rticularly with the moustache, as it were, below instead of
above the mouth, and a cigarette in the lips. It was too complicated.

"And were _you_ obliged to buy and wear a pair of these spectacles,
Tiger?" asked Pedro, after a few silent puffs.

"Yes--look! here they are," he replied, with inconceivable bitterness,
drawing forth the implements of vision from his pouch and fixing them on
his nose with intense disgust. Then, suddenly plucking them off; he
hurled them into the river, and said savagely--"I was a Christian once,
but I am not a Christian _now_."

"How? what do you mean?" asked Pedro, raising himself on his elbow at
this, so as to look straightly as well as gravely at his friend.

"I mean that the religion of such men must be false," growled the
Indian, somewhat defiantly.

"Now, Tiger," returned his friend in a remonstrative tone, "that is not
spoken with your usual wisdom. The religion which a man professes may
be true, though his profession of it may be false. However, I am not
unwilling to admit that the view of our religion which is presented in
this land is false--very false. Nevertheless, Christianity is true. I
will have some talk with you at another time on this subject, my friend.
Meanwhile, let us return to the point from which we broke off--the
disturbed state of this unhappy country."

Let us pause here, reader, to assure you that this incident of the
spectacles is no fiction. Well would it be for the South American
Republics at this day, as well as for the good name of Spain, if the
poor aborigines of South America had nothing more serious to complain of
than the arbitrary act of the dishonest governor referred to; but it is
a melancholy fact that, ever since the conquest of Peru by Pizarro, the
Spaniards have treated the Indians with brutal severity, and it is no
wonder that revenge of the fiercest nature still lingers in the breasts
of the descendants of those unfortunate savages.

Probably our reader knows that the Peruvian region of the Andes is rich
in gold and silver-mines. These the Spanish conquerors worked by means
of Indian slave labour. Not long after the conquest a compulsory system
of personal toil was established, whereby a certain proportion of the
natives of each district were appointed by lot to work in the mines.
Every individual who obtained a grant of a mine became entitled to a
certain number of Indians to work it, and every mine which remained
unwrought for