One of the _arreoros_, or muleteers, with me, a native
of Madrid, remarked on the solitude of the spot, adding, with a sigh,
"This was a different place when first I visited it." Within about half
a mile from where we were then conversing was an astonishing freak of
Nature. In the midst of the plain were about one hundred naked rocks
rising abruptly from the surface, in detached groups, some of which were
as high as St. Paul's, and many appeared like the spires of a cathedral.
Pointing to these eminences, the muleteer went on to say, "for five
months these rocks were my refuge from white men, and from them have I
seen an army of twenty-five thousand men traverse this plain again and
again; their only support for nearly fourteen months being drawn from
the spot." On asking an explanation, he bid me look round and say if I
thought I could count the number of sheep on the Pampa. I readily
answered I did not think there were fifty. "What will you say, sir,"
said he, "when I tell you that sixteen years since, there were, _on this
plain alone, eight hundred thousand sheep!_ besides oxen; at that time
there was scarcely an Indian that did not possess at least two thousand,
and this was only a part of the wealth of Peru.
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