Note 15 — Chapter VI · THE BORDER VALLEYS OF THE EASTERN ANDES

Marcoy who traveled in Peru in the middle of the last century was greatly impressed by the sympathetic changes of aspect and topography and vegetation in the eastern valleys. He thus describes a sudden change of scene in the Occobamba valley: “... the trees had disappeared, the birds had taken wing, and great sandy spaces, covered with the latest deposits of the river, alternated with stretches of yellow grass and masses of rock half-buried in the ground.” (Travels in South America, translated by Elihu Rich, 2 vols. New York, 1875, Vol. 1, p. 326.)