hind him,
but on the other hand he resolved to correct the abuse on his return by
appeal, if necessary, to the prefect of Cuzco.

A frightful night in a deserted hut on a site called Jimiro--where
Marcoy had for mattress the legs of one of the porters, and for pillow
the back of a bark-hunter--followed the exodus from Sausipata. The
Guarapascana, the Saniaca, the Chuntapunco, flowing into the Cconi on
opposite sides, were successively left behind our adventurers, and they
bowed for an instant before the tomb of a stranger, "a German from
Germany," as Pepe Garcia said, "who pretended to know the language of
the Chunchos, and who interpreted for himself, but who starved in the
wilderness near the heap of stones you see." Leaving this resting-place
of an interpreter who had interpreted so little, the party attained a
stream of rather unusual importance. The reputed gold-bearing river of
Ouitubamba rolled from its tunnel before them, exciting the most
visionary schemes in the mind of Colonel Perez, to whom its auriferous
reputation was familiar. Nothing would do but that the California
process of "panning" must be carried out in these Peruvian waters, and
the peons, _multum reluctantes,_ were summoned to the task, with all the
crow-bars and shovels possessed by the expedition, supplemented by
certain sauce-pans and dishes hypothecated from the culinary department.
The issue of the stream from under a crown of indigenous growths was the
site of this financial speculation. Pepe Garcia was placed at the head
of the enterprise. A long ditch was dug, revealing milky quartz, ochres
and clay. The deceptive hue of the yellow earth made the search a long
and tantalizing one. At the moment when the colonel, attracted by
something glistening in the large frying-pan which he was agitating at
the edge of the stream, uttered an exclamation which drew all heads into
the cavity of his receptacle, an answering sound from the heavens caused
everybody suddenly to look up. An equatorial storm had gathered
unnoticed over their heads. In a few minutes a solid sheet of warm
rain, accompanied by a furious tornado sweeping through the valley,
caused whites and Indians to scatter as if for their lives. The golden
dream of Colonel Perez and the similar vision entertained by Pepe Garcia
were dissipated promptly by this answer of the elements. On attaining
the neighboring sheds of Maniri the gold--seekers abandoned their
implements without remark to th