THE REGIONS OF PERU 7 



would take advantage of scientific methods and use labor-saving 

 machinery. He said that the methods now in use were medieval, 

 and he pointed to a score of concrete illustrations. Also, here was 

 water running to waste, yet the desert was on either hand. There 

 should be dams and canals. Every drop of water was needed. 

 The population of the valley could be easily doubled. 



Capital was lacking but there was also lacking energy among 

 the people. Slipshod methods brought them a bare living and 

 they were too easily contented. Their standards of life should be 

 elevated. Education was still for the few, and it should be uni- 

 versal. A new spirit of progress was slowly developing — a more 

 general interest in public affairs, a desire to advance with the 

 more progressive nations of South America, — and when it had 

 reached its culmination there would be no happier land than 

 coastal Peru, already the seat of the densest populations and the 

 most highly cultivated fields. 



These four men have portrayed the four great regions of Peru 

 — the lowland plains, the eastern mountain valleys, the lofty 

 plateaus, and the valley oases of the coast. This is not all of 

 Peru. The mountain basins have their own peculiar qualities and 

 the valley heads of the coastal zone are unlike the lower valleys 

 and the plateau on either hand. Yet the chief characteristics of 

 the country are set forth with reasonable fidelity in these indi- 

 vidual accounts. Moreover the spirit of the Peruvians is better 

 shown thereby than their material resources. If this is not Peru, 

 it is what the Peruvians think is Peru, and to a high degree a 

 man's country is what he thinks it is — at least it is little more to 

 him. 



