64 THE ANDES OF SOUTHERN PERU 



merely happen. Put the highland shepherd in the basin and he 

 would starve in competition with the basin type. Undoubtedly he 

 would live in the basin if he could. He has not been driven out 

 of the basin; he is kept out. 



And thus it is around the border of the Abancay basin and 

 others like it. Only, the Abancay basin is lower and more varied 

 as to resources. The Indian is here in competition with the capi- 

 talistic white planter. He lives on the land by sufferance alone. 

 Farther up the slopes are the farms of the Indians and above 

 them are the pastures of the ignorant shepherds. Whereas the 

 Indian farmer who raises potatoes clings chiefly to the edge of 

 the Cuzco basin where lie the most undesirable agricultural lands, 

 the Indian farmers of Abancay live on broad rolling slopes like 

 those near the pass northward toward Huancarama. They are 

 unusually prosperous, with fields so well cultivated and fenced, 

 so clean and productive, that they remind one somewhat of the 

 beautiful rolling prairies of Iowa. 



It remains to consider the special topographic features of the 

 mountain environments we are discussing, in the Vilcapampa 

 region on the eastern border of the Andes (Fig. 36). The Cordil- 

 lera Vilcapampa is snow-crested, containing a number of fine 

 white peaks like Salcantay, Soray, and Soiroccocha (Fig. 140). 

 There are many small glaciers and a few that are several 

 miles long. There was here in glacial times a much larger system 

 of glaciers, which lived long enough to work great changes in the 

 topography. The floors of the glaciated valleys were smoothed 

 and broadened and their gradients flattened (Figs. 137 and 190). 

 The side walls were steepened and precipitous cirques were 

 formed at the valley heads. Also, there were built across the val- 

 leys a number of stony morainic ridges. With all these changes 

 there was, however, but little effect upon the main masses of the 

 big intervalley spurs. They remain as before — bold, wind-swept, 

 broken, and nearly inaccessible. 



The work of the glaciers aids the mountain people. The stony 

 moraines afford them handy sizable building material for their 

 stone huts and their numerous corrals. The thick tufts of grass 



