Page:Isaiah Bowman - Desert Trails of Atacama (1924).pdf/41

 It is only after winning the confidence of the mountain [n- dians hereabout that one is able to get them to speak Spanish. From our “‘host’' at Suisigua we learned that the harvest sea- son was on. The native “grain,"’ quinoa, was being threshed by tramping and winnowed by pitching it into the wind. Ina few favored spots barley will ripen. Much of it is cut green for forage, and that which matures is used for soup and carried off to Llica or elsewhere for sale. Fifteen or twenty alluvial fans at the base of the surrounding hills are covered with little farms. The grains of barley and quinoa are planted in tiny holes several inches below the surface in order the better to get moisture, that which seeps down the mountain side and that which comes by way of the narrow and tiny irrigating ditch. The grain is pulled up by the roots; whether because that is the easier way or to prevent waste we could not discover. There was the most unusual excitement in contrast to the dead vil- lage we had seen the night before. Children were running about, almost as noisy as children elsewhere except when we rode up to the threshing scene. Herds of Hamas and sheep were grazing on the dry and barren mountain sides, and here and there rose a column of smoke from a pile of burning straw. Though I had to stop for breath every few minutes, the people who lived here seemed to mind it not at all; and children and adults walked with a long free stride and even ran about or shouted to each other as if they were not living more than two miles and a half above sea level.

From Suisigua our course was southward past Laqueca. We had planned to go to the end of the Salar de Empexa and thence by way of the Salar de Coposa to the head of the can- yon of the Huatacondo. The first day's journey led along the edge of salt basins or along perfectly dry stream beds over the low divides between adjacent basins. The ‘‘trail’’ consisted of a Hama track which became less distinct toward nightfall and at last disappeared altogether. We made a dry camp at the edge of the Salar de Empexa, and there the mules consumed