It was still dark when I left Alta in order to clear the Peregrino Pass and reach Tierra Colorado that day. In a few hours I gained the top of the pass, and sat down to take a survey of the zigzag way up which my old horse had climbed, and of the extensive region of hill and mountain country before me.
It is difficult to believe that over this slight mule-path all the Spanish commerce of India has passed, and cargoes of silver dollars, amounting to hundreds of millions, during a period of three hundred years.
Over this pass armies have continued to advance and to retreat with one uniform result: * if the army is a large one, it is starved out of the country; * if it is a small one, it is destroyed.
Hunger devours the large armies; the Pintos devour the little ones.
All around was now as quiet and solitary as the grave. There were no signs to indicate that this spot had been the scene of so much life and contention.
The prospect was a delightful one, and I could have enjoyed it much longer had I not been assailed by that common enemy, that has assailed every general and colonel that has crossed this pass—an empty stomach; so that I and my old horse did our very best to reach the ford of the Papagalla, where there was a presumptive possibility that eatables might be found.
I found entertainment for beast at the ford, but no food for his rider until we reached Tierra Colorado.
Here prevails not only that harmless cutaneous affection, the Quiricua, which causes people to appear spotted or painted (Pintos), but also Cretinism, the much more formidable disease so prevalent among the mountains of Switzerland.