THE GEOGRAPHIC BASIS OF HUMAN CHARACTER 91 



mixed, never whites. White men, and men with a small amount 

 of Indian blood, officer the army. When a revolutionary party 

 organizes it is of course made up wholly of men of white and 

 mixed blood, never Indians. The Indians have no more grievance 

 against one white party than another. Both exploit him to the 

 limit of law and beyond the limit of decency. He fights if he must, 

 but never by choice. 



Thus Indian troops killed the white rebels of Abancay. 



"Tell me, Senor," said the fugitive, "if you think that just. 

 Tell me how many Indians you think a white man worth. Would 

 a hundred dead Indians matter? But how replace a white man 

 where there are so few? The government assassinated my com- 

 patriots!" 



"But," I replied, "why did you fight the government? All of 

 you were prosperous. Your fathers may have had a grievance 

 against the government, but of what had you young men to com- 

 plain?" 



His reply was far from convincing. He was at first serious, but 

 his long abstract statements about taxes and government waste- 

 fulness trailed off into vagueness, and he ended in a laughing 

 mood, talking about adventure, the restless spirit of young men, 

 and the rich booty of confiscated lands and property had the 

 rebels won. He admitted that it was a reckless game, but when I 

 called him a mere soldier of fortune he grew serious once more 

 and reverted to the iniquitous taxation system of Peru. Further 

 inquiry made it quite clear that the ill-fated revolution of Abancay 

 was largely the work of idle young men looking for adventure. 

 It seemed a pity that their splendid physical energy could not 

 have been turned into useful channels. The land sorely needs en- 

 gineers, progressive ranchmen and farmers, upright officials, and 

 a spirit of respect for law and order. Old men talked of the un- 

 stable character of the young men of the time, but almost all of 

 them had themselves been active participants in more than one 

 revolution of earlier years. 



Every night at dinner the Prefect sent off by government tele- 

 graph a long message to the President of the Eepublic on the 



