28 THE ANDES OF SOUTHERN PERU 



concealment is perfect. There are tribes that shoot the white man 

 at sight and regard him as their bitterest enemy. Experience has 

 led them to believe that only a dead white is a good white, revers- 

 ing our saying about the North American Indian; and that even 

 when he comes among them on peaceful errands he is likely to 

 leave behind him a trail of syphilis and other venereal diseases 

 scarcely less deadly than his bullets. 



However, the peonage system is not hideous everywhere and in 

 all its aspects. There are white owners who realize that in the 

 long run the friendship of the Indians is an asset far greater than 

 unwilling service and deadly hatred. Some of them have indeed 

 intermarried with the Indians and live among them in a state but 

 little above savagery. In the Mamore country are a few owners 

 of original princely concessions who have grown enormously 

 wealthy and yet who continue to live a primitive life among their 

 scores of illegitimate descendants. The Indians look upon then, 

 as benefactors, as indeed many of them are, defending the Indians 

 from ill treatment by other whites, giving them clothing and orna- 

 ments, and exacting from them only a moderate amount of labor. 

 In some cases indeed the whites have gained more than simple 

 gratitude for their humane treatment of the Indians, some of 

 whom serve their masters with real devotion. 



When the "rubber barons" wish to discourage investigation 

 of their system they invite the traveler to leave and he is given 

 a canoe and oarsmen with which to make his way out of the dis- 

 trict. Eefusal to accept an offer of canoes and men is a declara- 

 tion of war. An agent of one of the London companies accepted 

 such a challenge and was promptly told that he would not leave 

 the territory alive. The threat would have held true in the case 

 of a less skilful man. Though Indians slept in the canoes to pre- 

 vent their seizure, he slipped past the guards in the night, swam 

 to the opposite shore, and there secured a canoe within which he 

 made a difficult journey down river to the nearest post where food 

 and an outfit could be secured. 



A few companies operating on or near the border of the Cordil- 

 lera have adopted a normal labor system, dependent chiefly upon 



