Elk City mining news. (Elk City, Idaho) 1903-1913, 1904-02-27
A LETTER FROM PERU.
Billy Hannah, Well Known Here, Writes an Interesting Letter
From the Heart of the Peruvian Andes Mountains
A Hard Country to Prospect in.

a hill about five Mills at an angle of
forty-five degrees. We could see the
Esquilaya river below us, very heal we
thought, but it took us one and a half
hours to get down to it. The next
morning here we crossed a bridge
which they say was built by the Span
iards, but 1 don't believe it, although
the oldest inhabitant say it was always
so. 1t consists of two poles stuck I'M
der a ledge of rock at an angle of 45
degrees. On the other side of the river
are two more in the same way and
across the top to onnect the one with
the other are two more poles. making a
span of about 60 feet, all tied together
with vines and poles tied across so that
it resembles a ladder. The Indians
walk across it standing up but I crawl
ed as it shook so 1 could not stand and
the water boiling among the rocks be-
low made it look awful shaky after we
crossed. After we crossed the river it
was an endless succession of ladders.
crawling around bluffs, holding on to
vines, scrambling up and down as we
followed the river down to it's junction
with the Inambari. Here it was differ
ent, we have long, wide river bars
thickly covered with underbrush and
timber. You have to take your ma
chete with you all the time when you
leave camp.
We brought provisions with US to
last awhile but after they gave out we
had to depend On the rubber company,
as we are in the rubber country now,
which was very good of him as rubber
companies very rarely sell provisions
except only to their own employees as
it is sometimes hard to keep them sup
piled as they are a long ways from
their base of supplies and when you
have to feed 200 gum pickers on what
is brought in by quipiri in sixty pound
loads it is quite a problem. The mana
ger we found was an American and was
glad to have some one around that
would give him a little moral support
as at times those Indian ''Picadores"
get troublesome and one white man
among 200 of them stands very little
show.
Our greatest trouble is to get some
thing to eat and to get it cooked as
everything is wet and green and
won't burn, also we have to keep our
fire under shelter so hat the rain won't
put it out. To eat we have only one
dish, the Indios call it ''chapa," a sort
of thick soup made of dried mutton or
''chalona, " a big bean called ''aros,' -
that you have to take the skin off be-
fore it will cook, and a dried potato
called 'chuna," hat is dried by being
first frozen and thawed out several
times and tastes like bad limburger
cheese. This is all cooked together
until it forms a thick paste and so eat
en-. When we are living well we have
rice and sugar but now the commissary
is out and we have had none for a
month.
We also have here dried corn the
same as they feed mules on in the
states, which we toast and eat and
which we call bread. Although with
out bread, coffee, tea or any of the or
binary necessities of life, they say a
man can stand it about a year before it
kills him but the manager of the COM
pany has been here nearly two years
and is not dead yet so there is some
hope.
Everything rusts and rots here. 1
brought in a new Colts revolver with
me and now it is so rusty that it won't
work in spite of the care 1 lave taken
of it. l take it out once in awhile to
show the Indians that l still have it.
They are scared to death over a gun.
The only thing to wear in the Montanes
and we lave all got down to that, as
our store clothes have all rotted, is
"bayete," a coarse woven wooden cloth
made by the Indians in the high ranges