On the 18th of April I left Crucero, on my way to the chinchona forests, rather late in the afternoon, accompanied by Mr. Weir the gardener, a young mestizo named Pablo Sevallos, and two cargo-mules. After a ride of three leagues along the bleak plain of Crucero, covered with coarse _Stipa_ and stunted _Cacti_, we reached a little shepherd's hut, called Choclari-piña, at dusk. It was built of loose stones, with a sheepskin hung across the doorway, but with no plaster or mud between the interstices of the stones, so that the piercingly cold wind blew right through the hut.[308] The poor Indian family were kind and hospitable, and gave us plenty of fresh milk. Next morning we continued the journey along the same plain, with the snowy peaks of the Caravayan Andes on the left, and the glorious nevada of Ananea ahead, whence rise the rivers of Azangaro flowing into lake Titicaca, and of Ynambari finding its way to the Atlantic. A ride of twelve miles brought us to a hut called Acco-kunka (neck of sand), at the foot of long ridges of dark-coloured cliffs, with huge boulders of rock scattered over the sides of the hills. A hard white frost covered the ground. At Acco-kunka I met a red-faced man, about fifty years of age, who gave his name as Don Manuel Martel. He said that he had been a colonel, and had suffered persecution for being faithful to his party; that he had lost much money in the _cascarilla_ trade; and that he was now making a clearing in the forests of Caravaya, for the purpose of growing sugar-cane. He talked about M. Hasskarl, the Dutch agent, who was employed to obtain chinchona-plants in 1854, under his assumed name of Müller; said that he employed an agent named Clemente Henriquez to collect the plants; and vowed that if he, or any one else, ever again attempted to take _cascarilla_ (chinchona) plants out of the country, he would stir up the people to seize them and cut their feet off. There was evidently some allusion to myself in his bluster; and I suspected, what afterwards proved to be the case, that Martel had, by some means, got information respecting the objects of my journey, and was desirous of thwarting them. I had always carefully avoided any mention of the subject since leaving Arequipa. Martel said he was going to buy gold-dust at Poti, so I soon got rid of him; and, passing an alpine lake, full of water-fowl, we began the descent into the golden valleys of Caravaya.