aller cables are sometimes stretched
on each side as a guard or hand-rail. Over these frail and swaying
structures pass men and animals, the latter frequently with their load
on their backs.

Each bridge is usually kept up by the municipality of the nearest
village; and as it requires renewal every two or three years, the
Indians are obliged at stated periods to bring to the spot a certain
number of withes of peculiar kinds of tough wood, generally of that
variety called ioke, which are braided by experts, and then stretched
across the stream or river by the united exertions of the inhabitants.
Some of the larger and most important structures of this kind are kept
up by the government, and all passengers and merchandise pay a fixed
toll. Such is the case with the great bridge over the Apurimac, on the
main road from the ancient Guamanga (now Ayacucho) to Cuzco.

The Apurimac is one of the head-waters of the Amazon, a large and rapid
stream, flowing in a deep valley, or rather gigantic ravine, shut in by
high and precipitous mountains. Throughout its length it is crossed at
only a single point, between two enormous cliffs, which rise dizzily
on both sides, and from the summits of which the traveller looks down
into a dark gulf. At the bottom gleams a white line of water, whence
struggles up a dull but heavy roar, giving to the river its name,
_Apu-rimac_ signifying, in the Quichua tongue, "the great speaker." From
above, the bridge, looking like a mere thread, is reached by a path
which on one side traces a thin, white line on the face of the mountain,
and down which the boldest traveller may hesitate to venture. This path,
on the other side, at once disappears from a rocky shelf, where there is
just room enough to hold the hut of the bridge-keeper, and then runs
through a dark tunnel cut in the rock, from which it emerges to trace
its line of many a steep and weary zigzag of the face of the mountain.
It is usual for the traveller to time his day's journey so as to reach
this bridge in the morning, before the strong wind sets in; for during
the greater part of the day it sweeps up the canyon of the Apurimac with
great force, and then the bridge sways like a gigantic hammock, and
crossing is next to impossible.

It was a memorable incident in my travelling experiences, the crossing
of this great swinging bridge of the Apurimac. I shall never forget it,
even if it were not associated with a circumstance which, for the ti