party-coloured dresses, and their lofty ostrich plumes, contrasting with the sad plaintive style of their music, formed a most interesting and illustrative exhibition. Their musical instruments consist of something like bagpipes, tambourines, drums, cowhorns, and a kind. of Pandean pipe. They sang their yaravis, or plaintive ditties, while their mild dejected expression of countenance corresponded well with the mournful tune. Their very dances partook of the melancholy character which ages of misery have imparted to them. One of them is a sort of quadrille, in which eighteen or twenty persons gently glide through the figure with an air of innate placidity.

The Indians are very strong-limbed, and capable of enduring great fatigue. Their every-day pedestrian feats are truly astonishing. Guides perform a long journey at the rate of twenty or twenty-five leagues a day. Their usual pace is a jog trot. They take short steps, and carry their feet close to the ground. They go up and down mountain-sides quicker than a mule ; and horsemen, whom they accompany as guides, have frequently occasion to call after them, to request them to slacken their pace. A battalion, eight hundred strong, has been known to march thirteen or fourteen leagues in one day, without leaving more than ten or a dozen stragglers on the road. The Indian subsists on a very small quantity of the simplest food. A leathern pouch containing coca, suspended from his neck, is worn next the breast.

A handful or two of

roasted maize is tied up in one corner of his poncho, and, in general, these are the only provisions for a very long day's journey.

The coca (erythroxylon Peruvianum) is a plant not unlike the vine, and grows to the height of six or eight feet. The leaves are aromatic and of a bitter flavour. They act as a sudorific; are a preservative to the teeth; and drive away sleep. They are gathered leaf by leaf with great care; and when used, the flavour is corrected by a very small addition of an alkali called lipta. To those unaccustomed to the use of the coca, it produces slight inflammation of the tongue. But it is the first thing which an Indian puts into his mouth upon waking in the morning. He swallows the saliva, and as mastication goes on, he replenishes the quid, which is never taken out, excepting at meal times, until he goes to bed. Nothing obtains the good will of an Indian sooner than his being requested to spare a little coca. He pulls out his pouch with an air of the utmost satisfaction, and seems anxious to have it supposed he feels the honour most sensibly. Miller often chewed it during the campaign of 1824; and this circumstance produced so favourable an impression amongst the aborigines that it procured him many volunteers. English merchant travelling in the interior, found it convenient to announce himself as "the countryman of Miller," because the usual answer was, "a countryman of Miller's must have the best house and the best fare that an Indian village can afford."

An

CHAPTER XXVII.

Events consequent on the capitulation of Ayacucho.—The ultra royalist Olañeta refuses to come to terms.-Patriot division marches to the south.-Department of Puno.—Mine of Salcedo. -Account of the Callavayas, or itinerant physicians.-General Miller leaves the prefecture of Puno for that of Potosi. -Naval operations. Callao.-Difficulties encountered by the army in the mountain regions.-Obstacles which delayed the accomplishment of emancipation.

RETURNING to the narrative of the campaign: about one thousand royalist troops, forming the garrison of Cuzco, under General Alvarez, a native of Buenos Ayres, surrendered on the 25th December, 1824, in conformity to the capitulation of Ayacucho. Upon La Serna's being taken prisoner, the royalist General Don Pio Tristan assumed the title of viceroy, and made some efforts to maintain himself in that character; but, disappointed in his hopes of support from Don Tadeo Garrate, he submitted to his countrymen, of whom he and Garrate had been for so many years the unnatural and unrelenting oppressors. Tristan, who shamefully broke his parole in 1813, surrendered with a small garrison at Arequipa to Colonel Otéro, sent from Guamanga to that city, of which department the latter was then named prefect. Garrate fled from his government of Puno, to avoid being torn to pieces by the justly enraged populace. As soon as the prisoners of war confined in the

island of Chucuito heard of the victory of Ayacucho, they rose upon and overpowered the royalist garrison; and General Alvarado, who was a prisoner in the town of Puno, placing himself at their head, took possession of the country to the southward as far as the bridge of the Incas.

The ultra royalist General Olañeta, with about four thousand troops in the provinces of Upper Peru, still refusing to come to terms, General Sucre wrote to him on the 1st of January, apprising him of the battle and capitulation of Ayacucho, and of the intended advance of the patriots. He informed him that Bolivar wished the troops of Olañeta to be considered as forming a part of the liberating army, and that those who had rendered services to Peru by their late opposition to the authority of La Serna should be liberally recompensed: but Olañeta, aspiring to the viceroyalty, and calculating upon the cordial assistance of Tristan and Garrate, refused to listen to any proposals.

Sucre having allowed his troops to rest a fortnight in Cuzco, and having re-clothed them as well as so short a period would permit, determined npon annihilating, without further delay, the few remaining enemies of independence. Accordingly, in the third week of January, the division of Peru continued its march upon Puno. The cavalry and Colombian division Cordova followed some days afterwards. That of Lara remained a few weeks at Cuzco, and then marched to Arequipa. Sucre entered Puno on the 1st of February. He soon afterwards learnt that the royalist garrisons of Cochabamba, Chuquisaca,

and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, had declared for the patriots. He also learnt that the indefatigable Colonel Lanza, who, during nearly the whole struggle for independence, held possession of the valleys of Yungas, had entered La Paz.

The persevering and obstinate Olañeta, ably supported by his second in command, Colonel Valdez, surnamed Barbarucho (red beard), made every effort in the department of Potosi to hold out to the last. Reverses and desertions seemed but to increase their devotion to King Ferdinand.

General La Mar obtained leave of absence to proceed to Guayaquil. It is painful to add, that he left Peru without obtaining for the Peruvian officers, who had served under his command during the campaign, the promotion to which so very many of them were justly entitled, and which had been promised in long and almost daily harangues previous to the battle of Ayacucho. This neglect was the more mortifying, as a very general, and well-merited, promotion took place in the Colombian army. It was the bounden duty of the general commanding the Peruvian troops, not only to have claimed the promotion due to his officers, but to have manfully insisted upon this unquestionable right; and if refused, to have made it clear and manifest that he had fearlessly performed so sacred a duty. His promises to the soldiers had been equally profuse, and were equally unfulfilled. No deference to Colombian supremacy ought to have deterred him from asserting his claims, nor should any contingent promises have induced him to relax in his endeavours.