The country across the river did not look very inviting to us and it was decidedly exasperating to be met with answers of such unintelligence especially as we had to cross what appeared to be a duplicate of the Mohave Desert. We forded the shallow Sama to some mud huts in a field of alfalfa, from one of which waved the washed-out and dirty cloth which once was the red, white, and red flag of Peru. No sooner had we reached high ground than a fat, dirty half-breed, barefooted and wearing filthy linen trousers beneath a faded blue military coat on the shoulders of which were red epaulettes, planted himself in our way and assuming a grandiose air of mock dignity inquired our business.
"We are travelers for Moquegua," I told him.
"What is your business there?" he asked insolently.
"To visit the town."
This reply took some time to penetrate his thick skull. He pondered over it and then a gleam of intelligence spread over his fat countenance which, by the way, was smeared yellow with the yoke of an egg he had just been eating, as he replied in an interrogative kind of a way:
"Ah, Ustedes son Judios!" (Ah, you are Jews!)
This fat guardian of the frontier had taken Prat and myself for itinerant Jews. This gentry as well as Turks and Armenians occasionally make the rounds of the remote towns peddling their wares, such as cheap finery, pencils, looking-glasses, buttons, and so forth. To be called a Jew without an inflection of the voice is, in Catholic South America, the height of insult, because it is considered the vilest reproach one man can give another in the heat of an argument. The manner in which this officer put the question to us was meant in the form of a query. Prat, however, being a Spaniard and a none too amiable one at that when dealing with the cholos and other mixed breeds, went into a towering rage and upbraided the official in the purest and most blasphemous Castillian that he ever before heard and which caused his overbearing, insolent, and stupid countenance to change to one of servility.
"A thousand pardons, señor," he cringingly broke in, "but you must understand that I have received my commands to interrogate strangers entering Peru. Not that I am in the least interested myself, but the government, alas——"
"We will pardon you this time but not the next," interposed Prat, curtly starting to ride off.
"Señor, señor," pleaded the official calling to him. Prat paid no attention. I swung around in my saddle asking him what he wanted.