The party left Tarma on the 16th of June, and resumed their descent of the mountains. The ride was the wildest they had yet had. The ascents and descents were nearly precipitous; and the scene was rugged, wild, and grand beyond description. At certain parts of the road, it is utterly impossible for two beasts to pass abreast, or for one to turn and retreat; and the only remedy, when they meet, is to tumble one off the precipice, or to drag him back by the tail until he reaches a place where the other can pass. They met with a considerable fright in this way one day. They were riding in single file along one of those narrow ascents where the road is cut out of the mountain-side, and the traveller has a perpendicular wall on one hand, and a sheer precipice of many hundreds of feet upon the other. Mr. Gibbon was riding ahead. Just as he was about to turn a sharp bend of the road, the head of a bull peered round it, on the descent. When the bull came in full view, he stopped; and the travellers could see the heads of other cattle clustering over his quarters, and hear the shouts of the cattle-drivers far behind, urging on their herd. The bull, with lowered crest, and savage, sullen look, came slowly on, and actually got his head between the perpendicular rock and the neck of Gibbon's mule. But the sagacious beast on which he was mounted, pressing her haunches hard against the wall, gathered her feet close under her, and turned as upon a pivot. This placed the bull on the outside (there was room to pass, though no one would have thought it); and he rushed by at the gallop, followed in single file by the rest of the herd. The lieutenant owns that he and his friend "felt frightened." On the 18th of June, they arrived at the first hacienda, where they saw sugar-cane, yucca, pine-apples, and plantains. Besides these, cotton and coffee were soon after found in cultivation. The laborers are native Indians, nominally free, but, by the customs of the country, pretty closely held in subjection to their employers. Their nominal wages are half a dollar a day; but this is paid in articles necessary for their support, which are charged to them at such prices as to keep them always in debt. As debtors, the law will enforce the master's claim on them; and it is almost hopeless for them to desert; for, unless they get some distance off before they are recognized, they will be returned as debtors to their employers. Freedom, under such circumstances, is little better than slavery; but it _is_ better, for this reason,--that it only requires some improvement in the intelligence and habits of the laborers to convert it into a system of free labor worthy of the name.