I have dwelt thus lengthily upon the Indian races of the Cordillera for the reason that they have been comparatively little studied, and are indeed almost unknown to the outside world in general. They are in reality a valuable folk, mainly because they alone can perform sustained labour in the Cordillera, due to the condition of climate and atmosphere. If they disappear--and they do not appear to be increasing--these vast uplands might become uninhabited wildernesses. They are not likely to increase until the economic condition of their lives is improved, and, as a consequence, the heavy mortality among infants arrested. To suppose that the Indians of the Cordillera are incapable, or even will be incapable, of receiving a higher civilization is to fall into a sociological error. The governing classes of these republics often assert this, however. But it will depend very much how "civilization" is applied to them. They are capable of becoming good mechanics and craftsmen, they are extremely careful and painstaking, as the intricacy and exquisite finish often of their native arts show; they imitate perhaps better than they initiate, but they nevertheless display considerable resource. They will not be herded into factories, if civilization consists in that. They are independent, and prefer to work for themselves. As to their numbers, if we take the combined population of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia at, say, twelve to thirteen million people, and deduct ten to twenty per cent. for the whites and mestizos, we shall obtain approximately the number of these real sons and daughters of the soil to-day, mainly upon the Cordillera. The Cordillera of the Andes is, we might fancifully say, the great banker of the West, the great guardian of gold and sliver, the father of minerals, and the progenitor of the treasure of the rocks. We have seen that Peru is a land fabulous for its mineral wealth; Colombia, far to the north, has only lesser stores of metals, precious or base; Ecuador has been but little favoured in this respect, but nevertheless has a famed old gold mine; Chile is markedly rich in almost every mineral. But Bolivia perhaps surpasses all these. There was a famous Peruvian scientist and traveller, of Italian extraction--Raimondi--who described the plateau of Bolivia as "a table of silver supported by a column of gold." The same might be said of Peru. In the Cordillera generally we find gold in the lower districts, silver in the higher. It would almost seem that the metals have some affinity with the climate. At least the native Peruvian miner says that "the gold looks for the warmth, the silver for the cold." Thus in the cold and the bleakness of the high hills do we find the white metal in Bolivia: we find, indeed, two white metals verging upon the regions of perpetual snow--silver and tin. The tin mines, indeed, were first worked for silver, and the tin ores thrown away.