The Huasco Basin
The next day we rested our beasts at Lake Huasco, and with one of the guides I crossed over to the other side of the basin about twelve miles distant to study the volcanoes there and also to skirt its southern edge, where old shore lines were clearly visible. The so-called “‘lake" that now occupies but a portion of the salt-encrusted floor is but the shrunken remnant of a once large and deep lake that filled the whole depression. On the return in the late afternoon we rode through a broad patch of alluvium that was invested with vizcacha. The holes of these beasts honeycombed the soil, and our mules repeat- edly stumbled and fell. [I was frequently to encounter such colonies all the way through the mountains from central Peru to northwestern Argentina. On a winter's morning the holes are marked by a fringe of hoarfrost. Sometimes one may hear the vizcacha chattering to each other beyond the turn of a canyon wall and surprise them in a small group, but except in the most remote localities they dodge out of sight so quickly that all that one can make out is the merest flash of fur. Their skins are of little or no value, although many attempts have been made to market them. They are near relatives of the rarer chinchilla,
The trail from Huasco eastward climbs the long piedmont slope that stretches forward from the Cordillera Sillilica, crossing over the pass at the southern end whence a good view of the peaks of this volcanic chain fills the northern horizon. They are young volcanic cones with a plentiful snow cover in winter. We passed there in late May, which is the beginning of the southern winter, and though they appeared to have permanent snow fields, especially on Mt. Lorima, I was too far away to make sure of this,
In Peru practically all of the mountain basins have exits through which they discharge to lower levels. ‘This is true of the smaller basins like Anta and Cuzco as well as the largest of all, Titicaca. In northern Chile, western and southwestern Bolivia, and northwestern Argentina, on the contrary, the basins are mostly self-contained and have no exits. It was a great satisfaction to cross the Chilean cordillera into Bolivia
