Once more we find ourselves in Cuzco. Here several ladies of the E.U.S.A. are to be seen at work. Miss Elder, Miss Pinn, Miss Found, and Miss Trumper, are doing splendid service.
Miss Elder reports that “many of the mothers, having gained confidence in us, come again for advice and medicine for themselves and their children.” Speaking of a case she visited, she says: “I had prepared a nice basin of warm water, and was just ready to put ‘baby’ in for his first bath, when two women rushed up, one on either side. Baby’s bath was, to their way of thinking, not yet complete. One poured in alcohol, and the other a large cupful of greasy soup.
“On asking the reason of this, I was told it was to make baby strong! So, with a smile and the remark that I had not heard of the custom, I proceeded with my work. This took place in the house of one of the upper-class people.
“But I want to give you a peep into some of the poorer ‘homes.’ We were conducted to a little shop where our patient lay on sheep-skins. Baby’s wardrobe consisted only of a strawberry-coloured knitted vest and a bonnet of royal blue! On another occasion, to reach my patient I passed through two courtyards, and stepped down into a dark room.
“There was no window. The light entered only through the doorway, and the round hole in the wall through which the smoke was expected to escape. The floor was alive with guinea-pigs running to and fro. A few fowls were roosting in one corner, on sticks placed there for the purpose, while a mother hen sheltered her brood of healthy chicks in another. This patient had a bedstead, but it was composed of rough irregular boards placed together like a raft.
“In addition to the work in Cuzco we have to hold ourselves ready for outside calls. I was summoned one day to Urco Farm, because of an accident to Domingo, a little Chuncho Indian boy from the forests. I left Cuzco at ten at night, on horseback.
“Darkness and the roughness of the road hindered our progress, but we arrived early in the morning. The boy had fallen from his horse, cutting his face badly, while one eye was completely lost. We gave him chloroform and put in five stitches, and the little chap soon got well again.
“Urco Farm is about five hundred miles from the coast. For the first one hundred miles it is desert, and the rest of the way beautiful valleys. The climate is grand. The farm is so large that it would take many days to see over it all. There is abundance of fruit, with large quantities of vegetables such as we have here at home. There are horses for riding, oxen for work, and mules, donkeys and llamas for carrying goods. There are cattle for meat, and sheep also; for milk and butter there are goats.”
There are no roads here, but just mountain trails. Everything is carried on llamas and mules, while you would ride on a horse.
There are over two hundred Indians on the farm, and the Mission is hoping to establish an Orphanage here, like the one at Sao Paulo in Brazil, only much larger. Mr Ganton says:—