Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
At Potosí, Bolivia. This machine - made of hardwood,
held together by raw-hide and wooden pins - is as solid
as when it was built, nearly 400 years ago.
The parts we were coming to are inhabited by Aymara Indians, who speak a language of
their own; I think the Aymara language must rank among the least musical of tongues and
seems to be spoken down in the throat and stomach.
I found the Aymaras to be very sulky and sullen, and bloody uprisings against their white
oppressors often take place, and on such occasions their bloodthirstiness and cruelty know no
bounds. Fights between the different neighbouring tribes are common, the origin of most of
thembeingadisputeovertheownershipofland,andsomeofthesetribalfeudsIamtoldhave
lasted for generations.
These Indians will rarely give or sell food to a white, and whenever I asked them for any-
thing the one and only answer I received was
jañua
, which is pronounced 'janeooah', the 'j'
being very guttural, not unlike the Scotch way of pronouncing the 'ch' in the word 'loch'.
Before leaving Potosí I had again made myself a small dictionary, and with the help of this
very useful 'book of words' I was able to make myself understood, but whenever an Indian
happened to reply to me he might just as well have done it in Chinese or in the language of
Hottentots for the only word I ever learnt to understand was the eternal
jañua
which means
'there is nothing'.
People who knew how to deal with these natives had told me to take no notice whenever
theysaidthis,andsimplytoentertheirhutsandseeiftherewasanyfoodandtohelpmyselfto
anythingIhappenedtofind.TheveryideaofdoingsuchathingshockedmeandIdetermined
to try politer methods, but once I was among these Aymaras I soon found out that kindness
and consideration were out of place, and on more than one occasion I obtained the food for
which Iwascraving onthe principle that might isright. Muchtomysurprise the people never
objected to this procedure and were quite pleased when I offered to pay for what I had taken,
which was probably more than the average native whites (?) and mestizos do.
Today the only visible remains of the old Spanish gold trail is a wonderfully built stone
bridge which spans a deep canyon far below in a narrow gulley between high mountains. The
bridge is called '
Puente del Diablo
' (Devil's Bridge) and has an old legend attached to it.
OnceuponatimeayoungIndianwasonhiswaytovisithissweetheart,wholivedontheother
side of the river, and when he arrived there he found that the waters were so high and wild
that it was impossible to cross. Bitterly disappointed, the young man sat down and lamented
his misfortune in a loud voice. Suddenly the devil appeared before him and offered to build
