A MILKMAID, LIMA.
Peru is unfortunate in having much of her territory inaccessible from the Pacific or from the capital, and the difficulties of administering her wild forest lands on the eastern slopes of the Cordillera have led to the rubber scandals recently brought to light. The difficulty of communicating with the heart of their country is common to all the South American republics. Brazil has her Matto Grosso and Acre territories; Argentina and Chili the great desolate pampas of the south; and Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, the same problems with regard to much of their territory. Great tracts of the vast continent are still unknown and unexplored; and even when they are, many of them will offer little or no inducement for civilised settlement. Undreamt-of mysteries may exist hidden in the depths of the almost impenetrable forests. Explorers are busy in the country delimiting boundaries and investigating untrodden regions, and the difficulties they encounter all point to the almost impossibility of bringing many of the large tracts under the influences of modern civilisation. The early conquistadors were unrestrained by scruples in their treatment of native races, but the modern Governments have the eyes of a more humane and censorious world upon them. Immigrants are eagerly desired by the Peruvian Government to develop the vast agricultural lands for the production of sugar, cotton, linseed, rice, tobacco, coffee, vines, fruits, and vegetables. On the high lands, where cattle can be raised, there is a great demand for suitable labour. Indeed, from the north of the continent to the south the cry is for workers. Nature having done her share to enrich the race, now only waits for mankind to avail themselves of her bounty.
CHAPTER XII
Peru—“The Country of Marvels”
FROM Tumbez to Callao, the country presents a most arid and uninviting appearance. The high, steep hills near to the shore extend in an almost unbroken line of dull greyish brown, as the sun-baked clay, with here and there patches of dirty white indicating guano deposits. I must confess to a feeling of disappointment on first gazing upon the inhospitable shores of Peru. For my mind treasured recollections of all the glamour and romance that gather round the land and the history of the wonderful Incas.
The world’s records contain few more fairy-like narratives than the well attested story of a civilisation equal in many of its aspects to any the world has known.
Inland, many types are encountered, easily traceable to those “Children of the Sun” who migrated from the north to the interior highlands of the country and established at Cuzco the centre and capital of a great empire. Originally, their very contrast with surrounding tribes gave them a remarkable distinction, whilst their civilisation was full of sound and humane elements. Its keynote was an intelligent socialism, for the citizen had to supply the needs of the aged and infirm, the widow and the orphan, and the soldier on active service, before supplying his own. The person of the Emperor was regarded as divine, and he wielded supreme authority over his realm. In this enlightened society, hidden away for centuries from the eyes of the rest of the world, poverty was a thing unknown, for communism, tempered by an almost extravagant regard for authority, attained during the regime of the Incas an ideal height never achieved before or since.
The Peruvians of those bygone times have left little doubt that they excelled as agriculturalists and shepherds; their mountains were cultivated almost to the snow-line; irrigation on thoroughly sound lines was known and practised; aqueducts and bridges abounded, and adequate roads connected town with town and with the sea. Moreover, the people had advanced sufficiently far along the path of civilisation to have tamed wild animals such as the llama and alpaca for domestic use.
THE ARID COAST OF PERU.