up at
intervals and planted with maize, vegetables of various kinds, and fruit
trees, among which Harry recognised the peach, the orange, the mulberry,
and the cacao. It was no wonder, he told himself, that his queer but
kind-hearted old hostess indignantly disclaimed any need of money. For,
with the produce of the garden, and what Yupanqui could bring in from
the forest and the river, it seemed to him that their every want, except
perhaps in the matter of clothes, must be abundantly supplied. And, so
far as clothes were concerned, doubtless the cultivated ground yielded a
superabundance ample enough to afford them the means of bartering it for
such simple clothing as they needed. The valley was of basin-like form,
the sides of it growing ever steeper as they receded from the middle,
until they eventually merged into the mountain slopes which hemmed in
the valley on every side and went rolling away, ridge beyond ridge, in
interminable perspective, until, in the extreme distance, they
terminated in the snow-clad peaks of the Andes.

Harry's hostess--who now mentioned that she bore the name of Cachama--
appeared to be in a singularly communicative mood that day, for she
beguiled the time by not only pointing out and naming the principal
peaks in sight, but she also related several very interesting legends
connected with certain of them and with the country generally, going
back to the time before the conquest, and painting in dazzling colours
the glories of the Inca dynasty, and the incredible wealth of the
ancient rulers of Peru. She appeared to be pretty intimately acquainted
with the history of the conquest of the country by Pizarro, and had many
bitter things to say of the strange pusillanimity of the Inca,
Atahuallpa, on that fatal 16th of November, 1532, when he went, open-
eyed, into the trap prepared for him at Caxamalca, and suffered himself
to be seized, in the presence of his entire army, by a mere handful of
Spaniards. She gave a most emphatic denial to the suggestion that the
country had benefited by the civilised conditions that had followed the
conquest.

"No, no," said she, "we are infinitely worse off in every way, to-day,
than we were under the rule of the Incas. Poverty, misery, oppression,
and suffering of every kind are to be met with on all hands and wherever
one goes, while four hundred years ago we had a far higher state of
civilisation than now exists, in which poverty and oppression, wit