midnight before
Palpa was the place at which their labours were to begin , and here it became necessary for them to engage a complete staff of assistants , comprising tent bearers , grooms , bush cutters , porters , cooks , and all the other attendants needed for their comfort and convenience during a long spell of camp life in a tropical climate , and in a country where civilisation is still elementary except in the more important centres . Luckily for them , the first section of their work comprised only a stretch of a little more than thirty miles of tolerably flat country , where no serious natural difficulties presented themselves , and that part of their work was soon accomplished . Yet Escombe found even this trifling bit of the great task before him sufficiently arduous ; for Butler not only demanded that he should be up and at work in the open at daybreak , and that he should continue at work so long as daylight lasted , but that , when survey work was no longer possible because of the darkness , the lad should `` plot '' his day 's work on paper before retiring to rest . Thus it was generally close upon midnight before Escombe was at liberty to retire to his camp bed and seek his hard-earned and much - needed rest . But it was when they got upon the second section of their work -- between Huacho , Cochamarca , and Cerro de Pasco -- that their real troubles and difficulties began , for here they had to find a practicable route up the face of the Western Cordillera in the first instance , and , having found it , to measure with the nicest accuracy not only the horizontal distances but the height of every rise and the depth of every declivity in the face of a country made up to a great extent of lofty precipices and fathomless ravines , the whole overgrown with dense vegetation through which survey lines had to be cut at enormous expense of time and labour . And here it was that Butler 's almost fiendish malice and ingenuity in the art of making things unpleasant for other people shone forth conspicuously . It was his habit to ride forth every morning accompanied by a strong band of attendants armed with axes and machetes , and well provided with ropes to assist in the scaling of precipitous slopes , for the purpose of selecting and marking out the day 's route , a task which could usually be accomplished in a couple of hours ; and then to return and supervise the work of his subordinate , which he made as difficult and arduous as possible by insisting upon the securing of a vast amount of superfluous and wholly unnecessary information , in the obtaining of which Harry was obliged to risk his life at least a dozen times a day .