ople are too
indolent to devote themselves seriously to agriculture. It is only
when the governor in Tarma compels them to pay the annual
contribution, that they make an effort to augment their earnings; they
then seek a market for the products of their cultivation, and sell
them for ready money. Vitoc and some of the villages in its
neighborhood form altogether only one ecclesiastical community, whose
pastor lives in Tarma the whole year round. He goes to Pucara only
once in six or eight months, to read a couple of masses, and to
solemnize marriages and christenings, but chiefly to collect fees for
burials which may have taken place during his absence.

The plantation of Pacchapata is of considerable extent, but produces
very little. The system of repartimientos, already described, by which
the poor Indian is kept in a state of slavery by advances of clothing,
meat, brandy, &c., is practised in this hacienda to a great extent. The
laborer who is set down in the plantation-book as a debtor for ten or
twelve dollars, has a good chance of remaining during the rest of his
life a tributary slave; for if he tries by prolonged labor to relieve
himself from the debt the owner of the plantation causes brandy to be
made, and this is too great a temptation to be resisted by an Indian.
The butcher's meat given to the laboring Indians in general consists of
_Chalonas_, that is, the dried flesh of sheep which have died in the
haciendas of the hilly districts. For a meagre, tough, unwholesome
chalona the Indian has to add a dollar and a half or two dollars to his
debt, while a living sheep in the Sierra would not cost half the price.
It is the same with other articles furnished by the haciendas. European
importations, such as can be purchased at very low prices in the Sierra,
are sold at high profits by the owners of plantations to the poor
Indians, who have to repay them by long and severe labor.

At Pacchapata, besides maize, yuccas, and fruits, sugar, coffee, and
coca are also cultivated. The sugar-cane grows in abundance, and is of
good quality. An excellent kind of coffee is grown here; the bean is
slightly globular, and its color is a greenish blue. In former times the
viceroy used to send the coffee of Vitoc as a highly-esteemed present to
the court of Madrid. The coca is also very fine, and yields three
harvests in the year; which, however, is only the case in a few of the
Montanas, as, for example, at Pangoa and Huanta. I m