"The history of these people is a chequered and terrible one. At the time of the Inca Empire they lived in a condition of happy and contented enjoyment of the fruits of their toil--a quiet, pastoral life, ruled by beneficent laws and monarchs who had their welfare at heart in a manner such as has never been carried out among the subjects or citizens of any Christian nation. They inhabited their glorious uplands, wresting from Nature, with pleasurable toil, the means of their simple existence, until--in the inexplicable plan of Nature, which ever demands strife and change--Spaniards came sailing round the world, and substituted for that peaceful regime battle and bloodshed, and long and terrible oppression. A resulting fear of the invading white man inspired the distrust which to-day is one of their dominant characteristics--Spain's legacy in the Andes. This has induced a feeling of despair, which is imprinted on their melancholy countenances, and in the passive resistance which has become their habitual attitude towards progress and the administration of the Republic. But it would not be fair to cast the onus of this distrust upon the Spaniards alone, for the Cholos have been abused and oppressed by the Peruvians of the Republic, almost up to the present day. In times of revolutionary war their goods have been commandeered, and themselves made to serve as soldiers in strife in which they had no interest, whilst in times of peace they have been considered an easy subject for spoliation by the petty authorities and the wealthier Mestizo class. "The population of these regions in prehispanic days was very considerable. The destroying tendency of the Spanish rule is indicated by the fact that the Viceroy Toledo, in 1575, numbered eight million Indians, exclusive of the savages of the forests, whilst at the close of the Spanish regime the whole population of the country only numbered about a million and a quarter. At present it is calculated that the number of the Cholo-Indians of the Andine regions is something under two millions. None of these calculations is quite reliable, but the fact remains that the country was well-populated in pre-Colombian times, and that great destruction took place during the epoch of Pizarro and the viceroys, whilst internal feuds and the Chilean War accounted for a great many more deaths. High mortality, moreover, was brought about from misery and privation consequent upon wars. To-day the population tends slowly to increase, but infant mortality among the Cholos is very heavy, due to the wretched and insanitary condition of their life, added to the rigours of the climate on the high plateaux; which latter, however, would not be an evil were the standard of life higher.