About 500 yards from the town of Pucara is the river of the same name, which flows past Ayaviri in the mountains of Vilcañota. It was very full, and eighty yards across. The mules swam, and we had to cross in a rickety balsa made of two bundles of reeds, which had to go backwards and forwards five times before all the gear and baggage was on the eastern side. After riding over a plain which became gradually narrower as the mountains closed in, I began the ascent of a rocky _cuesta_, with a torrent dashing down over huge boulders into the plain. There was a splendid view of the distant rock of Pucara, with the snowy peaks of the Vilcañota range behind. A league further on there was an alpine lake, with a fine peaked cliff rising up from the water's edge. There were many ducks and widgeons, and large coots were quietly busy, swimming about and building their nests on little reed islands; also jet-black ibises, with dark rusty red heads and long curved bills. After a ride of several leagues over a grassy country covered with flocks of sheep, I reached the summit of a range of hills, and got a distant view of the town of Azangaro, in a plain with several isolated steep grassy mountains rising from it, and the snowy Andes of Caravaya in the background. After a very wearisome descent I reached the plain, and, riding into Azangaro, was most hospitably and kindly received by Don Luis Quiñones, one of the principal inhabitants. The region which I had traversed between Puno and Azangaro is all of the same character--a series of grassy plains of great elevation, covered with flocks and herds, and watered by numerous rivers flowing into lake Titicaca, which are traversed by several mountain-ranges, spurs from the cordillera, which sometimes run up into peaks almost to the snow-line, and at others sink into rocky plateaux raised like steps above the plain. What strikes one most in travelling through this country is the evidence of the vast population it must have contained in the days of the Incas, indicated by the ruined remains of _andeneria_, or terraces for cultivation, rising in every direction tier above tier up the sides of the hills. But it is now almost exclusively a grazing country, and the Indians, employed in tending the large flocks of sheep, only raise a sufficient supply of edible roots for the consumption of their families, and the market of the nearest town. Frequently the shepherds are what are called _yanaconas_, or Indians kept to service by the owners of the flocks, which vary from 400 to 1000 head. The condition of this class of Indians is very hard, as they get only a monthly allowance of an _arroba_ of chuñu (frozen potato) or quinoa, and a pound of coca, or four dollars a month in money. Puno, Juliaca, Lampa, Pucara, and Azangaro, are all between 12,800 and 13,000 feet above the sea. Between March 28th and April 15th, the indications of the thermometer at these places were as follows:--