For this one paid most burdensome taxes. Lima profited thereby, not the valley planters. The coast people were the favored of Peru anyhow. They had railroads, good steamer service, public improvements at government expense, and comparatively light taxes. If the government were impartial the eastern valleys also would have railways and a dense population. Who could tell? Perhaps the capital city might be here. Certainly it was better to have Lima here than on the coast where the Chileans might at any time take it again. The blessings of the valleys were both rich and manifold. Here was neither a cold plateau nor the hot plains, but fertile valleys with a vernal climate.
We talked of much else, but our conversation had always the pioneer flavor. And though an old man he saw always the future Peru growing wonderfully rich and powerful as men came to recognize and use the resources of the eastern valleys. This too was the optimism of the pioneer. Once started on that subject he grew eloquent. He was provincial but he was also intensely patriotic. He never missed an opportunity to impress upon his guests that a great state would arise when people and rulers at last recognized the wealth of eastern Peru.
The Highland Shepherd
The people who live in the lofty highlands and mountains of Peru have several months of real winter weather despite their tropical latitude. In the midst of a snowstorm in the Maritime Cordillera I met a solitary traveler bound for Cotahuasi on the floor of a deep canyon a day’s journey toward the east. It was noon and we halted our pack trains in the lee of a huge rock shelter to escape the bitter wind that blew down from the snow-clad peaks of Solimana. Men who follow the same trails are fraternal. In a moment we had food from our saddle-bags spread on the snow under the corner of a poncho and had exchanged the best in each other’s collection as naturally as friends exchange greetings. By the time I had told him whence and why in response to his inevitable questions we had finished the food and had gathered a heap of tola bushes for a fire. The arriero (muleteer) brought water from a spring in the hollow below us. Though the snow thickened, the wind fell. We were comfortable, even at 16,000 feet, and called the place “The Salamanca Club.” Then I questioned him, and this is what he said:
“I live in the deep valley of Cotahuasi, but my lands lie chiefly up here on the plateau. My family has held title to this puna ever since the Wars of Liberation, except for a few years after one of our early revolutions. I travel about a great deal looking after my flocks. Only Indians live up here. Away off yonder beyond that dark gorge is a group of their huts, and on the bright days of summer you may see their sheep, llamas, and alpacas up here, for on the floors of the watered valleys that girdle these volcanoes there are more tender grasses than grow on this despoblado. I give them corn and barley from my irrigated fields in the valley; they give me wool and meat. The alpaca wool is most valuable. It is hard to get, for the alpaca requires short grasses and plenty of water, and you see there is only coarse tufted ichu grass about us, and there are no streams. It is all right for llamas, but alpacas require better forage.
“No one can imagine the poverty and ignorance of these mountain shepherds. They are filthier than beasts. I have to watch them constantly or they would sell parts of the flocks, which do not belong to them, or try to exchange the valuable alpaca wool for coca leaves in distant towns. They are frequently drunk.”
“But where do they get the drink?” I asked. “And what do you pay them?”
“Oh, the drink is chiefly imported alcohol, and also chicha made from corn. They insist on having it, and do better when I bring them a little now and then. They get much more from the dealers in the towns. As for pay, I do not pay them anything in money except when they bring meat to the valley. Then I give them a few reales apiece for the sheep and a little more for the llamas. The flocks all belong to me really, but of course the poor Indian must have a little money. Besides, I let him have a part of the yearly increase. It is not much, but he has always lived this way and I suppose that he is contented after a fashion.”
Then he became eager to tell what wealth the mountains contained in soil and climate if only the right grasses were introduced by the government.
“Here, before us, are vast punas almost without habitations. If the officials would bring in hardy Siberian grasses these lava-covered plateaus might be carpeted with pasture. There would be villages here and there. The native Indians easily stand the altitude. This whole Cordillera might have ten times as many people. Why does the government bother about concessions in the rubber forests and roads to the eastern valleys when there are these vast tracts only requiring new seeds to develop into rich pastures? The government could thus greatly increase its revenues because there is a heavy tax on exported wool.”