6 THE ANDES OF SOUTHERN PERU 



of the yearly increase. It is not much, but he has always lived 

 this way and I suppose that he is contented after a fashion. ' ' 



Then he became eager to tell what wealth the mountains con- 

 tained in soil and climate if only the right grasses were intro- 

 duced by the government. 



"Here, before us, are vast punas almost without habitations. 

 If the officials would bring in hardy Siberian grasses these lava- 

 covered plateaus might be carpeted with pasture. There would be 

 villages here and there. The native Indians easily stand the alti- 

 tude. This whole Cordillera might have ten times as many people. 

 Why does the government bother about concessions in the rubber 

 forests and roads to the eastern valleys when there are these vast 

 tracts only requiring new seeds to develop into rich pastures? 

 The government could thus greatly increase its revenues because 

 there is a heavy tax on exported wool." 



Thus he talked about the bleak Cordillera until we forgot the 

 pounding of our hearts and our frequent gasps for breath on ac- 

 count of the altitude. His rosy picture of a well-populated high- 

 land seemed to bring us down nearer sea level where normal folks 

 lived. To the Indians the altitude is nothing. It has an effect, but 

 it is slight; at any rate they manage to reproduce their kind at 

 elevations that would kill a white mother. If alcohol were abol- 

 ished and better grasses introduced, these lofty pastures might 

 indeed support a much larger population. The sheep pastures of 

 the world are rapidly disappearing before the march of the farmer. 

 Here, well above the limit of cultivation, is a permanent range, 

 one of the great as well as permanent assets of Peru. 



The Coastal, Planter 



The man from the deep Majes Valley in the coastal desert rode 

 out with me through cotton fields as rich and clean as those of a 

 Texas plantation. He was tall, straight-limbed, and clear-eyed — 

 one of the energetic younger generation, yet with the blood of a 

 proud old family. We forded the river and rode on through vine- 

 yards and fig orchards loaded with fruit. His manner became 

 deeply earnest as he pictured the future of Peru, when her people 



