the population of Peru comprises approximately four million people. This population is divided as follows: 1,260,000 mestizos, or mixed races from intermarriages of the whites with the Indians; 600,000 whites; 100,000 negroes; 40,000 Orientals, and 2,000,000 Indians.

The great problem of Peru is the problem of the Indian who is not only numerically the important factor in the country, but who is also virtually the only support of the vast majority of the population. It is a common saying everywhere that all Peru lives off the Indian. If the Indian were taken out of Peru today, the country would starve, at least unless the remaining portion of the population learned by necessity to cultivate the land to make a living.

The ancient Inca Empire of which Cuzco was the center and the home of the Inca king, extended originally from beyond Quito to the southern coast of Chile, including what is now known as Ecuador, Peru and Chile, and these ancient people had here a civilization in many respects more advanced and civilized than that of the Spanish adventurers who conquered them. When Pizarro came to Peru there were nearly eight millions of these inhabitants of the Incas realm in Peru alone, industrious, law-abiding, practicing progressive arts and having irrigated farms, traces of which are still to be seen along the high peaks of the

and fortresses, their temples, and their architecture reveal a state and quality of knowledge and skill resembling that found in the old Egyptian tombs and monuments.

When the Spaniards came, not to colonize but to conquer and to exploit, the Indians were driven from their homes, the country in many instances went to waste, people becoming slaves of their ruthless masters who proceeded to make the quiet, tractable Indians into beasts of burden, killing them ruthlessly, whenever they opposed.

The present evil traits of the Indian, his dishonest, suspicion of the white man and much of his sloth have been the result of the conditions under which he has been controlled for four hundred or more years. During the old Inca regime, such sins as lying, stealing and adultery were punishable by death, and the home life of these ancient people was far better in character than that generally found today among their successors.

The suspicion that the Indian holds for the white man is pronounced, and it is only after continued proofs of his friendship that the white man can gain the confidence of these people who have been SO continuously wronged through the centuries. The average stranger who speaks to the Indian will hardly get an answer in Spanish from him; even if the Indian knows that language he will pretend that he does not know it,

for fear some new device or demand of the white man will be practiced upon him.

A friend of mine who was accustomed to travel much among the Indians in Peru told me that it was difficult even to secure a fowl for his supper in an Indian village, since the Indians feared that he either would not pay them for it, or would play some trick upon them in relation to it. One time he found it necessary after offering the Indian a sole or fifty cents, for a fowl that was worth twenty cents, to go out himself and shoot the coveted chicken; when the Indian saw what had been done, he came and asked my friend if he would give him forty cents for the fowl. On being asked why he had not been willing to take the proffered sole at the beginning he simply shrugged his shoulders saying that he did not believe the white man meant what he said. He said he had never found truth in the white man.

Frequenly people have told me in Peru that it is impossible to gain the friendship of the Indian because of the deep seated fear and suspicion which he has inherited for those who have exploited him with regularity and his fathers before him for hundreds of years. Nevertheless you will be told by those people who know, that the Indian of the interior especially, forms the best and most trustworthy element in Peru today. He is hard working and frugal, living on a small patch of land which is frequently owned by the community or by a large land holder. He will work day after day for his masters, receiving only ten cents in Peruvian money, which is equal only to five cents, gold. At the end of the

week he receives an additional stipend making his wages amount to about fifteen cents, gold, a day. In the case of the Indians who occupy land on the geat estates of the Sierras (and there are often as many as four hundred families of Indians who live on these large haciendos, as their fathers have for generations) the owners have the right to demand the labor of the Indian for virtually any work he requires and at any time. At time of planting, weeding and harvesting, all the Indians are requisitioned to cultivate the great estates and when the owner wishes to send his produce to market, he has simply to call upon his Indians who respond with their trains of llamas carrying the produce many leagues to the nearest shipping place, without charge to the owner.

While this seems at first sight nothing short of slavery, the lot of the Indians in these mountains is not so bad as it might seem. They have their own bits of land which they they cultivate assiduously and which yield them a good living, and they have their own sheep, llamas and alpacas, and a certain number of cattle. Their grazing lands are apportioned to them and they are protected in their rights. There is no danger of their homes being taken from them. In fact the Indian in the interior is so wedded to the place where he and his fathers have lived for generations, that it is virtually impossible to move him from his home. When the land changes hands the Indians are sold with the land, and simply transfer their allegiance from one master to another.

While I was in Cuzco I came into personal knowledge of a transaction involving he transfer of a

great farm thirty miles square upon which there were living five hundred Indian families. Its seven hundred able bodied men constituted one of the chief assets of the farm, since with these sons rooted to the native soil, the owner was certain of his labor and never would be troubled with strikes or problems relative to the fluctuation of wages. In these sections moreover, the Indian impresses one as being much freer and happier than on the smaller individual portions of land nearer the large towns, where he is in continual trouble and often at the mercy of lawyers and lawsuits. I was shown a large tract of land filling a beautiful valley on the high plateaus of Southern Peru which was formerly entirely owned by the Indians. It is now possessed by three lawyers in Cuzco, who by clever manipulation have managed to embroil the Indians in lawsuit after lawsuit, until there native owners have lost control of their original properties. It is a proverb in Cuzco that a rich lawyer is a rich farmer, for the first and constant aim of the lawyer is to get hold of as much of the Indian's land as can be secured.

There is no more picturesque sight to be seen in South America, if indeed any where in the Orient, than these Indians journeying on foot behind their long trains of llamas, laden with alpaca or wool on their way to the market place. A market place like that of Sicuani where on Sunday many hundreds of Indians gather, leaving their llamas and burros corralled on the hill sides, while they throng the central place with their wares for sale, makes an unforgettable picture. The first impression is one of color-color everywhere. It is

one vast sea of variegated ponchos, shawls and head-dresses. Strangely enough they all seem to consist with the peculiar brown of the Indian faces, and the harmony of colors under the blazing light of the semi-tropical sun can scarcely be duplicated anywhere else upon the globe.

Women in gay dresses of red or blue or purple, are sitting in front of their little mats on which they display the food for sale, or the socks which they have made, or the ponchos they have woven, and as they bargain with the passer-by their hands are always busy with the little spindle dangling from their arm on which they are spinning the wool from which they will make other socks or ponchos. They are never idle, these Indian women, as they trot along the paths behind their llamas, or as they herd their sheep on the hillsides, or as they come through the streets of Cuzco; you see that little spindle being twirled by the hand that has become so used to the labor that the process is performed mechanically and seemingly without effort.

After the market is finished the Indian goes to his favorite chicheria, where in a great dark room, whose only light enters by the low doorway, he will sit upon a rude bench or on the earthen floor, and drink a glass of his national chicha, his food and drink combined, made from corn. This drink is said to be intoxicating if used in great quantities, but its fermentation is very slight, generally being drunk the same day it is made, and it takes considerable amount to produce intoxication. For ten cents the Indian will receive a glass containing nearly a quart of the muddy brown liquid and a plate of "pi

quante," a stew made from vegetables and meat or fish, highly seasoned with red pepper. The Indian is not fastidious and does not resent the guinea pigs running around him as he eats his food, nor does he notice the smoke that arises in great clouds from the open fire which has no outlet except the room itself. He eats his piquante and drinks his chicha, then takes a few coca leaves, rolls them into a ball, puts a little lime in the middle of the ball and inserts it into his mouth, when he is ready for his homeward journey.

His home is quite likely a rude mud, straw-thatched hut in a little village lying close up against the mountains in one of the valleys through which a stream rushes down from the melting snows of the lofty Sierras. The typical dwelling is about eight or ten feet in width and ten or fifteen feet long. The doorway is so low that the ordinary person must bow his head to enter it. There are no windows and no chimneys, and virtually no furniture. In some of the huts there is a frame-work upon which the family sleep at night, but in the great majority of Indian homes in this section, men, women, babies and animals share the floor space and huddle together to keep warm on the cool nights in these high altitudes. A little mud stove, or three stones in the corner of the room, burns a peet that is found on the pampa, and the smoke from the fire blackens the roof of the hut and escapes as best it may through the doorway. There are one or two cooking pots, a jar for water, and perhaps a couple of dishes in which to empty the food, but fingers were made before modern utensils, and they are the chief

resource of the Indian who dips his hand into the common bowl. Just outside the hut is a little corral where the burros, the tiny lambs and the pigs enjoy a promiscuous intimacy with the family.

The food of the Indian is simplicity itself, consisting of the everpresent Indian maize, mutton and potatoes, all of which is often made into a thick soup, seasoned freely with red peppers. In the higher altitudes frozen mutton and frozen potatoes form the chief diet. The potatoes are frozen and refrozen, until all the liquid is eliminated, leaving only the nutritious part of the plant. The corn is parched and ground into a coarse meal with which they thicken their soups. Nearly every family keeps a few chickens which are eaten on feast days and pork also is appreciated evidently, as it is quite common to stumble over a pig when trying to enter the darkened dwellings of the Indians. The guinea pig is especially omnipresent, and his abundant fertility furnishes a cheap article of diet to the frugal Indian.

Marriage among these Indians of the Sierras is not general, although the Indian chooses his mate at an early age and his loyalty to her and his family is usually life long and in striking contrast to conditions found among the cholas or mestizos occupying the towns and villages. You will be constantly told by those who live in the midst of these mountain tribes that there is very little immorality among them, and the spirit of co-operation, existing between the man, woman and all the children in their common toil and simple pleasures, is as beautiful as it is praiseworthy.

strain runs through the character of these people of the hills. Often in riding along the mountain trails the traveler will see in front of him an Indian boy and girl walking along hand in hand, and as the rider approaches their hands will unclasp, and the same shy look will pass over their faces as one sees on the faces of youth in courting time in other lands. On a quiet night in some of these wonderful valleys the traveler may be sitting on the veranda of a great haciendo when there will float up to him the plaintive murmur of a flute, played in a minor key. The owner of the ranch will turn to you and say:

"I see it's courting time. One of my Indians is serenading his lady love, down there in the Indian village. One of these days he will come to me and say 'Master, I want a plot of ground,' and I will go with him and choose his land

and he will build his little hut, and a new family will be on the estate."

As far as the education of the Indian goes, there is at present much to be desired. Nominally there is compulsory education throughout Peru, but such education can not be enforced among the

Indians because of the manner and the necessities of their life, even if the Government provided sufficient schools and teachers. In the larger towns and villages a rudimentary teaching is given to Indian children during certain months of the year, but as a rule the Peruvian seems to go on the principle that it is better to keep the Indian fairly ignorant in order that he may not get above his business of making a living for the rest of the Peruvians. If the Indian was educated and be gan to think, the Peruvians might have to work, which would be a

tragedy. Here and there, however, one comes across educated Indians who show signs of progressive leadership and some day it is hoped a Dr. Eastman will be raised up here in South America to espouse the cause of the Indian, building for him schools of industrial training, and raising up a new generation of intelligent and industrially-minded descendants of the Incas.

With the coming of industrial training for these Indians there should come also a lightening of the load of religious superstition which they are now carrying.

As one watches the llama trains leaving Cuzco for the fastness of the Cordilleras and the wide pampas of the table lands, one is impressed by seeing these simple folk at a turn of the road above Cuzco dropping upon their knees and striking their faces upon the ground, bowing in prayer at the last view of their sacred city.

If all of their religious exercises were as simple and beautiful as this, the Indian's lot would not be as heavy religiously as it now is. We fear, however, that the burdens which are bound upon the poor Indian by the priests who make him pay for birth, life and death, feast days and days of sorrow, all in the name of religion, are among the heaviest which he has to bear.

In Cuzco you will be awakened by the noise of fire-crackers and the ringing of bells which proclaim the fact that a feast day is being held, accompanied by bands of music, the providing of free food, unlimited liquid refreshment, and the profuse decoration of the parish church, and the big choral mass— for all of which some poor Indian is having the honor to pay, out of