Vol. I. To face p. 274. ] The principal vice of the Indian is drink, both with men and women. Perhaps it drowns reflection--race-sorrow. But, as in the case of the Mexicans and all others of the brown race, this excess is not the fault alone of the drinker. The producing of alcohol is, in many cases, a lucrative trade for those above him, the large growers of cane or other alcohol-yielding plants. Legislation, moreover, against the evil, if it be necessary in other lands--for example, the United States or Britain--is surely necessary with the ignorant Indian. The Indian is, as has been said, melancholy. He rarely laughs, except when he is drunk. Perhaps this is partly due to the melancholy environment of the Cordillera; perhaps the result of his practical enslavement and the downfall of his race. Melancholy and music are here akin. The Indians of Peru and Bolivia have always been lovers of their national music--veritably the music of the Andes. They have many curious musical instruments, many weird songs and musical laments. Reed flutes or pipes and a species of guitar are among the principal of these instruments. The Bolivian Indian has a good ear for music, and, it is said, will execute any piece of classical music with precision. The military bands of Bolivia are mostly composed of Indians. "The Bolivian Indian is also remarkable for his ability to execute long passages on wind instruments. Even while dancing he can blow the _quena_ or the _zampona_, which shows the vigour of his lungs, a quality due to the altitudes in which he lives. Few inhabitants of ordinary altitudes could endure such a test. "Native music is usually soft, plaintive and naïve; its tremulous notes, often repeated five or six times in a minor key, swell and die in a monotonous rhythm which, to European ears, becomes tedious. Never do the instruments or the songs of the Indian suggest an idea of gaiety, but always a profound melancholy, the idea of extreme unhappiness and the wretchedness of a disordered mind. "However, for one reason or another the Indians are now rather improving their music; and in many parts one notes unmistakable efforts to imitate and adapt the foreign conceptions of music and to mingle them with their favourite native airs. The latter do not lose their melancholy, but are even more affecting.