From “South America, Observations and Impressions.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY E. M. NEWMAN
INCA TEMPLE OF THE SUN—ON THE SHORE OF LAKE TITICACA, BOLIVIA
BOLIVIA
The Story of Bolivia
ONE
With the exception of Paraguay, Bolivia is the only entirely inland State in South America. It is really a manufactured nation. When the War of Independence of that part of South America ended, the revolutionary leaders set up this country as an independent State, and gave it the name of Bolivia, in honor of Simon Bolivar, the Liberator, himself a native of Venezuela. Bolivia is bounded on the north and east by Brazil, on the south by Paraguay and Argentina, and on the west by Chile and Peru.
In its early days Bolivia was simply a part of the empire of the Incas of Peru. The story of the Incas has been given in Mentor No. 132, “Peru.” After the conquest of Peru by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, the natives were subjected to a great deal of tyranny and oppression. They were compelled to work in the mines, and endured so many hardships and cruelties that their numbers rapidly diminished.