Don Antonio de Ulloa, the Spanish Admiral, describes a Peruvian bridge closely allied to the Chinese Liu Soh, and called the tarabita. Ulloa noticed it on several rivers, but particularly on the rapid Alchipichi. The tarabita is only a single rope made of bujuco, or ox-hide thongs twisted into a cable from six to eight inches in thickness. It is extended from one side of the river to the other, and anchored firmly. On one bankside it is controlled by a wheel, or winch, that makes it either taut or slack. A leather cradle is hung from the tarabita by two clasps that have rounded heads; two ropes are stretched across the river and bound to the travelling clasps; a wayfarer sits in the cradle and is pulled across by the guide-ropes. Even mules are slung from two tarabitas, according to Antonio de Ulloa, whose book on South America was published in 1748, at Madrid. An English translation appeared in 1758, and ran into five editions. Let me give a quotation from the fourth, issued in 1806. It concerns a venerable suspension bridge akin to the bamboo variety made in the mountains of Sichuan in China:-- “Over the river Desaguadero is still remaining the bridge of rushes invented by Capac Yupanqui, the fifth Ynca, for transporting his army to the other side, in order to conquer the provinces of Collasuyo. The Desaguadero is here between eighty and a hundred yards in breadth, flowing with a very impetuous current under a smooth, and, as it were, a sleeping surface. The Ynca, to overcome this difficulty, ordered four very large cables to be made of a kind of grass which covers the lofty heaths and mountains of that country, and called Ichu by the Indians; and these cables were the foundation of the whole structure. Two of them being laid across the water, fascines of dry juncia and totora, species of rushes, were fastened together, and laid across them. On these the two other cables were laid, and covered with the other fascines securely fixed, but smaller than the first, and arranged in such a manner as to form a level surface; and by this means he procured a safe passage for his army. This bridge, which is about five yards in breadth, and one and a half above the surface of the water, is carefully repaired or rebuilt every six months, by the neighbouring provinces, in pursuance of a law made by the Ynca (Capac Yupanqui), and often since confirmed by the kings of Spain.”[54]