102 THE ANDES OF SOUTHERN PERU 



late the country. The railway was a curse. Natives were obliged 

 to work for the company without pay. Their uncle had told them 

 of frightful abuses over at Cuzco and had warned them not to 

 help the railway people in any way. They had moved out here 

 in a remote part of the mountains so that white men could not 

 exploit them. 



In the end, however, we got them to understand the nature of 

 our work. Gifts of various sorts won their friendship, and they 

 consented to guard the boxes we had to leave behind. Two weeks 

 later, on his return, the topographer found everything unmolested. 



I could not but feel that the spirit of those strong and inde- 

 pendent young men was much better for Peru than the cringing, 

 subservient spirit of most of the Indians that are serfs of the 

 whites. The policy of the whites has been to suppress and ex- 

 ploit the natives, to abuse them, and to break their spirit. They 

 say that it keeps down revolution; it keeps the Indian in his place. 

 But certainly in other respects it is bad for the Indian and it is 

 worse for the whites. Their brutality toward the natives is in- 

 credible. It is not so much the white himself as the vicious half- 

 breed who is often allied with him as his agent. 



I shall never forget the terror of two young girls driving a don- 

 key before them when they came suddenly face to face with our 

 party, and we at the same time hastily scrambled off our beasts 

 to get a photograph of a magnificent view disclosed at the bend 

 of the steep trail. They thought we had dismounted to attack 

 them, and fled screaming in abject fear up the mountain side, 

 abandoning the donkey and the pack of potatoes which must have 

 represented a large part of the season's product. It is a kind of 

 highway robbery condoned because it is only robbing an Indian. 

 He is considered to be lawful prey. His complaint goes unnoticed. 

 In the past a revolution has offered him sporadic chances to wreak 

 vengeance. More often it adds to his troubles by scattering 

 through the mountain valleys the desperate refugees or lawless 

 bands of marauders who kill the flocks of the mountain shepherds 

 and despoil their women. 



There are still considerable numbers of Indians who shun the 



