46 



CONTRIBUTION. 



possible I would avoid appealing to authority for the purpose of obtain- 

 ing supplies, and go without what I could not buy or beg. He had 

 in the house the semi-yearly contribution of his province towards the 

 support of the government, which he was to send to Lima next day. 

 A gentleman suggested that he might be robbed that night; but he 

 said that his guns were loaded, (pointing to some muskets standing 

 around the room,) and that he might count upon assistance from our 

 party, which seemed well armed. 



Very little help he would have had from us. He had shown no 

 disposition to oblige us, and moreover I had no notion of interfering 

 in other people's quarrels, or preventing the people from taking back 

 their money if they wanted it. This contribution is a capitation tax of 

 seven dollars a year, collected half-yearly from the Indian population 

 between the ages of sixteen and sixty. It is collected by the governors 

 of the districts into which a province is divided, who receive two per 

 centum on their collections, and pay over to the sub-prefect, who re- 

 ceives four per cent, on the whole amount collected from the districts 

 of his province. The prefects of the departments, which are made up 

 of a number of provinces, receive a regular salary, according to the size 

 and wealth of their departments, varying from three to five thousand 

 dollars. We slept comfortably in the tent. Nights getting cool. 



May 25. — Started at 10 a. m. Valley getting so narrow as not to 

 allow room for the road, which is in many places cut from the rock 

 on the side of the hill, very narrow, rough and precipitous, rising and 

 falling as it crosses the spurs of the hills. The general character of 

 the rock is a feldspar porphyry, succeeded, as the road ascends, by a 

 very coarse-grained trachyte porphyry, reaching as far as Surco. Vege- 

 tation, willow, molle, and many varieties of the cactus. We passed on 

 the road the ruins of an ancient Indian town ; the houses had been 

 small, and built of stone on terraces cut from the mountain side. 



At two we passed through the village of Surco, the largest we have 

 seen on the road. It appears capable of holding five or six hundred 

 people, but seemed deserted — nearly every house closed, and many fall- 

 ing into decay. We were told that the inhabitants were away over the 

 hills, looking after their plantations and flocks, and that they returned 

 at night. But if this is so, judging from the height of the mountains 

 on each side of the village, I should say that half their time is lost in 

 going and returning from their work. 



Here we leave the district called the Coast, and enter upon that 

 called the Sierra. There is tertiana below, but none above this. Dr. 

 Smith, speaking of the climate of this district, says, " that it is neither 



