In her fascinating book on “Peru,” Miss Geraldine Guinness says: “In Arequipa there are three thousand of these little Indian slaves, four-fifths of whom are cruelly treated, while the good treatment of the remaining one-fifth, with rare exceptions, consists in the fact of their not being brutally beaten, and not suffering much hunger.
“I have heard the screams of child-servants not more than seven years old, who were daily beaten by a bad-tempered mistress. I have seen children ill and dying, for whom no one cared. I know a little girl of seven, who, a few months ago, saw her mother’s dead body taken away to the cemetery. Since that day she has minded the shop all alone, and kept house for her father, who only comes home at nights, and who is often away for weeks at a time.”
Some years ago, when the maize crop failed, and there was a terrible famine in the land, starvation stared the Indian mothers in the face. What were they to do under such circumstances? They could not feed their little ones, so the children were brought to the cities in thousands, and sold for a few shillings or given away, to save the mothers and other little ones in the mountain huts from starvation and death. To-day it is not an uncommon thing to be accosted in the street by an Indian woman, and to be asked to purchase her little girl or boy for a few coins.
The only British Missionary Society working in this vast republic of Peru is the Evangelical Union of South America. Try and realize it; a country half the size of China, and only a handful of missionaries to proclaim the Gospel to these people. Take your pen and underline “Lima, Cuzco, Huanuco, Arequipa, and Urco” (twenty-four miles out of Cuzco), and you have the only centres of British missionary enterprise at the present time. Let us visit these mission-stations and see for ourselves what is being done for the children.
Of all the cities in Peru, Lima is the most cosmopolitan. Visiting one part of the town on the outskirts one might almost fancy we were in China; at another spot everything is entirely negro, and some other part appears to be under Turkish supervision. Here we jostle against Peruvian priests, who do not attract us, American, English, and Italian merchants, and people from almost every land under the sun. What a medley!
“The houses in Lima have no chimneys, they are one storey high, and what windows there are facing into the street are barred, making the houses look like prisons. The poorer parts of Lima consist largely of ‘conventillos’ similar to these in Argentina. They are often large, sunny, open courtyards, and sometimes narrow alleys, always entered by doors in the walls of the main streets, and surrounded by cell-like rooms.
“Every aspect of life may be seen in the central yard. There the dinner is cooked, the baby bathed, the clothes washed, and the Virgin worshipped. At every step one comes upon a child, and all appear equally contented and uncared for.
“Lima is in the centre of a region, not only free from rain, but where earthquakes frequently occur, so that mud, cane, and plaster are used for house-building purposes instead of stone.
“Although it never rains in Lima, yet during the dry season, Peru’s winter—June to September—the capital is enveloped in mist, which is exceedingly disagreeable. For days and weeks the sun is invisible, and a drizzle, not unlike a Scotch mist, makes the side-walks slippery, and so permeates the air that the sheets on one’s bed are chill and sticky.”
Lima is the city where the Society’s printing-press is at work. Month by month, the little silent messenger of the Gospel, El Heraldo, is sent forth by post throughout Peru; and as postage is quite free, you will see that every postman is thus a “colporteur.” Many other things besides are printed, but El Heraldo is the foremost message proclaiming “pardon, peace, and power to hundreds whom the voice of the preacher cannot reach.”