The lofty table-land to the westward of the snowy Andes extends for 120 miles, the whole length of Caravaya, but is only from five to ten miles broad. It is 13,000 feet above the level of the sea, and here, about a century ago, after the destruction of San Gavan, the town of Crucero was founded, as a central position for the capital of the province, and as being free from the attacks of wild Indians. It derives its name from the numerous roads which branch from it to the villages on the eastern slopes of the Andes. This narrow plain, on which Crucero[301] is situated, is very swampy, covered with long tufts of _ychu_ grass, and intensely cold. It yields pasture to immense flocks of sheep; and to the curious hybrid, first bred by the cura Cabrera in 1826, between an alpaca and a vicuña, called the paco-vicuña, with a black and white fleece of long fine wool, which is wove into fabrics like the richest silk.[302] But the largest and only important part of Caravaya consists of the forest-covered valleys to the eastward of the Andes. On the western side that mountain-chain rises abruptly into peaks covered with snow, from an elevated plateau 14,000 feet above the sea; but on its eastern side the descent is rapid into tropical valleys. Long spurs run off the main chain to the northward, gradually decreasing in elevation; and it is sometimes a distance of sixty or eighty miles before they finally subside into the boundless forest-covered plains of the interior of South America. Numerous rivers flow through the valleys between these spurs, to join the Ynambari; and in these valleys, near the foot of the main chain of the eastern Andes, are the few villages and coca and coffee plantations of Caravaya. In these long spurs and deep valleys Caravaya differs in geographical character from the more northern region of Paucartambo, where the Andes subside much more rapidly into the level plain. In the warm valleys are to be found all the wealth and population of Caravaya. The population consists of 22,000 souls, almost all Indians; and the wealth, besides the flocks of sheep on the western table-land, is created by the produce of coca, coffee, sugar-cane, and aji-pepper plantations, fruit-gardens, and gold-washings. Correct statistical returns are unknown in Peru; but, as near as I could make out, there is an annual yield of 20,000 lbs. of coffee and 360,000 lbs. of coca.[303] I could obtain no reliable statements respecting the yield of gold.