The numerous deep valleys, of greater or less extent, which intersect the Puna, are known as the Sierra, and their inhabitants as Serranos, although that term is also applied by the dwellers on the coast of Peru to all natives of the interior. Here the climate is temperate, not unlike that of the central countries of Europe; towns and villages are numerous, and the fruitful soil brings forth abundantly, watered by the sweat of the laborious Indians. The people are hospitable in the extreme, and the stranger is welcome in their dwellings so long as he chooses to abide there. They appear, however, to be as yet very far removed from civilisation. Their favourite diversions, cock and bull fighting, are carried on in the most barbarous manner. Their chief vice is an extreme addiction to brandy, and even the better classes get up evening parties for the express purpose of indulging in the fiery liquor. The ladies as well as the men consume it in large quantities, and Dr Tschudi estimates the average consumption at one of these jaranas, or drinking bouts, to amount to nearly a bottle per man or woman. At a ball given in 1839, in one of the principal towns of the Sierra, to the Chilian general Bulnes--now president of Chili--the brandy flowed so abundantly, that when morning came many of the dancers, both male and female, lay dead drunk upon the floor. The sole extenuation of such disgusting excesses is the want of education of those who commit them, and the force of habit, which prevents them from seeing any thing disgraceful in intoxication. It is only in society that the Serrano gets drunk. In everyday life, when jaranas are not going on, he is a sober man.