THE BORDER VALLEYS OF THE EASTERN ANDES 75 



storehouse, a grinding stone, and a rake are all that are required. 

 So the planter must work out his own salvation individually. He 

 must take account of the return upon investments in machinery, 

 of the number of hands he can command from among the "faena" 

 or free Indians, of the cost and number of imported hands from 

 the valley and plateau towns, and, finally, of the transportation 

 rates dependent upon the number of mules in the neighborhood, 

 and distance from the market. If in addition the labor is skilfully 

 employed so as to have the tasks which the various products re- 

 quire fall at different periods of the year, then the planter may 

 expect to make money upon his time and get a return upon his 

 initial investment in the land. 4 



The type of tropical agriculture which we have outlined is 

 profitable for the few planters who make up the white population 

 of the valleys, but it has a deplorable effect upon the Indian popu- 

 lation. Though the planters, one and all, complain bitterly of the 

 drunken habits of their laborers, they themselves put into the 

 hands of the Indians the means of debauchery. Practically the 

 whole production of the eastern valleys is consumed in Peru. 

 What the valleys do not take is sent to the plateau, where it is the 

 chief cause of vicious conduct. Two-thirds of the prisoners in the 

 city jails are drunkards, and, to be quite plain, they are virtually 

 supplied with brandy by the planter, who could not otherwise 

 make enough money. So although the planter wants more and 

 better labor he is destroying the quality of the little there is, and, 

 if not actually reducing the quantity of it, he is at least very cer- 

 tainly reducing the rate of increase. 



The difficulties of the valley planter could be at least partly 

 overcome in several ways. The railway will reduce transporta- 

 tion costs, especially when the playas of the valleys are all 

 cleared and the exports increased. Moreover the eastern valleys 



* The inadequacy of the labor supply was a serious obstacle in the early days 

 as well as now. In the documents pertaining to the " Obispados y Audiencia del 

 Cuzco" (Vol. 11, p. 349 of the " Juicio de Lfmites entre el Peru y Bolivia, Prueba 

 Peruana presentada al Gobierno de la Reptiblica Argentina por Victor M. Maurtua," 

 Barcelona, 1906) we find the report that the natives of the curacy of Ollantaytambo 

 who came down from the hills to Huadquifia to hear mass were detained and compelled 

 to give a day's service on the valley plantations under pain of chastisement. 



