"Leslie F. Stone - Men With Wings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stone Leslie F)

he had once lived among the winged men! We sought him out!
He dwelt below the city of Arequipa some two hundred miles south of Cuzco. We
flew that day to that city that has for its background the majesty of El
Misti.
Early the next morning with a couple of hired arrieros (muleteers) we made
our
way to the tiny village where the old fellow was said to live.
Peru at best is a wild country made up of pampas, deserts and mountain
heights.
It is a rugged place of irregular rivers that cut deep terrible canyons and
tremendous water-falls. It is a country of mystery, of ancient grandeur, of
ghosts of the Inca, of poor ill-clad peons who are the descendants of that
once
great race. What cultivation there is, is done on a very intensive scale.
Since large areas of the country is desert there is not a grain of fertile
soil
wasted. The fertile belts are usually on the river banks and the farms are
set
on series of terraces that had been built originally under Inca direction and
are farmed in much the same way as they were hundreds of years ago. Nor is
the
climate of the country equable. In the valleys is the hot fetid breath of the
tropics and an over abundance of tropical vegetation and snakes, while the
higher one climbs the cooler becomes the air. Mount Coropuna which is a
matter
of nineteen thousand feet above the sea is always covered with snow; and the
Indians dwelling on the high altitudes of from twelve to fourteen thousand
feet
wear heavy clothing and find it difficult to keep the home fires burning up
there above the tree line.
In our trip to old Pedro Majes we experienced a variety of weather. Sometimes
we
climbed rather high and then dropped down into valleys. Most of our trip,
however, was along the edge of a raging torrent and the path was rough. At
places where the river's gorge narrowed, stone steps had been cut out of
living
rock by the Incas, we were told. Sometimes a causeway constructed by the same
builders took us across the wild waters or else our mules picked their way
delicately along the crumbling road-bed where every foot fall precipitated a
rain of gravel to the river below.
After almost a two day's journey we came to the hovel of Senor Majes, a
decrepit
old chap whose lack of hair, teeth and cataracted eye-balls attested to his
great age. Luckily I could understand a few words of his dialect so I did not
need to depend entirely on our guides for interpretation. Old Pedro's
wrinkled
face lighted up when we questioned him about the men with wings.