One of our chief difficulties had been to find our way; maps we had none, for the very sufficient reason that maps of the region we had traversed did not at that time exist; our guides had not always proved either competent or trustworthy, and I had only the vaguest idea as to where we were. Of two things only was I certain, that we were south of the equator and within sight of the Andes of Peru (which at that time included the countries now known as Ecuador and Bolivia). A few days previously I had fallen in with an old half-caste priest, from whom I had heard of the Mission of San Andrea de Huanaco, and how to get there, and who drew for my guidance a rough sketch of the route. The priest in charge, a certain Fray Ignacio, a born Catalan, would, he felt sure, be glad to find me quarters and give me every information in his power. And so it proved. Had I been his own familiar friend Fray Ignacio could not have welcomed me more warmly or treated me more kindly. A European with news but little above a year old was a perfect godsend to him. When he heard that I had served in his native land and the Bourbons once more ruled in France and Spain, he went into ecstasies of delight, took me into his house, and gave me of his best. San Andrea was well named Valle Hermoso. It was like an alpine village set in a tropical garden. The mud houses were overgrown with greenery, the rocks mantled with flowers, the nearer heights crested with noble trees, whose great white trunks, as smooth and round as the marble pillars of an eastern palace, were roofed with domes of purple leaves. Through the valley and between verdant banks and blooming orchards meandered a silvery brook, either an affluent or a source of one of the mighty streams which find their homes in the great Atlantic. The mission was a village of tame Indians, whose ancestors had been "Christianized," by Fray Ignacio's Jesuit predecessor. But the Jesuits had been expelled from South America nearly half a century before. My host belonged to the order of St. Francis. The spiritual guide, as well as the earthly providence of his flock, he managed their affairs in this world and prepared them for the next. And they seemed nothing loath. A more listless, easy-going community than the Indians of the Happy Valley it were difficult to imagine. The men did little but smoke, sleep, and gamble. All the real work was done by the women, and even they took care not to over-exert themselves. All were short-lived. The women began to age at twenty, the men were old at twenty-five and generally died about thirty, of general decay, said the priest. In my opinion of pure laziness. Exertion is a condition of healthy existence; and the most active are generally the longest lived. Nevertheless, Fray Ignacio was content with his people. They were docile and obedient, went regularly to church, had a great capacity for listening patiently to long sermons, and if they died young they got so much the sooner to heaven.