CHAPTER V 

 THE COUNTRY OF THE SHEPHERDS 



The lofty mountain zones of Peru, the high bordering valleys, 

 and the belts of rolling plateau between are occupied by tribes of 

 shepherds. In that cold, inhospitable region at the top of the 

 country are the highest permanent habitations in the world — 

 17,100 feet (5,210 m.) — the loftiest pastures, the greatest degree 

 of adaptation to combined altitude and frost. It is here only a 

 step from Greenland to Arcady. Nevertheless it is Greenland that 

 has the people. Why do they shun Arcady? To the traveler from 

 the highlands the fertile valleys between 5,000 and 8,000 feet (1,500 

 to 2,500 m.) seem like the abode of friendly spirits to whose charm 

 the highland dweller must yield. Every pack-train from valley 

 to highland carries luxury in the form of fruit, coca, cacao, and 

 sugar. One would think that every importation of valley products 

 would be followed by a wave of migration from highland to val- 

 ley. On the contrary the highland people have clung to their lofty 

 pastures for unnumbered centuries. Until the Conquest the last 

 outposts of the Incas toward the east were the grassy ridges that 

 terminate a few thousand feet below the timber line. 



In this natural grouping of the people where does choice or 

 blind prejudice or instinct leave off? Where does necessity be- 

 gin? There are answers to most of these questions to be found 

 in the broad field of geographic comparison. But before we begin 

 comparisons we must study the individual facts upon which they 

 rest. These facts are of almost every conceivable variety. They 

 range in importance from a humble shepherd's stone corral on a 

 mountain slope to a thickly settled mountain basin. Their in- 

 terpretation is to be sought now in the soil of rich playa lands, 

 now in the fixed climatic zones and rugged relief of deeply dis- 

 sected, lofty highlands in the tropics. Some of the controlling 

 factors are historical, others economic; still other factors have 



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