cents gold, apiece. At Llica our repeated requests for eggs brought out the informa- tion that the last of them had been sold the day hefore to a stranger who had come from Oruro and that it would be days before the supply would be replenished. Our bill at Lhea for two nights and the intervening day carried no charge for the room we occupied but only for the food and candles and fire- wood we had consumed, because a room can be made of mud and lasts a lifetime, but food and candles are rare and costly.

Unlike the tributary villages with their shy folk the village of Llica is comparatively cosmopolitan. It has upwards of 200 houses. All roofs are neatly thatched, and the streets are ex- ceptionally clean. A single store, kept by a Bolivian, is a meet- ing place for thick-tongued Indians who guzzle brandy and buy small supplies of bread, candles, and barley. The town is the meeting place of the trails that run along the eastern foot of the mountains or connect the mountain border settlements and also those that cross the Western Cordillera. They are followed by Indian traders who carry wool, firewood, blankets, and the like all the way from western Bolivia across the lofty mountains to the desert settlements along the foot of the Andes, where they exchange them for cotton cloth for under- garments and general use and for alcohol which they smuggle in without paying duty since the trade is too small to main- tain the charge of customs stations. They walk great dis- tances without food. Our mountain guide walked fifty miles without stopping for food, chewing coca all the time and keep- ing up with the mules without difficulty.